The Hillsdale City Council decided Tuesday to approve a fall, deer bow hunt, switch to Livestream for city council meeting recordings — saving the city $11,000 a year — and ended with a heated exchange between Board of Public Utilities Director Rick Rose and city council members over the sale of a piece property.
The city of Hillsdale owns a communications tower in Industrial Park, which was built in partnership with another power company. The BPU is allowed to use six spaces on the tower for services like cable TV or radio assistance, Rose said. But the BPU isn’t utilizing those six spaces, which is why there’s concern.
Because the Hillsdale County 911 board uses part of the tower, Hillsdale County Commissioners came to Rose in July wanting to buy the property on which the tower stands. Rose refused.
“The county 911 board said they were interested in the tower property but we weren’t interested in selling,” Rose said.
Councilman Patrick Flannery suggested conducting an economic analysis to see whether or not selling the property would be economically viable for the city of Hillsdale, but Rose believes there’s “no benefit” for the city.
“I have no faith that we can deal with them [the commissioners],” Rose told the council. “You’re being used.”
Councilwoman Emily Davis clarified that the property in question is in fact owned by the city, and believes the BPU’s motives are unclear for trying to keep the property.
“He [Rose] won’t sell it to the 911 group, but he has unclear motives,” Davis said. “He’s got six spots [on the tower] for an antenna maybe in the future — it’s really vague. We do need a good explanation of why we’re holding on to it.”
In other business, the council discussed eliminating the position of Director of Public Safety and replacing it with a new police chief and fire chief. Davis wanted a more detailed outline of what the new police and fire chief positions would look like, as well as a budget from the Public Safety Committee, while Councilman Bruce Sharp wanted more details about what each new position would entail. Since the council failed to reach a decision on the motion, the issue was returned to the committee for further discussion.
City Manager Linda Brown advised the council against allowing the deer bow hunt this season, based on data showing a decrease in Hillsdale deer sightings since the bow hunt was legalized in 2010. The council disagreed on the significance of the data when Davis and Sharp provided examples of multiple deer sightings within the past month. The motion passed 8-0 to offer the hunt.
The deer bow hunting season runs Oct. 1 through Nov. 14 and Dec. 1 through Jan. 1.