Brevort Township Sets Road Work Priorities
Revises Project List Through Year 2011
By Paul Gingras

To ensure that the Mackinac County Road Commission acknowledges Brevort Township's road work priorities for the next five years, the Brevort Township Board of Trustees met with Road Commission Manager Karrie Abbitt, members of the township's road committee, and the public Monday, January 7.

After hearing from all parties, the township board revised the list of roads it would like serviced from 2008 through 2011. This was done, in part, so the township would have an established list in hand before the January 15 Road Commission meeting, at which the road commission took public input to decide which roads are to receive federal and state funding, a major source of revenue for rural roads.

Road Commission Chairman Frank Luepnitz, who attended the meeting, stressed the importance of township representation at such meetings. Advocates for certain areas help ensure that their projects remain on the Road Commission's list, he told The St. Ignace News. Since the commission works for voters throughout the county, it responds to public pressure at meetings, sometimes leading commissioners to remove a project scheduled in a particular township and replace it with projects elsewhere, he said.

This has sometimes caused consternation among township board members throughout the county, who have assumed that, once a local five-year plan is in writing, the list will be followed by the Road Commission.

Brevort Township Road Committee member David Craig pushed for township representation at the January 15 county road commission meeting, insisting that Black Point Road could be bumped off the list of federally funded roads without someone there to promote the project. Black Point, a major project for Brevort Township, is on the Commission's five-year plan for 2008, 2009, and 2010.

All federal projects are funded at $105,000. The federal government contributes $75,000. To receive the aid, local municipalities and the Road Commission are required to contribute $15,000 each. The scope of each project depends on how much can be done within the funding limit, Mrs. Abbitt said.

A township's five-year plan for its roads is not the same as the Road Commission's five-year plan for federally funded roads, Mrs. Abbitt pointed out.

A township's five-year plan establishes which roads it would like serviced in the years to come, and notes how area residents would like to spend money gathered through road millages.

Although the Road Commission creates a plan regarding which roads will receive federal funding, it does not have a comprehensive plan that spells out every project to be done in the next five years using other funding sources, Mrs. Abbitt said.

Township plans must be reviewed by the township and the Road Commission every year, she explained. This year, western townships representatives will meet with Mrs. Abbitt regarding their project wishes Tuesday, January 29. Eastern townships will meet with her Wednesday, January 30.

Questions arose in Brevort Township when the Road Commission sent its list of roads to receive federal funding over the next five years. To the township board, it appeared that several road projects had been left off the list. Indeed, road projects on the township's five year plan were not listed, nor should they have been, Mrs. Abbitt explained, because they were not intended to be federally funded projects.

"It is a good thing when townships come to our meetings and we come to theirs," Mrs. Abbitt said, acknowledging how easily the two different lists, and other road matters, can be confused.

Mrs. Abbitt brought a signed road contract regarding East Lake Road to the meeting. After consulting with township officials in late October, she was left with the impression that the township had decided to eliminate all outstanding contracts because she was new on the job and the township wanted to start over with its road plans.

The board made it clear that they did not desire to eliminate the East Lake Road contract and voted to ask the Road Commission to keep it on its list.

The East Lake project was supposed to be done in 2007, but was not. Mrs. Abbitt said it will be a priority in spring 2008.

The board is considering blacktop on area roads that receive heavy traffic, such as Black Point Road, Township Supervisor Ed Serwach noted. To mitigate the cost, this could be done in increments over several years, rather than paving a larger portion with chip-seal in one year, he said.

Mr. Luepnitz agreed. "I recommend you try to get hard surfaces on a couple" of area roads, he said.

Estimates for future blacktop road work are difficult to make, owing to fluctuating material prices, Mrs. Abbitt said, however, she agreed to make estimates for the board based on current prices.

Area residents have criticized the board for chip seal expenditures on Charles-Moran Road, Mr. Serwach said.

"What I was told was that we should have left it alone," he added, noting that money would be better spent on blacktop for Black Point Road. "Chip seal is okay on Knowles Road, and it is great on White Birch Road, but when you get to Charles-Moran Road, which has nowhere near the traffic as Black Point Road," chip seal is not appropriate, Mr. Serwach said.

Resident Jimmie Miller, who lives on Charles-Moran Road, insisted that chip seal on the route would be a waste of money, but for a different reason. Logging trucks that frequent part of the route have already caused major damage, he said.

"When that road gets done, it is going to be a major thoroughfare," he said.

Charles-Moran Road was in pretty good shape until about six years ago, he said. For two years, it was used heavily by logging trucks. Five or six truckloads of logs traveled the road every day, seven days a week, he explained.

"That is what happened to Charles-Moran Road, from M-123 to Mackinac Trail," he said. "If you try to chip that, you are wasting your money."

Logging traffic has decreased, but semi-trucks still use Charles- Moran as a shortcut to get from US-2 to I-75, he added.

The board voted to pay a $4,670.78 Road Commission invoice for the county's pavement preservation program. The township is to be reimbursed $2,335.35 by the Mackinac County Board of Commissioners, Mrs. Abbitt explained. It is part of a program in which townships, the Road Commission, and the county contribute $10,000 each for road projects, each year.

The rebate should be received within two weeks, board members noted.

Fire Chief Mark Peterson, who works for the Road Commission, called it "money well spent."

The invoice was for improvements made by a truck-mounted AMZ machine, which is used to preserve blacktop. Throughout the county, it is used to repair fissures and cracks in roads, road shoulders, potholes, and "alligatored areas," Mr. Peterson said. It was used recently to repair cracks on Black Point Road, which is superior to filling cracks with tar, an old repair method, he added.

The following are the roads the township plans to improve in coming years:

2008: East Lake Road. Langdon Road, Black Point Road, Knowles Road, Francis Street, and Charlotte Street

2009: Wartella Road, Charles- Moran Road, and Black Point Road

2010: Black Point Road 2011: Dukes Road 2012: No road priorities established