Sunday, March 21, 2004

A look ahead at this week's important issues.

School board to hear vote campaign plan

The Ann Arbor school board will hear administrators' plans Wednesday for the upcoming information campaign on the bond and sinking fund they will ask voters to approve in the June 14 school election.

The two tax levies would fund the district's $237 million facilities plan, which includes a new 1,600-student high school with a high-tech magnet program within it, creation of an early-childhood center, school improvements districtwide and bus, computer and musical instrument purchases.

The school board approved the facilities plan in votes on Feb. 11 and March 10, and the final decision will now be up to voters.

The meeting is at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the fourth-floor conference room of the Ann Arbor District Library, 343 S. Fifth Ave.

Meeting to discuss dioxane cleanup

The Michigan State University Technical Outreach Services for Communities program will host a meeting Wednesday to discuss options for cleaning up groundwater contamination on the west side of Ann Arbor.

The meeting on dioxane pollution from the Pall Life Sciences facility in Scio Township will be at 7 p.m. at Abbot Elementary School, 2670 Sequoia Parkway, Ann Arbor.

Susan Masten, professor of environmental engineering at Michigan State, and Larry Lemke of the department of geology at Wayne State University, will discuss the dioxane issue, relevant hydrogeology and remediation efforts and challenges.

Topics to be discussed include recent work to investigate the plume of contamination, what areas are affected and what proposals are out there to clean it up. The goal of the meeting is to provide residents with enough background and information that they can better assess the cleanup proposals once they are put on the table in June.

The outreach services program has an agreement with the city of Ann Arbor and a citizens' group, Scio Residents for Safe Water, to provide assistance on the dioxane issue by promoting public understanding of site contamination problems and participation in decisions on how to deal with them. The program is funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

Anyone is welcome to attend. The meeting is co-sponsored by the City of Ann Arbor and Scio Residents for Safe Water. Call the TOSC program at (800) 490-3890 for more information.

Scio, Dexter planning commissions to meet

The Scio Township and Dexter Village planning commissions will meet in joint session Monday to talk about the future of development along Baker Road, the busy thoroughfare from I-94 into the village.

The meeting will take place at 6 p.m. at Scio Township Hall, 827 N. Zeeb Road, and will be limited to one hour.

The joint meeting will be a follow-up to one in January, said Allison Menard, planning and zoning administrator for Dexter Village. At that meeting, members of both planning commissions and members of the public arrived at a list of what they thought were the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for the Baker Road corridor, Menard said.

The effort at joint planning was prompted at least in part by a local developer's purchase of a 300-acre farm on Baker Road in Scio Township, Menard said. Both communities want to plan in advance for any large development there, Menard said.

The meeting Monday will go over the ideas arrived at in January and decisions on the next steps, she said.

From News staff reports