Thursday, September 19, 2024
Dear friends and neighbors of Menominee County,
I just saw a sign posted that was against “save the roads”.
This compelled me to write this plea.
Back in the 90s, the state changed the way they funded the road commissions in the state of Michigan. Over the next couple decades, road commissions had to cut, cut, cut, everywhere they possibly could, in order to keep their County Road commissions financially afloat.
In the last decade, a couple of our neighboring road commissions were nearing bankruptcy and were as much as eight months behind on making payments on typical monthly bills. The way both of these came out of their distress, was by passing road mileages, which funded their comebacks. Since then, these counties have seen vast improvements to their County Road inventories.
Road commissions are funded by gas tax, but all of the gas tax does not go to roads. Much of it actually goes to school funding, and other places.
What has happened over these years is the road commissions have only become maintenance facilitators; grading gravel and snow removal. Budgets barely provide funds for salt, except on state trunk lines. Our county roads are crumbling daily before our eyes. In my career, I traveled the upper peninsula and northeastern Wisconsin. It has made me sad to see how bad our roads actually are, especially compared to everyone else!
According to an article on January 12th, by MLive, Menominee County has the worst County Roads in the entire state of Michigan! We are number 1 worst roads out of 81 in the entire state!
This has nothing to do with management, or past management of our road commission, nor the people employed here. We actually have some very good people!! Based on the funding received and the miles of roads in the county, Menominee receives the least amount of “money per mile” when compared to the other 14 counties in the Upper Peninsula.
Currently, 11 of the 15 UP counties have a road millage County wide, or with at least three townships in the county.
Last November, after the death of one of our road commissioners, I was one of eight people that put their name in to be appointed for the position. In each person’s address to the county board, I was the only one that stated to the board that we need to find alternative sources to fund our roads.
If we don’t do something soon, the County Road’s will just go back to gravel and turn to dust.
I am conservative and definitely not a person to increase taxes, or especially a new tax!
However, Menominee County is in desperate need of additional road funding to supplement the maintenance money, provided by the gas tax!
Next week, please vote to support “fix the roads”
Tommy Olsen
Faithorn
Retired with 47 years experience in the Heavy Equipment Industry, Supplying machines to build and maintain roads
