Housing commission selects new director
ONTONAGON — The Housing Commission unanimously approved Karen Jackson as executive director Tuesday as commissioners continue to clean up processes and policies.
The former interim director has been in the role since the resignation of the previous director Sally Jarvey. The approval is for a three-year contract. Salary recommendations will now go on to the village president for approval.
“As far as this position is concerned, welcome to the full-time position and I’ll present the letter then to the village president,” Board President Richard Ernest told Jackson.
The commission also unanimously approved the amended procurement policy with clarifications of the roles of the commission and director in the hiring process.
Shortly after, the policy was put to work with Ernest requesting the commission pursue hiring an attorney.
“There’s just a lot of questions all the time and a review of items where I think we still need to, as a commission, have an attorney kind of on our side as far as being able to call them or (if) Karen has a question she can call about the legalities of it and I would like to see a motion to place it on bids and do it the correct way as opposed to the way we did it before,” Ernest said.
The motion was unanimously approved with commissioner Joe Erickson suggesting hourly rate and retainer cost both be considered to ensure bids “apples to apples” comparisons.
Now Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) compliant, the director is approved to seek bids and present them to the commission.
The next meeting will be held on October 16 at 5 p.m. and will be preceded by a resident council meeting at 2 p.m.
Notably, residence flooring will be discussed, a hot-button topic for some passionate about either laminate or carpet replacement. Ideas and residents’ thoughts will be considered in later decisions.