1. Discord in the district
Topping this year's stories in Saline was growing friction in the Saline Area School District between top administrators and union leaders. The year was punctuated with contentious teacher contract negotiations, miscommunication, controversial budget cuts and distressing layoffs.
The year began with change in the air as the school board launched a search to replace outgoing Superintendent Sam Sinicropi, who had headed the district for four years and was retiring at the end of June. Facing a projected shortfall of $1.2 million and considering eliminating almost 25 positions, Sinicropi's final six months were far from smooth.
In March, some 200 teachers wearing green T-shirts packed the gymnasium of Historic Union School at a school board meeting to protest proposed staff cuts and the going-nowhere contract talks.
Three months later, the Saline school board voted 4-2 to reject a $47.9 million budget proposed by the departing Sinicropi that called for opening the district to school of choice, an issue that has sparked objection for years.
After reviewing 21 applications for the new superintendent's post, the school board narrowed the field of candidates to three and at a special meeting in early May selected Beverley Geltner over Assistant Superintendent Nancy Brenton to head the district.
Geltner was greeted with stalled teacher contract negotiations and charged with balancing a $671,000 deficit to restore the district's shrinking equity fund balance to 5 percent.
Geltner got a budget sans school of choice passed by the school board in late June, days before she even officially stepped into the job, and was on her way to reaching a contract agreement with the teachers' union when controversy erupted in mid-August over whether Geltner and Saline Education Association President Tim Heim had reached a tentative agreement during a sidebar.
Believing an agreement had been reached, teachers ratified a contract despite Geltner's assertion that no agreement was in place. With the threat of mediation looming and trust between the two sides shaky, the school board voted unanimously to reject the contract, opening the way for negotiations to begin anew.
Without a teachers' contract, the district continued to operate on a month-by-month calendar until early October, when the board voted 5-2 to approve a new three-year contract that called for no pay raise for the first half of 2006-07 and a 1 percent increase for the second half of the year.
The contract granted teachers a 3 percent raise next year and in the third year of the contract a raise of 2 percent. Teachers agreed to switch from traditional health insurance coverage to a PPO plan beginning in January and to an increase in prescription co-payments.
The contract alleviated some strain between administrators and teachers, but the announcement in late November that two teachers, five counselors, six para-educators and a secretary were to be laid off reignited teachers' long simmering acrimony toward central office administrators.
The year closed with more bad news on the horizon as speculation mounted that districts may face a pro-ration cut from the state this month. If that happens, Saline could have to cut $275,000 up to $1 million, which could be drawn from the fund equity balance or necessitate additional layoffs.
2. Recall fails; Wal-Mart marches on
The battle began four years ago, when the world's largest retailer submitted a preliminary site plan to the Pittsfield Township Planning Commission for a store at the corner of State Road and Michigan Avenue.
For all intents and purposes, it ended last August when Pittsfield Township voters turned down an effort to recall three township officials and grading work on the future Wal-Mart site began in earnest only days following the election.
In September 2004, Lisa Miller and Sabrina Gross co-founded Pittsfield Community First to protest the proposed construction of a Wal-Mart near three Saline schools. Their grassroots organization caught fire and grew from e-mails and letters to the editor into pickets, demonstrations, and meetings with road commissioners, politicians and Wal-Mart officials.
In the latter half of 2005, after a year of sparring between township officials and Pittsfield Community First members, an off-shoot group calling itself A New Pittsfield sought to recall Pittsfield Township Supervisor Jim Walter, Treasurer Christina Lirones and Clerk Feliziana Meyer. After numerous failed attempts to get the wording for the recall approved, A New Pittsfield finally succeeded in getting the recall on the Aug. 8 primary ballot.
It was to no avail.
Voters rejected the recalls by a 3-2 margin, allowing Walter, Lirones and Meyer to serve out the remaining two years of their terms.
Within days of the results, a development agreement was in place between the township and Wal-Mart and grading on the site commenced.
3. Voters approve legal war chest
In the August primary, Saline Township voters approved a controversial 1-mill, two-year levy, paving the way for the annual collection of an estimated $75,000 specifically intended to help offset legal fees incurred defending the township's master plan against developers.
The Township Board sought the millage in the wake of Biltmore Holdings LLC's 2005 lawsuit against the township after the board unanimously rejected the developer's request to have more than 1,000 acres rezoned to accommodate an extensive residential development of some 3,000 homes that would have more than tripled the population of the township over the next eight to 15 years.
The proposed development pitted neighbor against neighbor, as some fought to retain the township's rural character and others stood to reap millions of dollars from the sale of their land.
The millage proposal was initially planned to appear on last May's ballot, but landowners anxious to sell their property to Biltmore successfully sought an injunction in Washtenaw County Circuit Court, pushing the millage vote back until the August primary.
A political action committee called Citizens Against More Taxes also formed to fight the millage proposal, drawing on funding from Biltmore to print fliers and posters declaring "No New Taxes for Lawyers."
Township residents didn't bite.
Voter turnout Aug. 8 was high, at about 45 percent, with 392 votes in favor of the special millage and 215 votes opposed.
4. West side to see a renaissance
Even as the development of a Wal-Mart to Saline's east at the corner of US-12 and State Road generated political warfare in 2006, two development projects to the west were largely greeted with enthusiasm and anticipation by city leaders.
Demolition of the abandoned Universal Die Casting plant on Monroe Street began in May to make way for a 102-unit condominium development along the banks of the Saline River. The plant's last wall came down toward summer's end.
The project got the go-ahead in March when the Zoning Board of Appeals voted 7-0 to approve a height variance request that allows three of the seven condominium buildings to reach 45 feet at mid-peak. Neighbors along Monroe Street had objected to the variance request until the developer, Tom Foley, agreed to shift the tallest buildings to the rear of the eight-acre parcel that borders the Saline River adjacent to Curtiss Park.
In April, the future of the project was thrown into jeopardy after a Washtenaw County Brownfield Redevelopment Authority policy change threatened to deny the developer some $944,000 in federal grant money to help clean up the site. The issue was cleared up two weeks later, however, and the project moved forward.
Foley estimated razing the 144,000-square-foot factory would cost between $275,000 and $300,000.
The Banks of Saline project will include seven buildings, ranging in height from two to three stories, containing from 12 to 18 units each. The condos will be priced in the $210,000 to $250,000 range.
At the same time, a developer made headway in 2006 toward converting the former car dealership at Michigan Avenue and South Lewis Street into a combined retail, commercial and residential complex.
Mike Concannon of the Concannon Co. is developing Village Marketplace and Lofts, a 63,000-square-foot edifice that will extend more than 300 feet along Michigan Avenue. The $8 million building will have three floors with retail on the bottom floor, office condos on the second floor and loft residential condominiums on the top floor.
An underground parking lot will accommodate the residential-use portion of the complex.
The project drew some criticism early in the year from West Henry Street residents who feared the historic designation of their neighborhood would be jeopardized by a planned parking lot.
The Saline Downtown Merchants' Association, as well as the Saline Area Chamber of Commerce, have endorsed the project and believe it has potential to change the economic climate downtown for the better.
In February, the Saline Planning Commission unanimously approved the project's preliminary site plan.
Four months later, the Saline City Council cleared the way for Concannon to receive more than $500,000 in brownfield redevelopment funds to help clean up and dispose of contaminated soil on the site of the vacant dealership and abandoned gas station.
5. Churches celebrate their anniversaries
Last year was a time of celebration and commemoration for several Saline churches.
The First Presbyterian Church of Saline, whose historic brick building has been a Saline landmark for more than 100 years, celebrated its 175th anniversary in September.
The church published a history booklet, worshipped in antique costumes, and honored early members and saluted the church's involvement with the Underground Railroad.
The church's history was commemorated in a 24-page publication written by members and history buffs Al Valentine, Tom Philips and Taylor Jacobsen. Throughout 2006, the congregation included a page of church history in each Sunday morning's bulletin.
The church's story begins with a group of settlers who traveled to Saline via the then-new Erie Canal from Newark, N.Y., a small town between Rochester and Syracuse.
St. Paul United Church of Christ celebrated its 100-year anniversary with a range of special activities throughout 2006, kicking it off with a Pancake Brunch Jan. 8.
In October, the congregation hosted an "Old Fashioned" Mission Festival Sunday just as the church did for many years shortly after the church was founded in 1906, when Mission Festivals were held on an annual basis. The Mission Festival activities lasted all day and involved speakers from other churches.
St. Paul United Church of Christ was organized as a congregation under the name of the Evangelical St. Paul Congregation Nov. 22, 1906, with 28 charter members. In the past 100 years, the church has had eight resident pastors.
And the Saline First Assembly of God commemorated 50 years of service to the community in a three-day golden anniversary celebration Oct. 20 through 22.
The festivities included a blast from the past, as the church welcomed a former pastor to preach, opened a time box sealed 35 years ago and enjoyed a historical video chronicling the church's history.
At its Oct. 22 service, the church ceremoniously cracked open a time box that was sealed in 1971 when the church moved from the corner of Bemis and Maple roads to its current location at 300 Old Creek Drive.
The church has since constructed a new sanctuary, which opened its doors in September 2001 and is attached to the old building. The late Rev. George Moore and his wife, Alvina, now 101 years old, started Saline First Assembly of God as a house church in 1956.
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