The Limestone Township Board gathered for their regular meeting on the evening of Wednesday, December 27, to discuss the hiring of a new contracted assessor, the selection of an early voting site, and uses for leftover pandemic relief funds. Township Supervisor Tom Curry was absent.

When the board previously met on November 22, candidates Nicholas Benson and Mark Maki were interviewed for the position of township assessor. A motion to hire Benson failed to carry in a roll call vote of three to two. A motion to hire Mark Maki, who has previously served two decades in the position, passed by the same margin. Maki’s five-year contract was signed and witnessed at the meeting on December 27.

A resolution was adopted to select the Alger County Clerk’s office as the township’s early voting site. Limestone Township, along with a number of other small communities in the area, selected the office as a shared early voting site due to the difficulties of staffing separate locations for the nine days now allowed under Michigan early voting laws.

The board also discussed possible uses for the roughly $23,000 in COVID-19 pandemic relief funds that remain unspent. “We had $43,000 total, and we spent $20,000 on the roof. We just had the roof done. So, we have like $23,000 left to spend,” says Limestone Township Clerk Danita Rask. Several ideas were floated, including replacing the aging plywood tables in the township hall, and an outbuilding behind the hall used to store lawn equipment. The board has already committed $5,000 to replace a pair of outhouses on township property that were damaged by a falling tree, which are set to be built by a local carpenter over the winter. According to Rask, the window is closing to use the leftover funds. “It has to be committed by a year from now, and we have till 2026 to spend it.”