Archive - Dec 10, 2008

By DEB WUETHRICH

Raisin Township resident Jan Shuster has been on mission trips before, visiting Piedras Negras, Mexico, four times as part of a medical team, but she never expected to travel 6,000 miles to visit a country that has been called “the poorest of the poor.” In September of this year, however, that’s exactly what she did when an opportunity arose, traveling on a fact-finding mission to Liberia with a group from Edenton Street United Methodist Church based in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Jan is also a member of Tecumseh United Methodist Church (TUMC) which partners with the Philip A. Robert Church in Liberia. TUMC provides financial assistance and supplies for the small, rural church, helped rebuild a school destroyed during Liberia’s 14-year civil war, and currently is rebuilding the church. While she spent a good deal of the time visiting Edenton programs, Jan also was able to travel to Philip A. Robert Church for a couple of hours and got to meet Rev. Sam Whornee, its pastor, and the congregation.

“It was an interesting drive,” she said of traveling there first from the capital city of Monrovia, then to Buchanan, and then to a small village on roads that were filled with ruts. Her trip also came during the rainy season, which didn’t help the roadways.
“It was in a very rural area — in the bush — but on what they considered a main road,” she said. She said the members were mostly older people, but some children also were there, and they were chanting and clapping their hands in greeting. “Even though they were clapping and singing, their faces were so sad,” Jan said, noting that this image stays on her mind. “They have been through so much. But they were very grateful that someone from the United States would come to their small village.”

The Herrick Foundation filed a lawsuit in Lenawee County court on Monday to seek injunctive relief from the decision by Tecumseh Products Company to declare a 3-for-1 stock split effective Dec. 31, 2008. Judge Timothy P. Pickard scheduled a hearing on the matter for Dec. 23.

A company press release notes that Herrick Foundation spokesman Jeff Caponigro said the stock split, which two board members voted against, is the Board’s third unlawful effort to interfere with voting rights. The stock split would reduce Herrick Foundation’s voting interest from 15.2 percent to 4.2 percent and all Class B shareholder voting interests from 100 percent to 27 percent.

“If the Board was confident that sufficient support exists among Class B shareholders for this proposal, why did it not seek shareholder approval at the Nov. 21 special meeting or place it on the agenda of its annual meeting only a few months away in April 2009?” asks Caponigro. “The stock split is an improper and illegal action directed at diluting the voting power of the Class B shareholders. The action is the most blatant in a series of actions by the directors to protect their positions, and Herrick Foundation will again be forced to challenge it in court,” Caponigro stated.

Tecumseh Products stated in a release that it remains committed to its recapitalization plan and calls the Foundation’s stance “mischaracterization of the dividend recapitalization as an illegal stock split” and an attempt to distract from the fact that the dividend recapitalization is permissible under a section of the Company’s Articles of Incorporation which were adopted when the Herricks controlled the company.
Company CEO Ed Buker said the recapitalization proposal levels the playing field for all investors in the business by aligning the economic and voting interests of all shareholders.

By DEB WUETHRICH

Local artist Judith Holcomb said it was coming from a family of hunters and fishermen that first fostered her interest in capturing the details of wildlife.

“When my dad and grandfather would bring home the animals I found it fascinating to get a close look at the fur and fins and the iridescence on them,” said Holcomb, who paints under the name J. Ann. Several of the artist’s paintings and a few items of sculpture are currently on display at the Croswell Opera House Gallery at 129 E. Maumee Street and the show will remain open through January. She also has two pieces in the lobby at the Tecumseh Center for the Arts after artists who had submitted birdhouses for the Flights of Fancy fundraiser were invited to showcase other work there.
Holcomb said she had plenty of opportunity to analyze the hues in something like a duck’s feathers because she was given the task of helping to pluck feathers, and to clean and dress the animals her relatives brought home. “I was very interested in trying to render what I saw onto paper,” she said.

She recalls that as a child, she doodled a lot, and at some point while attending parochial school, her interest in art was encouraged. “The nuns must have noticed something because they were always giving me art projects and I worked a lot with clay.”
For years, the art was a secondary part of her life. She said when she married and had three children, she would often help them with crafts for school, but otherwise kept her artwork to herself.

I understand that Franklin Township. is in the early stages of planning a new $500,000 administration building. I believe any excess funds should be used to provide services to taxpayers before initiating this project. The current number of residents in the township does not warrant a project of this type. Possible reduced funding in the years ahead will require imaginative solutions and increased use of technology to service township residents.

The biannual tax bill recently mailed to property owners stated the following reasons for a new building:

1. “More space for voting.” An average of 89 people per hour voted at the Franklin Twp. Hall on Nov 4th. The strong turnout in the general election was anticipated. Creative ways to handle this in the future could include concise absentee voter application instructions online, using the township hall, schools or churches or other public buildings to schedule Saturday times for voters to pickup absentee ballots and simultaneously vote in advance of the election, and using these same larger locations for in-person voting. As many Franklin Township voters shop and work outside the township, it may be more convenient for voters to go to a Clinton or Tecumseh location for occasional (once every 4-8 years) high turnout voting. In the Ann Arbor area, thousands of Pittsfield township voters cast their votes in the wrestling room of a Saline City school.

2. “Issuing building permits” As of 12.02.08, 40 permits had been issued in 2008; 74 in 2007. This is an average of 1 per week. Is a new, larger building required for this level of activity?

One behalf of the Tecumseh Area Historical Society I would like to thank everyone who helped make this year’s cookie decorating at the museum a fun event. Special thanks go to Busch’s for baking and donating the delicious cookies we decorated after the Christmas Parade and to Grey Fox Floral for the beautiful poinsettias, which graced the museum during the Candlelight Home tours.

Thank you to all who give their time and energy to make Tecumseh such a wonderful place.

Lisa Powell
Museum Administrator