Early voting for the August primary begins on July 27By Barb Pert Templeton
On every agenda at bi-monthly meetings of the Marine City Commission, there’s a spot for Administrative Reports which includes reports from the city’s department heads.
At the July 11 meeting, City Clerk Jason Bell updated the commission on plans for the upcoming primary election on Aug, 6 and the status of a project to update the city website to make it more user-friendly.
Bell began by explaining that the Thursday, Aug 1 regular city commission meeting will be held at the city’s fire hall due to early voting. There will be an opportunity for early voting in Marine City from July 27 through Aug. 4 from 8 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Guy Community Center.
“Avoid long lines on election day, come and vote early in person,” Bell said. “And cast your own ballot and just to quell some misconceptions you cast your own ballot just as if it were your regular own election day for the last 248 years, that’s how it works.”
He said 523 absentee ballots have been issued with 170 returned as of July 11 which is 32%.
Marine City Clerk Jason Bell gives officials an update on the city’s new website and the upcoming primary election.
“That’s pretty good on a return rate after two and half weeks,” Bell said.
“That’s really good,” City Attorney Robert Davis added.
Bell said if you have your absent voter ballot, please get it turned in. It can be mailed in or dropped in a ballot box at the city offices either inside or out, or handed in in person to a staffer at the city offices.
When contacted via email after the meeting Bell shared more specific information about the ballots voters will be casting for the primary.
He said while there won’t be any items directly related to just Marine City on the ballot, there will be five county proposals for voters to consider.
Bell also stated that for the primary ballot, voters are asked not to cast votes across party lines.
Three Marine City commissioners, Mayor Pro Tem Lisa Hendrick and Commissioners Brian Ross and William Klaassen have terms set to expire in November but are running unopposed. Mayor Jennifer Vandenbossche is seeking a second term and being challenged by just one opponent, Michael Hilferink, all of those names will be on the November ballot for the General Election.
New city website launches soon
During his administrator report at the meeting, Bell also said the work on the city’s website continues and the city expects to launch it the last week of July or the first week of August.
The agendas for every board in the city are posted online and you can pick just the agenda or that plus the agenda packet. In addition, if someone wants an alert to when any agenda is published online, they can add their email to the appropriate section on the site and have the agenda sent directly to their email inbox.
Commissioner Sean O’Brien took a few moments to say that in the past the city website was “horrible and really, really bad” and part of the problem was that the website was sending him in circles and he couldn’t get the information.
He said today, it’s much better, and for those still having issues they simply need to contact the city clerk for assistance.
City Manager Scott Adkins added that after a resident claimed during public comments at the beginning of the commission meeting that the agendas and packets were not available on the website, he and the clerk both looked and all the information was there.
“The agenda and agenda packet were right on the website, each of us clicked independently and they were right there and had been for days,” Adkins said.
“You just have to click on the right thing,” City Attorney Robert David added.
To check out the city’s new website visit cityofmarinecity.org.
