OKEMOS - Last Tuesday, members of the Town Board discussed possible plans for the American Rescue Funding Meridian Township will be receiving, with over 4.5 Million dollars in funding to spend over the next five years.

Trustee Patricia Jackson suggested involving the public in some ways as seen in previous examples from other communities she said: "One of the things that are encouraged very strongly is that it is an organized open process where we encourage and engage with the larger community on how the funds are maybe used, and certainly include their ideas in your decisions on how to do that.”

Supervisor Ron Styka suggested that staff members give their input to Township Manager Frank Walsh. In contrast, Board members would provide their feedback to the Township Supervisor to come up with a list of ideas from different members on where to spend these funds before moving forward with getting input from the public through a potential survey as Treasurer Phil Deschaine had suggested with the addition of holding a public meeting at the Township in the future.

Members of the Township Board had concluded that this topic would be brought out to other members of the Board to get their feedback on the subject matter while taking the time to discuss the funding process in future meetings.