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We spoke to Mayor Brian Marl Friday at Henne Field.
Marl discussed two new businesses in the industrial parks, including Drinkmate and BankSupplies Inc., as well as Perfect Scenario, located in The Oak shopping center.
Marl also gives an update on the onboarding of Dan Swallow, chosen to be Saline's city manager. It's going to take some time, he says.
In addition, the city's task force on the Rec Center will seek more time, backing off the extremely fast timeline that was set initially. Marl also touches on the fire service assessment.
More News from Saline
- Here's the Schedule for Saturday at Saline Summerfest Bands, beer tents and a whole lot more!
- Video: A Tour Through The Rentschler Museum Yard Sale, Which Continues Saturday Walk through the Rentschler Farm Museum yard sale with Dean Girbach, on the board of directors for the Saline Area Historical Society, which manages the farm museum.
Replies
Ali McDonald
Neighbor
7-20-2025 1:52pm
Would urge the city to NOT privatize the Rec Center or sell it. Many in city government understand the value of this asset as evidenced by the membership and usage as well as the fact that nearby cities and towns are spending or have recently spent several million dollars to build what Saline already has AND these locations understand that while rec centers are not and are not intended to be profit centers and add immense value to the cities they serve. A few simply do not get it and that is hard to understand (and seriously, investing significant funds recently in an already very much more than adequate senior center but continuing to deny the Rec Center is very difficult to understand).
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Toby Crotty
Neighbor
7-20-2025 7:33pm
Ali. There is a reason you don’t understand. You choose not to. Investing in our seniors health and wellbeing is much more important than investing in a recreation center that has continued to lose money and only serves a small portion of our city’s community. Remember many of us seniors have built, lived and supported this town for decades. That’s what makes a Community. Not frivolous spending on niceties but rather necessities.
You have drank Marl’s kool aid and obviously will blindly support ANYTHING on the mayor’s agenda. We get it so please stop with your rhetoric that only focuses on your unrequited devotion to “The Mayor”
Ali McDonald
Neighbor
7-21-2025 6:40am
We are seniors and fully familiar with both facilities. Perhaps what is not understood is the number of seniors who use the Recreation Center, in particular the aquatic center as arthritis for many of us means water is one of the few ways we can exercise. Many of course also use other areas of the facility. To say the Senior Center offers more for the health of seniors than the Recreation Center is laughable. Having said that, we also belong to and use the Senior Center and with that first-hand knowledge we and many other seniors we spend time with at the Senior Center are befuddled by the expenditure on the already more than adequate Senior Center while there is debate over support for the long neglected Recreation Center. We believe the money would have better been used for the Recreation Center. And, since we are talking about tax dollars of ALL citizens, it would seem the more equitable and better spend of that kind of money if one is to be prioritized over the other is on a facility that offers programs and services that ALL Saline residents can utilize and that would be the Recreation Center.
Ali McDonald
Neighbor
7-21-2025 6:45am
And for the record, have no idea where the Mayor stands on Recreation Center support or Recreation Center vs. Senior Center expenditures. Let's not make this about anything other than what it is, a view based on personal experience and priorities.
Toby Crotty
Neighbor
7-21-2025 3:27pm
Never mind the fact that a percentage of us seniors on fixed incomes can’t afford Rec Center memberships due to the cost even with the residents discount. Your argument is certainly valid it’s just narrow minded.
7-28-2025 1:54pm
Someone's got to fund it.
It's used by people in several communities - but only one community funds it.
And that's the issue.
Spread the funding over 30,000 residents instead of 10,000, and it becomes more palatable.
