Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By ZACHARY MARANO
Bessemer — Jerry Wuorenmaa, the executive director of the Western Upper Peninsula Planning and Development Region office, appeared before the Gogebic County Board of Commissioners at their regular meeting on Wednesday to provide an overview of a grant opportunity from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy.
The grant was regarding collaboration between counties for materials management. Wuorenmaa called this “a newer way of looking at solid waste management and planning.”
Wuorenmaa said that all counties in Michigan have solid waste plans, most of which were adopted in the mid to late 1990s and are still in place. He said that a pending piece of legislation called Part 115 could outline solid waste management and take into account recycling and maybe even composting to reduce the waste going into landfills.
Wuorenmaa said that this legislation has been pending for years but has not been passed into law yet for complicated reasons that he said he doesn’t fully understand. However, he said that EGLE has been putting out grant opportunities to prepare for when the legislation is ready to go.
This grant is intended to designate planning agencies in conjunction with the counties for solid waste management. The grant will provide $10,000 if they work together with a designated planning agency as one county and $12,000 if they agree to collaborate with other, neighboring counties. Wuorenmaa said that this is the biggest grant and that it will be 100% state funds, so no matching funds will be required from the county.
“There’s a lot of vague language about partnerships and such. The important thing is that, once the details come out on materials management planning, you’re not going to be starting from scratch. There’ll be all these relationships in place,” Wuorenmaa said.
Wuorenmaa continued that the board needs to designate WUPPDR as the planning agency for Gogebic County if they want to apply for this grant, as WUPPDR is the only local government office that is eligible to be the county’s DPA.
Commissioner Dan Siirla asked how many counties would be on board for collaborating. Wuorenmaa said that another staff member from WUPPDR has contacted Houghton and Keweenaw counties already. He said that Houghton agreed to a collaboration and Keweenaw probably will as well. Wuorenmaa said he still plans to contact Baraga and Ontonagon counties.
Commissioner Joe Bonovetz asked if they could discuss this opportunity further at the WUPPDR meeting in March. Wuorenmaa said they could do that and the grant agreement needs to be in place in June, but WUPPDR cannot take on any substantial work until July anyways, so there is no great hurry to approve a motion.
Also under the “appearances” item on the meeting agenda, Crystal Suzik, parent liaison of the Gogebic-Ontonagon Intermediate School District, addressed the board to provide clarification about the Eat Smart Knapsack program at the GOISD.
At the board’s Finance Committee meeting on Jan. 26, Erin Ross, a 4-H supervisor from Michigan State University Extension-Gogebic County requested a greater budget allocation for their programs. One of the programs that she presented was the Eat Smart Knapsack program, which assists low-income students in the county with knapsacks of healthy food.
Suzik said that the Eat Smart Knapsack program is a collaboration between several organizations, including the extension office and the GOISD, and that the program should not have been presented as an exclusively MSU Extension program at this meeting.
Suzik also responded to a comment from Siirla at the January meeting, where he said that these are the only healthy foods that students will eat because their parents would never buy this kind of food. He said then that the program needs to teach parents how to buy smart and it doesn’t.
Suzik said that this statement was “extremely harsh on our community families, making a pre-judgement statement of a diverse community.”
“All of these diverse families try the very best based on what they can afford and to provide for their children,” Suzik said. “Eating healthy is also a huge barrier, cost factor being one and also year-round access. Prices have increased drastically, so a family of four shopping biweekly can take up to almost half of family’s income. We know that many families appreciate and have expressed to the school districts their gratitude for the ESK provided to their children.”
“I worked at a school district for 30 years,” Siirla said Wednesday in response. “I know what’s going on. You can give them a tray of food and because it doesn’t have chicken nuggets or pizza, it goes right in the garbage. You can give them all the carrots you want — you have to give carrots, you have to give vegetables, a portion of everything — 90% of it goes in the garbage. If you go there, you can see it. Yes, this is a great program. But how do you teach the kids to eat properly? You can’t. The parents have to do it.”
Suzik said the GOISD works within the community to help educate the parents of their students, but it is not for them to judge what the parents purchase. She added that some parents are working two jobs and do not have time to prepare healthy meals.
Bonovetz said that he agreed with Siirla “to a certain extent” and compared educating parents to buy healthy foods to early anti-smoking campaigns. He said the programs will catch on eventually, but it will take some time. The board approved a motion to receive Suzik’s comments and placed them on file.
The board also approved communication from Gogebic-Iron County Airport manager Mike Harma authorizing a contact for aircraft rescue and fire training.
