The Three Rivers city commission met Tuesday evening for a regularly scheduled meeting. Items on the agenda for the night included a presentation for the 2023 Citizen of the Year, a public hearing for a Special Exception Use (SEU) license for the city’s first marijuana transport facility, and proposed user fee rate increases.

Mayor Tom Lowry presented the Bruce C. Snook award Tuesday evening to Jeff Mayuiers, Lions Club president and director of cardiopulmonary at Three Rivers Area Hospital. Presented for the first time in 1965, this Three Rivers Lions Club honor recognizes a citizen who, through a commitment to service, has given unselfishly of themselves for the betterment of the community. Lowry read from the plaque:

“Over the years Jeff has demonstrated strong leadership skills in both the public and private sectors. Spending 30 years total in the respiratory therapy field, he started his career at Borgess Hospital, eventually coming to Three Rivers Area Hospital as director of cardiopulmonary for 12 years. He owned his own company, ‘Inspiration Plus,’ for 10 years. For the past five years he has done maintenance and security at the Twin County Community Probation Center. His role involves helping probationers get in their community service hours, but ultimately his efforts go beyond that.”

The presentation went on to say Mayuiers has been a Lion for two decades, following in the footsteps of his father, Bill Mayuiers. Along with serving as the president for the local Lions Club, Mayuiers also serves as district membership chair, part of the State Convention Committee, and state coordinator for the project Kid-Sight. He is also a past district governor and past council chair for the district. The presentation ended with Lowry saying, “Jeff has been a role model for selfless service to the community of Three Rivers, and is most deserving of this recognition.”

Valhalla Secure Transport

The first public hearing for the evening was for a SEU permit for Three River’s first marijuana secure transport facility license requested by Valhalla Secure Transport, LLC. Valhalla has leased property from Jamie Clark’s Central Manufacturing Services located at 303 Union Street with the intention of operating a marijuana secure transport facility on the premises. Jerimiah Abnet of Valhalla Secure Transport spoke to commissioners regarding his intentions for the facility. “It’s not going to be a storage facility, it’s not a dispensary, it’s literally a transport place and a place to store our van.” 

Abnet said there is a vault room with a safe inside the facility, and there may be a time marijuana could be stored in the building. However, according to state law, the marijuana may only be held up to 96 hours.

“We don’t want it there any more than anyone else does,” Abnet said. “Our job is to drive it from A to B. That’s it.”

When Commissioner Pat Dane asked where the transports will be coming from, Abnet explained, “Our demographic is the entire state, so it could be going from Cassopolis up to the UP, or it could be from the UP down to Three Rivers. Mostly Southwest Michigan is what we are aiming for, obviously.”

Dane’s next question was regarding whether the transport would be limited to only marijuana plants. “It can be the plants, it can be any marijuana-infused product, gummy bears, marijuana plants,” Abnet said. “Anything marijuana-related we’ll be transporting.”

Per state law, the vans cannot be marked as being marijuana transport vehicles, and the vans are Department of Transportation registered. Additionally, each van must have two people, and one person must stay with the van at all times. The product being transported must be stored in sealed and locked containers, and cannot be accessed without breaking the seal. Abnet added that each van is also tracked through live GPS. Commissioners voted to approve the special license after discussions ended, and the motion passed 5 – 1. 

User fees

The second public hearing of the night was to review existing user fees currently in effect, and recommended needed changes and updates. Lowry began the discussion by saying, “I just want to point out that there’s very few changes. Water and sewer rates are going up the rate of inflation. There are some administrative fees, but very minor. The ambulance rates are going up the medical rate of inflation. Those are the big changes we are doing.” 

Commissioner Chris Abel spoke next, describing how the commission met on May 23 for a special meeting regarding the fiscal year 2023-2024 budget. “There was a presentation made over the budget, and city staff encouraged us to do a 4% increase in the bi-monthly service fee per REU for water and sewer. I have a problem with this because the fund balance for those accounts right now are already 185.89% of the budget and appropriation.” Because of this, Abel said he would be voting no as he will not ask the public to pay additional money when there is 185.89% appropriation sitting in the account. 

Lowry responded and said, “There are several issues here, one of which is do we raise rates incrementally like the rate of inflation every year or two? Or do you wait until you’re forced to, and then you have a 10, 20, or 30% increase?” Lowry said the uproar is much larger when there’s a bigger increase versus just raising a little bit each year. “I have to think most people can afford that,” he said. “It’s a $1.91 a month for the minimum rate. If you use more, then it goes up.”

Responding to Abel’s comments on the large sewer and water fund balances, Lowry said, “That’s because we are planning ahead until the year 2029 for both streets, water, and sewer. In order to do the next couple of large projects, we have to set aside three to five million dollars for our match of what those projects will cost.”

Lowry added that a significant part of the water side of this issue is the lead pipe abatement. Removing those pipes will amount to tens of millions of dollars in total cost, Lowry said, and the city’s share (assuming Three Rivers receives significant state and federal grants) will still be several million dollars.

“So, we’re going to save for three to six years in order to make that possible. We are going to be proactive and do it because we want to get rid of an unhealthy situation in our systems,” Lowry said. Commissioners voted and the motion passed 5 -1, with Abel representing the lone dissenting vote. A vote was also held to approve the fiscal year budget which passed 5 – 1, as well. 

New business

In new business for the evening, the commission considered issuing a non-exclusive license to Three Rivers Aero, LLC to operate a flight training school at the Three Rivers Dr. Haines Municipal Airport. Commissioner Carolyn McNary had questions regarding who would be leading the training and classes for the flight school, and said she would have liked to hear where they were coming from and what they were offering before she felt comfortable voting to issue the license. Dane agreed saying, “I think whoever wants to do this should have come to the commission meeting to be here and give us a presentation.” The motion passed 4 – 2, with Dane and McNary dissenting. 

The last new business item was for the commission to consider the approval of purchasing new ferric chloride pumps from Fluid Process Equipment/SunSource, the sole provider of these specific pumps. The tubing in these pumps is made to handle ferric chloride.

The financial impact for this would be $21,657 budgeted from the sewer fund. Commissioner Torrey Brown asked, “Are these pumps better equipped to handle the corrosion?” Superintendent Taylor Davis said, “That’s exactly it. Our current pumps have titanium in them, but the rebuild that I did six months ago cost around $6,000 and they already failed. So, I was looking at getting pumps that are better equipped, rather than keep rebuilding those.”

The motion passed unanimously.

Beca Welty is a staff writer and columnist for Watershed Voice.