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JULY 1, 2024 Vol. 37, No. 14
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Mount Clemens officials mourn end of cable commission
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The Park Hotel as depicted on a postcard from the early 20th century. Its location is currently home to the Park Place Towers and a garage housing the old hotel’s well. Image provided by the Crocker House Museum and Gardens
BY DEAN VAGLIA dvaglia@candgnews.com
See CABLE on page 14A
BACK TO ‘BATH CITY’ BY DEAN VAGLIA dvaglia@candgnews.com
MOUNT CLEMENS — It is Friday, May 17, and Lois Lombardo is in the fight of her life. The owner of Olympia Salon & Spa on Cass Avenue is trying to work her new water pump in a shed on the other side of the city, but nothing is going right. She flips switches, turns valves and repositions a hose in hope of getting the pump to send its water to the surface. Suddenly, a breakthrough: The pump roars to life and bathes Lombardo and the rest of the shed with dirt-brown water stinking of rotten eggs, a scent that hangs in the air for the next hour. From the senses alone, it is hard to believe anyone could find value in extracting such a liquid, but Lom-
bardo knows what she has. It is the reason she came to Mount Clemens, and it is the key to how she plans to revive the century-old industry that put Mount Clemens on the map.
Welcome to Bath City
Mount Clemens is known as Bath City, or at least it is to its residents. Anyone trying to hunt down the signs of a citywide bathing industry have to look hard to find anything beyond baked-in echoes to verify this odd claim to fame, and even then, all they have to work with is a preserved pump in Clemens Park and a historical marker on the east side of Select Specialty Hospital. For something that the city clings to as its identity, the lacking modern footprint of the bath industry almost seems inscrutable. But in some ways, it is fitting See BATH CITY on page 8A
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MOUNT CLEMENS — Members of the Mount Clemens City Commission took on a sorrowful tone at the June 17 meeting as the first round of votes to end the Cable Communications Commission were cast. The cable commission was formed in 1991 as an agreement between the city and Mount Clemens Community Schools to produce and provide programming for public, educational and governmental channels. The commission oversaw the operation under the agreement and met at Mount Clemens High School on a bimonthly basis. Shows produced under the commission’s watch, including city and school board meeting broadcasts, were aired on the Mount Clemens Community Schools “Bath City Beat” YouTube channel. According to supporting documents from the meeting packet, the school district decided to end the agreement effective June 30. The end of the agreement comes about 10 months after the commission approved a digital communications contract with