Image

(This news release is from the City of Saline)
The City of Saline, specifically, its Rec Center Sustainability Taskforce, has announced a new capital campaign and scholarship fund to benefit aquatics programming in the greater Saline area.
This new initiative is named in honor of the late Tom “TJ” Johnston – a longtime swim instructor and volunteer in the Saline community.
TJ was born and raised in Ann Arbor. He began his professional career working in broadcasting before transitioning to commercial/residential development. A lifelong competitive swimmer, TJ took great pride in being swim instructor for nearly 25 years.
“TJ was one of a kind, a once in a lifetime type of friend, mentor, and cheerleader. He cared deeply about the Saline Rec Center and about his swim students. He had so much life and work experience, he was not shy about sharing his knowledge. TJ was not only a swim instructor, but he really got to know each of the families of his students,” said Carla Scruggs, Director of Saline Parks & Recreation.
Carla added, “He is missed dearly, but we are excited to be able to preserve his memory by creating a scholarship fund in his name. I hope everyone that was taught, was a parent of a student, worked with or knew of TJ, would consider a monetary gift toward the scholarship fund. The money will be used to provide swim lesson scholarships to children from families in need. This is such a wonderful way to preserve the memory of TJ, I’m 100 perrcent sure he would love this idea. It would have brought a tear to his eye.”
In addition to the scholarship fund portion of this capital campaign, additional funds raised will provide seed money for remodeling the aquatics center at the Saline Rec Center, located at 1866 Woodland Drive in the City of Saline.
Greg Hohenberger, member of the Saline Rec Center Sustainability Taskforce & Director of Leisure Services for Canton Township added, “TJ was a one of a kind man that led a storied life, but was never happier than when he was teaching kids to swim. He loved passing on his joy for swimming.”
Those interested in contributing to the Tom "TJ" Johnston Scholarship Fund, they can visit
http://cityofsaline.org/parks and tap or click on the link to donate through PayPal.
Sunny, with a high of 71 and low of 40 degrees. Sunny in the morning, clear overnight.
No, the motion to approve & adopt was made by Ceo, seconded by Lesch. If you're interested in an unedited/unredacted version of Monday's meeting, the link to the video recording of our budget work session and regular meeting is provided below -
Thank you to those Council members who support the citizens and the Rec Center.
Please note, the rec center now requires 1/3 to almost 1/2 of its operations be funded by the City of Saline taxpayers. Approximately 10% of our City population uses the facility, while 2/3 of the members are non-resident. It’s time the non City residents of the Saline community pays its fair share.
What happened with the funding for the needed repairs at the Recreation Center? With all of the programs and community services provided at the Recreation Center, the nearby communities spending tens of millions of dollars to build new Recreation Centers, and the number of members/high usage for the Center and part
Name all the municipalities of 10,000 people that have their own Rec Center with a pool. I'm generally curious.
Saline Area Schools needs to take over the Rec Center with a Rec creation millage and maybe a short bond issue, too, for improvements.
The mayor and city council love to spend taxpayer dollars frivolously. More and more $$$ into the rec center, that needs to stop. We still don’t have drinkable water and yet the city keeps raising rates. Can’t speak for everyone but I would much rather have clean water than a “lazy river!”
Sorry, Toby Crotty. Do not align to your assessment or thoughts. While nearby communities are spending tens of millions of dollars to build Recreation Centers (because of their value to citizens and communities), Saline is in the fortunate position of already having a very good facility in place which now needs to
You avoided my main point. The rec center is a nice amenity for those that use it. However, it is not a necessity. Clean safe water that we pay exorbitant rates for IS a necessity for EVERYONE!
The unprofessional behavior while in the supposed role of being a journalist when talking to that protester is ridiculous. The incorrect information and “facts” you spewed during the conversation are just par for the course. Thanks for showing up!
I agree with your comments about this journalist. I use the word journalist loosely here, as a journalist should be bringing forth the views of the people they are interviewing, not bringing their obvious bias into every forced conversation.
I understand the right 4 peaceful protests, why expose children to hate and show disrespect to our flag, what is that teaching the children. As a Korean Veteran I oppose anyone disrespecting our countries FLAG, shame on the protesters,