By Megan Kelley

Review Writer

The Downtown Development Authority Board of Directors voted 7-1 to approve disbursements in the amount of $21,257 for the month of September, Orion Township Supervisor Chris Barnett cast the lone nay vote because of a $1,000 bill from the Village DPW for snow removal.

“I don’t think we should be paying for snow removal in September. We should be paying for services received as we receive them,” Barnett said. “As an example, during COVID and everything was shut down, I still believe that the DDA should have protected some of our funds that we gave over to police services, for traffic control, crowd control, parking enforcement. When everything was shut down, we should not have been paying for those.”

According to DDA Executive Director Molly LaLone, the DDA has already approved and signed a contract for administrative fees and contract services which include snow removal.

Contract services for DPW snow removal amount to $12,000 annually but is split into monthly payments, meaning the DDA pays $1,000 to the DPW for snow removal each month.