CALUMET — Some village residents are taking the Village Council to task for ramming through three ordinances last month without previous public notice, and they want such actions to stop. Of most concern is the recreational marijuana ordinance that was drafted, then rammed through adoption by former trustee Nathan Anderson immediately before he resigned from the council.

Several residents, who voiced their displeasure over the way the ordinance was introduced and adopted, addressed the council during its regular meeting on Tuesday.

Village resident Sandy Johnson brought up the topic during the public comment period, and was not alone in her concern that because there was no prior public hearing on the ordinance, its passage may be in violation of state law.

“Was there any public meeting for input on the new marijuana ordinance that you people passed?” asked Johnson.

Village President Dave Geisler replied that other than discussions during previous council meetings, no public hearings had been conducted.

“Other than council meetings, no,” he said.

Johnson said that because other municipalities have conducted public hearings, it was her belief that hearings were standard procedure throughout the state.

“I’m just going by other towns, what they do,” Johnson said. “Hancock has done it, Houghton is doing it, I know Marquette has, and …”

Geisler interrupted her.

“And we asked for a legal opinion from Bordeau, Kendricks (attorneys),” Geisler said, adding he had not received a response from the law firm.

“I just want to make sure this is what the council wants — that it’s done correctly,” Johnson said, “that public meetings are (conducted), and it goes through and everything is right. I would like to see in that ordinance that everybody is dealing with the marijuana downtown. I don’t care if it’s in a residential area, they need to have proper ventilation, and that needs to be in the ordinance.”

She was informed by a number of council members that the issue of ventilation was included in the ordinance.

Another village resident, Virginia Dwyer, next addressed the council, bringing their attention to the Michigan General Law Village Act (GLV), where requirements for passing an ordinance are listed on page 30.

“It doesn’t say ‘public hearing,’ but it says ‘public notice,’ it clearly says that,” Dwyer said. “We had no public notice whatsoever about this.”

None of the three ordinance passed last month, she said, had public notice.

“The other issue I have with these three ordinances,” she continued, “General Law Village (Act) suggests that they are written by an attorney, and reviewed by an attorney. My understanding is none of those three ordinances was written and/or reviewed by an attorney, which it should have been.”

She then continued her discussion.

“So, when the general public comes here, it’s not on the agenda, there’s no public notice, you guys just get right into it,” she said.

As an example of council negligence, she then brought up the general manager ordinance, which was adopted in August and published in the Daily Mining Gazette.

“Everybody had eyes on it,” she said. “It passed three yes, one no, three absent, and in your ordinance, it says you have to have a majority. Then, you spent money putting it in the newspaper, probably hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Then you had to quietly redo it, because you made a big mistake.

“You can’t keep running like this,” she said. “You need to get the public involved. You need to let the public know what you’re doing. Nobody had eyes, from the public, on any of these ordinances.”