Marquette Budget Hearings Turn to Water
With municipal budgets getting tighter and tighter every year, budget planning becomes more and more important.
The Marquette City Commission is hearing, a little bit at a time, what the various city departments would like to spend money on next fiscal year.
Tonight, they heard about community services.
That includes parks and recreation senior services and arts and culture.
Fire chief Tom Belt diagrammed new signage, buoys and lifesaving equipment the Waterfront Safety Task Force recommends for the shoreline.
City Commissioner Johnny DePetro said during the meeting that he saw a local TV news report recently on a rip current sensor that two local men have developed.
He asked Assistant City Manager Karl Zueger to address that.
Zueger says city staff have been in contact with the inventors, Earl Senchuk and Mike Rucinski, and they expect to harvest data from the sensor this summer.
ABC 10 News Now had a story about the sensor on Monday night.
Senchuk and Rucinski showed the City Commission a preliminary sensor model in January.
The newer model is waterproof.
It’s been tested while submerged, and it seems to work.
The task force has recommended closing Picnic Rocks for the year to swimmers.
It’s also asking for a city ordinance banning swimming on beaches except at South Beach and McCarty’s cove.
Karl Zueger told the commission he recommends the city hire 13 lifeguards to patrol those areas next summer, instead of 10.