Graham Jaehnig/Daily Mining Gazette Former Calumet Village Council member Virginia Dwyer explains the reasons why the council made the decision not to act on the Medical Marijuana act in December 2017. Dwyer was one of two village residents to submit a petition in 2021 to deal with empty village council positions.

CALUMET — A petition filed with the Village Clerk by Peggy Germain last August was not in regards to seats on the council as previously reported in the Daily Mining Gazette, but rather, in regards to whether a village clerk and a treasurer be appointed or elected.

The document still remains unaccounted for.

Village resident Virginia Dwyer, who also filed a petition for a referendum asking voters if the village treasurer shall be elected or appointed, said there were no petitions were circulated or filed in regards to trustee positions.

Dwyer said the council passed an ordinance allowing for the positions of both clerk and treasurer to be appointed, rather than elected, decisions Dwyer and Germain agreed should be decided by the voters, not trustees.

“I got a referendum to put it on the ballot,” she said. “I got all the signatures, they’ve been verified, and it is sitting at the township office.”

Beth Salmela, Calumet Township clerk, verified that Dwyer’s petition is, in fact, at the township office.

Salmela said that she cannot verify what Germain’s petition was in regard to, because she did not receive it, but that she did receive Dwyer’s, which she said is a referendum of legislation proposed by initiative petition.

“Whereas it is in the best interest of the residents of the village of Calumet that Ordinance No. 158 be voted on the next election,” Salmela read from the document.

Salmela went on to say that the petition asks: “…the question of Ordinance No. 158, which eliminates the election of the village treasurer and provides for appointment of the village treasurer by the council be approved?”

In a telephone interview on Tues., Germain said that her petition, which contained wording similar to Dwyer’s, addressed both Ordinance 157 and 158. Ordinance 157, also passed by the council, eliminates the election of the village clerk, and instead provides for appointment of that position.

“It was on the question of should Ordinance 157 go into effect,” Germain explained. “Do the voters want to have the council appoint a clerk or do they want to continue having an elected clerk?”

Germain said that while Dwyer submitted her petition to the village clerk sooner, Germain submitted her petition to Dave Geisler, who signed the receipt as village clerk on Aug. 24, 2021. Geisler, she said, did not affix a date to the receipt.

Germain said it comes down to a government operating as a Democracy.

“Power to the people,” she said. “Let the voters decide on what they want.”

To clarify the issue, added Germain, Dwyer’s petition asks the question of shall the voters or the Village Council decide who the treasurer will be, and her’s (Germain’s) is in regard to whether the clerk shall be elected or appointed.

In the meantime, however, Germain’s petition still remains missing.