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NILES — One of the Niles community’s most popular events is set to take shape in a few months.

The 21st annual Hunter Ice Festival will take place from Friday, Jan. 17 to Sunday, Jan. 19 in Niles’ downtown area. The Niles City Council voted 7-1 to approve the annual event, with fourth ward councilmember Michael Thompson voting against it.

The annual event is free and open to the public. Six expertly carved ice sculptures from prominent artists will be placed around the downtown for people to view. The Festival is sponsored by the Niles Downtown Development Authority Main Street, directed by the organization’s promotion committee and underwritten by the Hunter Foundation. The goals of the festival are to encourage commercial activity in the downtown area and tell the history of the Hunter Family and their ice carvings and ice cream. Activities will include ice carving competition, chili crawl, ice games and sledding. The 15th annual Frigid 5K Run will take place the morning of Saturday, Jan. 18. 

Ice Sculptures and competitions will be taking place from the NW corner of 5th and Main to Riverfront Park including the Amphitheater and between Cedar and Sycamore Streets. They requested that all fees be waived. 

Thompson cast the lone dissenting vote because he does not believe the city should contribute funds toward events.

“Not only do I applaud the efforts of the Hunter Rice Festival, my family and I almost always go out of our way to support it via purchases at and around the festival, especially the exotic cupcake sales of LifePlan,” he said. “Having said that, I cannot support the theft of one group of citizens to support a party for others even if I am one of those attending that party. This legal ‘coffering’ has been going on for far too long and should be ended. Just because the recipients of that theft may be to our liking, it does not make coffering moral. We should be looking more towards a society working together via voluntary association rather than forced in coercion.”

In other business, the council voted 7-1 to accept the bid of Kirk M. Proshwitz of Buchanan, Michigan in the amount of $16,500 for the fireworks display for the annual Fourth of July celebration to be held July 4, 2024 with a rain date of July 5.

Thompson cast the dissenting vote.

“I find it the height of irony that the government of Niles takes resources from its citizens to celebrate our stopping another government from taking resources from its citizens,” he said. “For those of you who think that the War of Independence was sought over taxation without representation, I would direct them to reading Ben Franklin and Murray Rothbard, among others, whose writings on the American Revolutionary War are based on the contemporary views of that day.”

In further business, council: 

• Approved payment to Berrien County in the amount of $8,277.73 associated with the Aug. 6 early voting costs and charged the expenses to the Clerk’s election supplies budget.
• Approved the Stop Loss Insurance Policy with Sun Life for a policy period of Jan. 1, 2025 through Dec. 31, 2025 with a monthly premium of $41,453.32.
• Approved renewal of the Basic Life Insurance premium, Basic Accidental Death and Disability Premium, and Long Term Disability premium and charged the premiums to the General Fund and Utilities Budgets.
• Authorized the Fire Department to purchase hose nozzles from Macqueen Equipment of Delafield, Wisconsin at a cost of $6,552 and utilized ARPA funds for this purchase.
• Authorized the Fire Department to purchase two portable battery-operated fans from Macqueen Equipment of Delafield, Wisconsin at a cost of $8,200 and utilize ARPA funds for this purchase.
• Authorized the Fire Department to purchase fire hose from Darley Fire Equipment of Itasca, Illinois at a cost of $37,448 and utilized ARPA funds for this purchase.
• Authorized the Fire Department to purchase a hand-held Thermal Imaging Camera from Municipal Emergency Services of Indianapolis, Ind. at a cost of $3,864.04 and utilized ARPA funds for the purchase.