December 8, 1999
Awards banquet honors good planning
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Face it, you're probably not going to get rich working for the county. And a township gig is sometimes a thankless second job, where someone will complain no matter what you do. Planners and zoning administrators? Hardly a juicier target exists for complaints, regardless of the outcome.
So how about an 'Attaboy!' and a round of applause for members of this unsung and often misunderstood group.
The annual Holiday Awards Banquet is one way to acknowledge the positive contributions of these hardworking, nuts and bolts administrators in Grand Traverse County and its 14 townships. Held last Thursday evening at the Waterfront Conference Center, the annual banquet was cosponsored by the Grand Traverse County Association and the Grand Traverse County Planning Commission. It drew 147 attendees, the largest turnout in the banquet's 14-year history.
As more than 40 awards were given out to professional and citizen planners, township and county administrators,
"Our mission is to primarily recognize organizations and individuals who have done a good job in the last year in planning and zoning programs," said Roger Williams, director planning for Grand Traverse County. "We want to recognize good planning and use that as an educational tool to encourage more thoughtful projects. That's why both citizen planners and developers were also recognized."
A special award was invented this year to recognize the efforts of Joe Bartko, the Township Association Chair and East Bay Township Supervisor: the Golden Hammer Award. This is a literal award, as Bartko has been the one to drive many of the nails in the construction of the East Bay Transfer Station, which will be completed in the next 4-6 weeks.
The building efforts of this former builder are just one facet of his extraordinary contributions to this project. He also designed and drafted the layout and building plans, which needed very few revisions by the reviewing architect, found the trailer via the Internet and went to Wisconsin to get it and found the compactor bin in Suttons Bay and relocated it to the sight.
"We decided to do it with our in-house people and it saved considerable money," said Bartko. "We have an employee who is a carpenter, Terry Coates, and I was a former builder. The current compactor station is over 25 years old, made for 5,000 people and now we have just shy of 10,000 residents. It was time to expand it."
At the end of the evening, the Frank Purvis Stewardship Award was granted, after much suspense, to Joe Anderson of Whitewater Township for his visionary work to rewrite the township's master plan and change the zoning laws to support it. In the tradition of Frank Purvis, who Anderson remembers as one of the earliest and most vocal citizens with an environmental conscience, this award is granted annually to acknowledge outstanding citizen contribution to preserving the land.
In a township that encompasses agricultural land, state land, five watersheds and a village, Whitewater officials decided to safeguard their uniqueness from the pervasive threat of urban sprawl. Years of work by Anderson, members of the planning commission and the elected board of supervisors went into making this vision a reality.
"What we're trying to do here in Whitewater is build the way people built for 200 years, there has only been building urban sprawl since WWII or so," Anderson said. "Most people do not realize that it is not legal to build a Northport, Suttons Bay or Elk Rapids, the zoning ordinances will not let you do it."
"Here, we are turning things on their head and make compact village development easy and legal, and urban sprawl difficult."