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MCCC millage campaign hits final push

Doreen Amarah, Deb Dushane, Kate Hall, and President Kojo Quartey discuss their stategy for going door-to-door in Berlin.

Students, faculty members, and community members have all joined the millage campaign. 

Parmeshwar Coomar, dean of Applied Science and Engineering Technology Division, has been helping since President Kojo Quartey asked for help from community members about three months ago.

Coomar said campus facilities are decaying, which has left our campus behind.

“It is important we keep up with the rest of the state to attract students to a safe and modern facility,” Coomar said. “An asset to the community, such as the college, needs community support to continue to serve the community.”

If the millage passes, they will have more opportunity to have modern facilities such as adopting technology, Coomar said.

“The college will be here long after we are gone as individuals,” he said. “The college is bigger than any individual; it is all of us together.”

Coomar has organized community members and students and staff in the Technology division to spend weekends canvassing Frenchtown.  

“We have put up signs, talked to businesses, gone door-to-door, and facilitated voter registration to help with the effort,” Coomar said.

He said anywhere from 10 to 15 volunteers have come out to help so far.

“I am very proud of our student volunteers, staff, faculty and community members that have helped,” Coomar said.

Kate Hall, an MCCC alumni, said she decided to go door-to-door because she supports the millage, and the college needs it.

Deb Dushane said she helped because it needed to be done.

Dushane said the millage is going to help secure funds for much needed updates at the college.

Doreen Amarh, MCCC alumnus, said she volunteered to go door-to-door because it will help students and help improve facilities. She wants the school to stay open.

“For the last two years, I've been working for the millage,” Amarh said.

Quartey said maintenance faculty Dale Parker and Brian Rorke have also assisted in door-to-door campaigning.

As Election Day looms two weeks away, Kojo said he hopes to finish going door-to-door within the next week.

They have sections of Berlin, Bedford, Frenchtown, Ash, Ida, and Luna Pier to finish then the door-to-door campaigning will be complete.

Although door-to-door campaigning is coming to an end, Quartey has a few more plans.

“We won’t stop,” Quartey said. “The last week we begin to ramp up and hit some special areas and do some special campaigning.”

They focused on larger populated areas for the door-to-door campaigning, so Quartey plans to reach the rural areas by placing millage material into some of their mailboxes.

The special campaigning includes robo calls and printing the millage story Monroe Evening News ran in their Friday, Oct. 21 edition that announced the county commissioners endorsed the millage.

Quartey said the Democratic Party will help make calls.

“The most likely voters will get robo calls from us,” he said.

Quartey said they will print 1000 to 1500 copies of the county commissioner story on quality paper and distribute them.

“The commissioners represent the various townships in the county,” Quartey said. “The fact that they are supporting us means that essentially the entire county is supporting us.”