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Sick time payment OK’d for widow
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By Larry Limpf News Editor news@presspublications.com
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Who wants to work with, live with, or associate with those who see roadblocks at every turn...
John Szozda See page 11
National Matches draw national competition
The U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit Team Blue overtook the National Trophy Pistol Team competition with a score of 115043x. Members are (left to right) SFC Adam Sokolowski, SFC Patrick Franks, Sgt. Ryan Franks and SSgt. Lawrence Cleveland. See stories on pages 6 and 16. (Photo courtesy of Christine Elder/CMP Communications)
Oregon
Residents seek answers about flooding By Kelly J. Kaczala Press News Editor kkaczala@presspublications.com At a July 13 committee of the whole meeting, Oregon officials heard concerns from residents about flooding and drainage problems as a result of the June 27 heavy rain event. “No matter what we say or do, it is never any fun to clean up sewage out of a basement,” said City Administrator Mike Beazley. “Most of us have done it, I’ve done it. We understand that.” “For those of you who say this was worse than it’s ever been, the answer is you’re right. It was worse.” We’ve talked to hundreds of residents for the last couple of weeks and we’re trying to learn as we go. We’re trying to learn from each major event. We learned from the 2008 event. That was probably the biggest one from quite a few years until then. This one trumped that by a lot.” Why so much flooding this time? In June, up until that weekend, we had about six inches of rain. So we ended up with totally saturated ground. And the place we store much of our water is in our ground. When we have a rain event, it will suck up that rain event very well for us until it’s full. Then it’s like pouring on concrete. Beazley said the city received over six inches on June 27. “That’s a `once in every 200-year-
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In our neighborhood, if we just get an inch of rain, I can sail a boat down my street.
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A resolution authorizing the payment of unused sick time accrued by the former sexton of the Lake Township Cemetery to his widow has been approved by the township trustees. The trustees Tuesday unanimously approved a payment of $2,393 to the widow of Dan Sprinski, who died suddenly in May. The payment amount, however, drew criticism from Sprinski’s family and friends, who contended his widow is entitled to at least half of the 435.25 hours he’d accrued. Jeff Pettit, who chairs the board of trustees, said the payment reflects 25 percent of Sprinski’s accrued hours. That percentage, he said, is set in the township’s contract with the police union and it’s been the practice of the trustees to treat unionized and non-union employees equitably. Sprinski was among a group of nonpolice township employees who’ve agreed to be represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 245 for collective bargaining but the union and township haven’t yet ratified a contract. The resolution approved Tuesday states Sprinski at the time of his death was entitled to 108.81 accrued sick time hours. Pettit noted he and trustee Melanie Bowen didn’t vote against a resolution presented by Richard Welling during the trustees’ July 7 meeting that would have paid Sprinski’s widow for 240 hours of accrued sick time. Instead, he and Bowen said the township lacked a written policy for such payments and shouldn’t proceed without one. “This is not my money to pay out,” Pettit said, adding “It’s the residents’.” Bowen said many area communities have policies of crediting employees for 25 percent of their accrued sick time and Lake Township was “mirroring” the contract with the police union by doing the same with Sprinski. A similar arrangement was made with the widow of former police chief Ed
event.’ It’s the largest rainfall event we’ve ever had. There is no system or plan we can build that can deal with it. We do have some things we think can work. “I know a lot of people are frustrated,” said Public Service Director Paul Roman. The flooding, he said, is caused by “a combination of a northeast wind, the ground already saturated, and a lot of rain.” “You had six inches of rainfall fall within a 24-hour period. Twenty-four hours seems like a long time. But when everything is already saturated, and nothing is draining out of the big ditches, that’s the problem. It literally was the perfect storm event. We tried as best we could. We were spending a lot of time up on Bay Shore Road. And there were a lot of waves crashing over the dike. You try to fight that the best that you can with pumps. And it is
a question of whether there is big enough pumping capacity over the dike. Do you need bigger pumps? Maybe that’s something we need to improve on. Later in the day, there was a much stronger rain intensity that came. It did every system in. You had that northeast wind. The local system was just totally flooded out. I saw areas I don’t think I ever saw flooded.” Charles Clark, of East Meadow Drive, said his neighborhood floods with much less rainfall. “In our neighborhood, if we just get an inch of rain, I can sail a boat down my street. I understand the problems with the six inches of rain, but the smaller events still aggravate my neighborhood,” said Clark. “We know we need to replace culverts at York Street, Corduroy, a railroad culvert, a culvert at Marathon Oil on Seaman,” said Roman. “It’s a lot of work to get to that point, but it’s in our plans to improve that.” Detention cells have also been planned in the area, he said, to aid drainage. “It can definitely help,” said Roman. Berni Chisholm, of Grand Bay Drive, an Eagle’s Landing subdivision, said her basement was also flooded. “We have two backup systems. Both operated the whole time. Never failed. By 8 p.m., I had four pumps pumping water out,” said Chisholm. “The water was pretty Continued on page 2
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