Thursday June 18, 2015 Vol. 3, No. 17
The Weekly Post
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Stufflebeam out, Kowal in as Farmington mayor By MICHELLE SHERMAN
FARMINGTON – After two years at the helm of the City of Farmington, Kenn Stufflebeam resigned his post June 11. “I don’t have time to be the mayor and do my job,” he said. “The scope of my job has changed. I’m going to be gone a lot.” Ward Three Alderman Kent Kowal was named acting mayor following a 30-minute executive session Monday. An appointment will need to be made to fill Kowal’s now-vacant seat. For The Weekly Post
No Post Next Week! Our next issue will be July 2.
“I hope I continue the momentum that Kenn Stufflebeam started,” Kowal said. Stufflebeam came to the mayoral seat at a time when Farmington was in flux. The first month he was in office, Melgreen Furniture closed its doors and the city lost its largest single source of corporate tax monies. “There was a panicked moment,” Stufflebeam said.
In the wake of that challenge, the council went to work to find ways to revitalize the city and draw more new business. The downtown historic district was created, and the Tax Increment Finance district was put into place. Though the TIF has been controversial, especially in recent weeks, Stufflebeam said it has overall had a positive impact. The TIF was approved in May 2014. Proposed disbursements from the fund to Petersen Health Care were rejected last month. The status of a reconsidered vote
on the matter still is unknown. “I feel like I’m leaving the city in a better place,” he said. “This was the best tool that we could come up with.” Besides focusing on work, Stufflebeam plans to spend time with his family: wife, Anne, and daughters, Meredith and Alexis. He plans to continue involvement with the city in some capacity. “I feel like we are teetering on the brink of great things,” he said. “Everybody’s got to pull together and work together and not against each other.”
Farmington OKs motor fuel funding
ST. JUDE SUCCESS
My Place event tops $108,000
YATES CITY – Despite rain and the threat of rain, Saturday’s 13th annual My Place St. Jude fund raiser raised a record $108,113.70. “I’m amazed,” said Sharon Coykendall, who organizes the event with Jody McKinty. “Jody and I always talk about being prepared for the year when it doesn’t increase, but so far that hasn’t happened. It’s amazing.” Coykendall said highquality donations to the auction helped offset slightly smaller crowds.
By MICHELLE SHERMAN
FARMINGTON – The Farmington City Council narrowly approved $130,000 of motor fuel tax funds to be used for road resurfacing projects. In a 3-2 vote on Monday, members of the council greenlit the repairs that will take place on a roughly 1,500-foot portion of Fairview Road and portions of Vine Street. Superintendent of Public Works David Ehler said there’s a lot of catch-up maintenance to be done on Fairview Road, as no one has known for several years whether the City of Farmington or Fulton County was responsible for the road. “It was never ours,” he said, until officials began looking at older state maps. “We inherited it.” He estimates 450 to 500 cars per day travel the road, which he says is “pretty rough.” Also included in the total cost for the projects is more than $4,000 in engineering and inspection fees to be paid to MauFor The Weekly Post
While rain impacted the auction and evening festivities at the 13th annual My Place St. Jude fund raiser in Yates City, diehards lingered through the showers to bid on a wide variety of items. Photo by a sneaky little white drone.
Elmwood native enjoyed career as a printer By BILL KNIGHT
ELMWOOD – Elmwood native Don Dean was a veteran typographer when he worked at the State Journal Register in Springfield and was called back to work for an urgent change. “My shift was over and I’d walked a ways to get a sandwich when one of the pressmen ran over and said we had to re-plate some pages,” recalls Dean, 86. “He said, ‘You For The Weekly Post
Kenn Stufflebeam resigned as Farmington mayor. Photo by Dave Giagnoni.
gotta come back!’ It turned out someone had transposed cutlines beneath a couple of photos. One referred to ‘prize beef’ and was under a picture of some society ladies.” Laughing, Dean adds, “The drivers were waiting to get the papers out, but it only took about 20 minutes.” At that time, typographers – dubbed “printers” although they set type and did not run presses – were valuable members of the newspaper industry, and the International
Typographical Union (ITU) was a powerful union. Eventually, Dean earned a “traveler card,” enabling him to literally go anywhere and find work. “It was good worldwide,” he says. “Even Australia – where they’d pay your expenses to get there.” Dean graduated from Elmwood High School in 1947, but already had started learning the trade as an adolescent working Continued on Page 2
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