My name is Liz (Shaughnessy) Hankis. I am a lifelong Napoleon resident, along with my parents and my grandparents (Bud and Barb Tallman and Robert and Nancy Shaughnessy). Ten years ago I married Joe Hankis. As you may be aware, Joe has been a Napoleon Township police officer for 17 years. We also have 2 amazing sons, Lucas (9) and Logan (6). Furthermore, I am employed by Sloan Transport (off Hart Rd) in Napoleon Twp. I chose to give you a quick background of myself so that you are aware that I'm not a fly by the night resident of the community, but one that has a history with plans to stay and help guide our community in the proper direction. The other night I was at the Napoleon Township Police Officers board meeting, as were several community members. I applauded several comments one being about the number one concern of the board should be our safety with the rest being just fluff. I couldn't agree with them more. Comments were made by our supervisor that make me feel as if he is putting our community's safety in line behind "fiscal responsibility". Maybe if he were more prepared and presented solid figures and evidence on how this would benefit our community from a fiscal standpoint, I may feel more at ease. However, the response of "We are going to do things such fill the cracks in our parking lot" was not what I consider "fiscal responsibility." My main purpose of this to get the word out about getting a petition started so this serious issue can be voted upon by the tax payers, not decided upon by a "special board". I simply feel that this issue is important enough to be voted upon rather than a couple of meetings which I feel were very poorly publicized to residents and business owners alike. As a matter of fact, I was talking to my boss about this situation and it was the first that he's ever heard of it. Why are we as residents and business owners not notified of such an important change in our community's safety? After all, it's our money that pays for all of this, correct? While getting ready to wrap up the meeting a resident asked "what's next?", the supervisor said, "Consider this meeting your vote". I don’t feel this is acceptable. This is an issue I feel the community members should have more input on. Once again my driving force behind this is simply to keep our township department (if that's what the VOTERS decide) and look for a chief whether hiring within or hiring outside the department that can continue to provide the outstanding service that our community currently receives and deserves. Once again, thank you. Liz Hankis Napoleon Township Resident