MUNICIPAL NEWS FROM EAU CLAIRE

EAU CLAIRE – After a year that saw the village receive a state park grant and approve a new medical marijuana facility, officials are now dealing with changes at the top.
Village President Virginia Gonzalez resigned last month as she is moving out of the village and can no longer serve on the council.
Gonzalez was in the last year of her second two-year term as village president. She beat incumbent village president David Kurtz in 2014 and was unopposed in 2016. She previously served five years as a village trustee.
Village Clerk Shawn Foster reported that council members voted in mid-January to appoint President Pro-Tem Ken Karn to take Gonzalez’s place as village president. They then appointed John Glassman to fill Karn’s vacancy as a village trustee, she said.
Karn served as village president for 10 years from 1988-98 and most recently was elected to the village council in 2011 and 2016. He has also served as the village clerk and village assessor in the past.
Glassman, an Eau Claire native, is the owner and operator of Glassman Auction Services in Eau Claire and volunteers in a number of community activities. He is also an Eau Claire Board of Education member, having served on that board since May 2016.
Karn will serve as president until the November election when Gonzalez’s current two-year term would have ended. Four-year trustee terms up for election then will be those now held by Jeff Rice and Robert Stanczyk as well as a partial two-year term for Karn’s former seat now held by Glassman.
The village has been active in recent months and years to foster community development. It was one of the first communities to embrace medical marijuana after a change in state law in 2016 allowed municipalities to allow medical marijuana facilities as special uses in certain zoning districts.
In Eau Claire, the village council voted last summer to amend the village zoning ordinance to allow such facilities in industrially zoned districts. They voted to allow one grower license for a facility growing not more than 1,500 plants, one processor license, one safety compliance facility license, one secure transporter license and no dispensary license.
The village already has one business ready to start operating. Thomas Wright, Sr. and Thomas Wright, Jr., both of New Buffalo, have formed Michigan THC and are in the process of buying the old 10-acre Silver Mills property on the north side of Main Street.
THC stands for Total Healing Center and the Wrights plan to hire 10-15 people once their operation is up and running. They said they expect the new jobs to pay between $15 and $20 an hour. As for the operations themselves, they said everything will be enclosed and have 24/7 security and surveillance cameras.
The company is also moving forward with plans to open a center in Buchanan on East Front Street.
Also last year, the village The village of Eau Claire received $214,400 to help fund the development of 5,000 feet of non-motorized pathways connecting three parks in the village and create two trail-head areas in two of the parks.
The village’s municipal performance dashboard available at www.accessmygov.com shows that village’s financial condition has remained stable in recent years. The general fund budget continues to have a small surplus and its reserves stand at over $1.4 million.