Where Will Big Top Go Up?

Hurry, Hurry, Hurry!

Where Will Big Top Go Up?
By Jim Kane
(News Staff Reporter)

The Clyde Beatty Circus is scheduled to come to the area on Sunday, Sept. 17.

But there is one problem — there may be no place to hold it.

Tuesday night, the Pittsfield Township Board voted 5 to 1 to deny a request of the Ann Arbor Noon Optimists Club to hold the circus on property located on the east side of Carpenter Road between the Meijer Thirty Acres Store and the Penn Central Railroad tracks.

Board members felt that the location would be unsuitable because of the construction under way on Carpenter Road. No other alternate location was suggested during the meeting.

Club President Victor Turner said this morning the club planned to have a site available somewhere in the area by the time of the scheduled date of the circus. “We’re going to work on it,” he commented.

He said there had been discussion earlier about using land owned by Concordia Lutheran Junior College. That site, he said, is across Geddes Road from the college campus and along Earhart Road. He added that he hoped that land was still available.

Turner said that sales on tickets for the circus would proceed.

Township Clerk Perry Brown said last night’s action was the first time he could recall that the Optimists request to hold a circus in the township had been turned down. In previous years, the circus had been held on a site farther north on Carpenter Road.

Trustee William Pearlman, who served as temporary chairman last night because Supr. Robert A. Lillie was ill, said, “They (the Optimists) should have asked us first. They’re after the fact now. They should have checked first to see if we could accommodate them. The road is not passable.”

The only board member to vote in favor of the circus was Trustee James Aldrich. Brown, Pearlman, Treasurer James Reader and Trustees Donald LeClair and Albert Church all voted in the negative.

The Optimists will be informed of the board’s action and its reason for denial.

In other action, the board accepted the resignation of LeClair from the township planning commission effective Sept. 1. LeClair is the board’s representative to the commission. A replacement was not named.

The board approved the rezoning of .76 of an acre on Washtenaw Ave. near Golfside from C-1 (commercial) to C-2 (commercial) for a Firestone retail tire store.

Board members received and filed a report on the results of the Aug. 8 primary election in the township and the results of the charter township vote.

A letter will be written to the attorney general’s office to obtain an opinion on compensation for various charter township board and commission members.

An additional charge will be made for reviewing the planned unit development site plan of the final phase of the Glencoe Hills Development on Washtenaw Ave. because of additional plans submitted to the Township Planning Commission.

The Washtenaw County Road Commission will be contacted to see if the heavy volume of traffic on Golfside Road between Packard and Ellsworth Roads can be alleviated or reduced. The road commission will also be contacted about traffic problems in the Oak Park Subdivision area.