MATTAWAN — The Mattawan Village Police Department has been approved to start the bidding process for a new squad car in an effort to keep modernizing the fleet.

The Village Council approved Police Chief Donald VerHage’s request on June 25 to begin looking at bids for a Chevy Impala police vehicle. The Chevy is a move for the department away from the Ford Crown Victoria model. VerHage said the village would receive a better deal, saving approximately $4,000 with the Chevy, and would receive a five-year, 100,000-mile warranty.

With the eventual purchase of a new squad car, the police department will begin switching to a more traditional-looking police vehicle with black-and-white paint. Officers say an instantly recognizable police vehicle is safer.
“I think it’s good to have a police car that looks like a police car,“ VerHage said.

In other news:
The Village Council approved the purchase of new software for the police department. The current software, called Titan, will be updated to a system called DDP Police Services, which about 180 other police agencies in Michigan use.
A memorial service for former Mattawan police officer Scot Beyerstedt will be held at 7 p.m. July 26 in the Mattawan Village Park, where a monument to him stands.

July marks the two-year anniversary of the death of Beyerstedt, who died after a high-speed chase. The 21-year-old and his partner, 29-year-old Scott Hutchins, were chasing a suspect July 25, 2005, when their vehicle spun out of control and crashed into a tree near the intersection of 24th Street and Red Arrow Highway near Mattawan. Beyerstedt was driving and wasn’t wearing a seat belt. He died as a result of his injuries.
The Village Council discussed the progress of the new arsenic-treatment plant, expected to cost about $2 million. The federal government recently lowered the guidelines for arsenic percentage for water from 50 parts per billion gallons to 10 parts per billion gallons. Mattawan’s arsenic percentage is now 12 parts per billion, forcing the need for the new arsenic plant.

Concerns were raised at the June 25 meeting about whether the arsenic plant would be finished in time for a January 2008 compliance deadline. Some council members pointed out that with the bidding process likely to begin Aug. 1, there wouldn’t be enough time for an estimated 330-day plant-construction completion.

Officials assured the council that a running dialog between the village and the Department of Environmental Quality would allow for some breathing room and that the 330 days was not an exact figure.
Village Attorney Scott Graham updated the council on the occupancy state of 14 new trailer units at the Deal Mobile Home Park. Last year, six units in the park were removed and destroyed. At the same time, 14 new trailers were brought in to the area.

Graham recommended that the trailers remain unoccupied until he and a building inspector review whether the trailers are compliant with 1976 U.S. Housing and Urban Development requirements.

MATTAWAN — The Mattawan Consolidated School District is one of only 29 Michigan school districts to receive a Gold Medal designation in the 2007 Education Quotient ratings compiled by Expansion Management magazine.

The magazine’s 16th annual Education Quotient ratings compared 2,819 districts nationwide with student enrollment of at least 3,300 students. Mattawan schools received the top ranking of a Gold Medal, which is awarded to school districts that receive an average score of 83 to 99. Mattawan’s overall average was 85.

The honor was a surprise to Superintendent James Weeldreyer, who learned about the designation when Michigan Association of School Administrators Executive Director William H. Mayes sent a letter of congratulations.

“We didn’t apply for any recognition such as this, so it was a surprise when I got the letter,” Weeldreyer said. “We have always felt that we were very efficient in our operations as determined by other measures. So it seems consistent with the other information that we have.”

Chief Editor Bill King said Expansion Management magazine compiles the yearly Education Quotient ratings to gives its readers, who are primarily CEOs of small to midsize manufacturing companies, a basis for comparing the education level of the work-force members they are likely to encounter in various communities throughout the United States.

Mattawan’s overall score was drawn from scores in three major categories: a Graduate Outcome Index (GO), a Resource Index (RI) and a Community Index (CI). The most weight was given to the GO figure and the least to the CI, which represented only about 5 percent of the school’s overall score.

Mattawan’s highest rating was in the GO category, in which the school district scored a 91. The magazine sites the GO as the most important component of the Education Quotient average. The index attempts to measure the results of the district’s educational efforts in comparison with that of other districts nationwide and consists of the district’s average college-entrance-exam score (ACT or SAT) and its graduation rate.

The CI looks at the educational and income levels of the adult population and child-poverty rates in the school system. The magazine sites the CI’s use primarily as a benchmark for sociological observations. Mattawan received a 79 in this category.

Mattawan received its lowest score, 20, in the RI category, which is an attempt to measure a community’s financial commitment to public education. It includes such things as per-pupil expenditures, the student-teacher ratio and the beginning and average salaries for teachers. Weeldreyer said Mattawan’s low level of funding from the state is the chief reason behind the low score.

Mattawan’s Gold Medal rank is the highest among nearby districts. Expansion Management gave Kalamazoo Public Schools a Green Medal and a score of 39 and Portage Public Schools a Blue Medal and a score of 81.

“I know people in Kalamazoo and in Portage, and we are all working hard,” Weeldreyer said. “All that I can surmise is that we are fortunate to have found a delivery system that seems to be very effective.”