The Town of Worden shifted its monthly meeting date to align better with a busy member’s schedule recently. As of October, town meetings will be held on the second Tuesdays of the month, rather than Mondays. Clerk Jean Ketterhagen took a poll before the new date became official September 14.

“What are your feelings on having the meetings on Tuesdays?” Ketterhagen asked her fellow board members at the Monday, September 14 meeting. The reason for Ketterhagen’s question was rather straightforward. As someone with many responsibilities, the Monday town meetings no longer aligned with her church council duties, the date of which had been shifted to accommodate another member on the church board. Thursdays could work for her Worden township duties just as good, but first there was board feedback to gather.

“Does that work for you?” Chairman Earl Mathison asked Treasurer MaryAnn Smasal, who indicated in the affirmative. Supervisor Ed Kosik gave the ok on his end, and then it was on to Supervisor Dean Samuelson.

“Not as good, but I can live with it,” Samuelson said of shifting board meetings to the second Tuesday of the month. A member of the audience appeared to agree.

“You do whatever works for you as the board,” they shared. In addition to the next meeting being held on Tuesday October 13, the town board decided to schedule the annual budget hearing on November 10 at 7:00 p.m., with the regular meeting to follow.

The new meeting day established, the Worden town board went on to discuss an old township mainstay, just about anywhere— the local roads! Asphalt, granite, or gravel is about as contentious as it gets when talking local town politics. Do you want blue granite for durability and a hard crystal matrix or else the highly similar red granite for aesthetical reasons? Perhaps ordinary gravel for cost savings or asphalt for water drainage?

Shifting from rock-based talk to somewhat muddier territory, Chairman Mathison had a question for Worden town patrolman Jon Hubbard: had he graded Sandy Lane Road just south of the hall recently? The sparse amount of gravel on the dead end lane meant that if it wasn’t gone over regularly with a grader blade weeds quickly sprouted up. It was a dead end road but the township received road aid for it and needed to keep it maintained. A list of culvert and road updates followed from Hubbard, with Treasurer MaryAnn Smasal following along in a town plat map book. Among Hubbard’s updates was one on 1.6 miles of pulverized road surface along Broek Road running east to west.

“It’s all blacktopped, they got it all shouldered,” Hubbard said. “It’s good.” With culverts measuring everywhere from 15 inches to thirty-six by forty and a chip seal estimated to be twenty-years-old holding up good on Copenhaver between Colby Factory Road and Cloverdale, there shouldn’t be a problem for town residents getting around. The pavement on Eddy Road off M south of Thorp was still alligator cracked in the meantime though and Chairman Mathison said that the opinion was that lean wedging would be a waste of money as any asphalt laid over the top without fixing the underlying issue would just lead to reemergent cracks. Also touched upon but not elaborated was the summer that Hubbard had reportedly shoveled 42 tons of blacktop. Before the meeting was over, it was shared that $42,000 in revenue sharing would come toward November, matching other town schedules as the last payout before the end of the year.

Once again, Worden town meetings are now on the second Tuesday of the month at 7:00 p.m.

Photo by Joseph Back.

The Worden Town supervisors at the September meeting. From left to right: Dean Samuelson, Ed Kosik, Chairman Earl Mathison, Clerk Jean Ketterhagen, and Treasurer Mary Ann Smasal.