Raises approved in Oxford Township

At their Nov. 20 board meeting, Oxford Township Trustee approved raises for the supervisor, clerk and treasurer.

Supervisor since May 1999, Bill Dunn will collect $82,369 in 2020. Treasurer Joe Ferrari and Clerk Curtis Wright will each earn $72,501. These wages represent 4.76 percent increases for the trio. For the 2019 fiscal year, Dunn’s reported salary was $78,447 and Ferrari and Wright each slotted in at $69,049.

Lions will be out next weekend

Mark your calendars. Members of the Oxford Lions Club will be on our local streets hawking newspapers the first weekend in December. According to Lion Charlie Garrard, the Lions Goodfellow newspaper sale is a tradition which is over 50 years old.

Members and associates of the Lions Club will be on the streets from Thursday, Dec. 5 to Saturday, Dec. 7 selling 1,000 copies of this edition, all donated by Sherman Publications, Inc., owner of The Oxford Leader since 1955.

Proceeds will be used to create Christmas baskets filled with groceries (including a ham or turkey), clothing and new toys for the community’s less fortunate folks.

Squaw Lake name remains the same

While it may have been offensive to at least one person, to the Oxford Township Board of Trustees, Squaw Lake will keep its name. The issue was settled at the board’s Nov. 20 meeting.

According to documents from the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN), a person named Christina West has proposed changing the name of Squaw Lake to Point Lake. The proposal was submitted on July 27.

“Squaw is an offensive and derogatory term for a Native American woman,” West wrote. “The name should be changed to something not offensive.”

A plat for the Lakeland subdivision, recorded on Oct. 2, 1920, and a copy of an 1872 map that hangs in the township meeting room both show the lake’s name as Squaw.