CRYSTAL LAKE TOWNSHIP IN BENZIE COUNTY MICHIGAN

PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING: 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 22, 2026 at the township hall. The public is welcome and encouraged to attend.

ATTENTION CRYSTAL LAKE TOWNSHIP VOTERS: In-person voting is 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at the township hall. The only proposal on the ballot will asks to allow the school district to levy the statutory rate not to exceed 18 mills on all property, except principal residence and other property exempted by law. A copy of the actual ballot is on display at the hall.
There is no early voting on an issue that is just state or local. Absentee ballots have been sent out. Many, MANY ballots coming back with incorrect addresses. The Post Office will not forward them. If you need still one, please contact the clerk immediately.*

(*) Please check with our clerk or deputy clerk to verify your mailing address. This is especially important if you are on our permanent absentee ballot mailing list. This will help with any confusion with those who have multiple addresses (i.e. alternate winter addresses.) We would also like to update your email and phone numbers, as many are missing from our files. Contact information is [email protected] or [email protected].

CLEAN UP AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS DAYS: General clean up days for our township residents are Saturdays, May 9th and August 8th, 8-11 or until trucks are full. Click here to take you to our webpage. We also have a page dedicated to just Recycling. Click here for Benzie County Recycling of hazardous Waste, Electronics and other Special Collections, the first one taking place at Frankfort High School on Saturday June 20th.

HELP WANTED: Crystal Lake Township Deputy Treasurer Position Available! Click here for job description. Applications due Monday, April 13. Pay Rate: $21.07 per hour Hours: During tax seasons, 20 to 30 per week. During training period, up to 20 hours per week and negotiable. Off tax seasons, may be up to 10 hours per week. Looking for a detail oriented, resourceful person that is NOT afraid of numbers, research, and talking to and assisting residents and property owners. Please submit cover letter, resume, and two to three references to Jill Marble, Crystal Lake Township Treasurer, PO Box 2129, Frankfort, MI 49635, or drop off at Crystal Lake Township Hall, 1651 Frankfort Hwy, Frankfort, MI 49635.

OTHER EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES: Click here for our Employment page as we are looking for a few good people: 1) a Deputy Supervisor to learn all duties assigned by law and many more tasks that are "assumed" 😮. It's a golden opportunity to get earn a little salary, be active and get involved on a quarter-time basis with your local government; 2) an Assistant CLT Zoning Administrator, to shadow our current ZA and learn this all-important township job. This is possibly a commitment that could lead to the applicant being hired full time when our ZA retires. We hope for an applicant who already has experience as a ZA. But if not, we appreciate that an applicant will need time to learn the job, thus be provided time and salary as an "apprentice"; 3) several Election workers who are interested in getting trained and taking a shift or two in any future elections. It is serious commitment AND fun! The Township is a congenial, people-and-task based place. Want to know more? We're here to answers questions. And ask anyone who works there about the rewarding experiences of serving our beautiful community.

COUNTY/TOWNSHIP MILLAGE RESET: This summer there will be a very important referendum on county and township financing. The issue on the August 5, 2026 ballot will be whether or not to reset the operating millage to previously approved limits. To comprehend why this needs to be accomplished, one must know about the bigger picture, how revenues are decided and why they have been continuously whittled down through the years by the Headlee Amendment. To be a fully knowledgeable voter on this signifcant issue, click here for a voter's booklet put out by Benzie County. Click here to become informed about what will be involved to reset -- and what will happen if it isn't reset-- the country and township operating millages to previously approved limits.

TRANSPARENCY IS OUR MIDDLE NAME: No secrets. Your local government reps at CLT want you to know what we know, what we do, what we are planning. If an issue takes you by surprise, it could be because it has taken us by surprise but not because we are trying to keep secrets. More likely, it is because communication was less-than-optimal if not absent all together. A successful democracy needs not only our board and staff members but also our constituents to be interested, involved and informed. It is ironic that in this day and age of so many different types of non-stop-in-your-face media we are still having trouble communicating with one another. We are on the record as very much wanting to communicate with our residents. How do we currently attempt that? First, we remind folks the best way to find out what is happening in your local government, for which there is no substitute, is to go to the meetings in person. Second, we also video record CLT Board meetings which you can then view post-meeting on our YouTube channel. We also update this website several times a week. Approved minutes are always on our website to read or download. If you stop by, we're ready to answer your questions in person. Lastly, we send out newsletters, enclosed with your tax bills, twice a year. If you have any other suggestions on how to share township information, we are all ears. How do we compare our transparency to others in the area? There are 88 "local" government units if you include all cities, various townships, villages, and county governments in Antrim, Kalkaska, Benzie, Grand Traverse, and Leelanau Counties. All local government bodies are required to post the date, time, and location of their meetings at the location the meeting is held; many just thumbtack this info to a bulletin board, all but one township has that information available online. All but three have a dedicated website, and 70 post their minutes online in a timely manner. At least eight local government units go as far as recording and posting their meetings online. Fewer than half post their agendas online. [For the record, a quick recap of what we do: Crystal Lake Township has a consistently updated website, posts the meeting schedules, agendas, documents, and minutes along with lots of other community- and township-relative information including all contact emails and numbers, provides videos of the board meetings, mails out a newsletter bi-annually and has regularly kept office hours for in-person service.]

THOUGHTS ABOUT YOUR TOWNSHIP BOARD: Political geography in America today is largely defined by a variegated patchwork of rural red and urban blue localities. Given this, one might expect most local governments to be dominated by one political ideology or the other. And yet, a recent survey --taken by Civic Pulse and supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY)-- of elected officials from counties, municipalities, townships, and school boards reveals this is far from the case. They found the majority (58%) have some degree of ideological pluralism represented on their board. Crystal Lake Township is reflective of that majority. Not only do we have a mix of party affiliations, we have a mix of world views, outlooks and opinions within those party labels. The important thing is whether we are representing the township constituency and doing our work to serve you in a respectful, legal and ethical way.