Leelanau and Grand Traverse County commissioners are requesting state funds to improve an intersection in west Garfield Township, as the area is now seeing enough traffic to pose a safety hazard, according to some officials.
Construction on Grandview Parkway/ Front Street in Traverse City started in March and is still ongoing. It has caused regular backups for people who enter or leave Leelanau County via M-22. Some commuters have tried to circumvent this by entering the county further inland by taking Cedar Run Road to Gray Road, which is called Bugai Road north of M-72.
Unfortunately, the intersections here don’t seem to be able to accommodate that much flow, as evidenced by the presence of stop signs instead of traffic lights. And these intersections could see similar traffic next summer when the state begins construction of a roundabout just northwest of the current project.
“Even without the construction next year, it’s still a problem today. Every time a house is built in Bingham, Suttons Bay, or Leelanau townships, another car comes down the road. … This should have been in a long time ago,” said Commissioner Jim O’Rourke, who represents Bingham and part of Elmwood Township. “It’s bad right now; (just) go out and look at the traffic in the morning.”
Although the sections of road are outside Leelanau County boundaries, at least two commissioners — O’Rourke and board Chairman Ty Wessell — and the Leelanau County Road Commission have been in talks with the neighboring Grand Traverse County to see if they can improve these intersections, since the high car volume could pose a risk to people from both counties.
Since neither county’s road commission has funds to spare on the project, the Leelanau County board passed a joint resolution at their Oct. 8 meeting requesting state support for funds for safety improvements at the intersection of Grey Road and Cedar Run Lane.
The county board also accepted a donation of 20 trees through DTE Energy’s ReLeaf Michigan tree planting program, to be planted in Veronica Valley Park at a future date.
The donation was accepted by a 4-1 vote, with Commissioner Kama Ross recusing herself from the vote because she could be compensated as project forester. Ross said that she will only serve in this role if the county’s current forester, Ellie Johnson, is unavailable. The only dissenting vote was from Melinda Lautner.
Lautner opposed this motion at the board’s Oct. 1 and Oct. 8 meetings because she argued that the ReLeaf project should be treated as a grant and required approval from the parks and recreation commission before going to the full board. Interim Administrator Richard Lewis said that it was not a grant, but a donation, although Lautner still objected that it was against procedure.
“Let me ask a silly question: Why wouldn’t they approve a project to plant trees?” Lewis asked Lautner at the Oct.1 executive session, as he seemed to find the matter trivial.
“Yes, we didn’t follow procedure, and we keep not doing that in different ways,” Commissioner Doug Rexroat commented before voting to accept the donation at the Oct. 8 session. “I do understand the situation – it’s just hard for me to come around to see what’s wrong with trees.”
Also at their October annual meeting, the board of commissioners agreed to sell a small shelter at their central mobile tower at 1095 S. Pitt Rd. in Leland to T-Mobile for a nominal fee of one dollar. T-Mobile previously leased space on towers here and in Maple City in June for $77,520.
Per this agreement, T-Mobile purchased an equipment shelter on the site compound from the county for a dollar. According to executive documents, Sprint turned ownership of this shelter over to the county for free in 2014 after they terminated their tower lease agreement and stopped providing service there. Since then, the shelter has been vacant.
“We felt like it was in the best interest of the county to let them have it for a dollar. They have to take care of it, and it now belongs to them. But the more important part of it is they will now be located on the tower, which will become a revenue stream for the county,” Lewis said.
The county board also: - Unanimously approved an addendum to their Michigan Leadership Institute (MLI) contract. The county previously contracted the MLI to help them find a new administrator/chief financial officer in March. After interviewing seven candidates for this position this summer, the county was not prepared to offer the role to any of them and agreed to search for a new administrator instead.
The addendum reflects this new objective and provides an additional $4,250 fee, for a total of $8,750. The contract says that the MLI will establish a new timeline for the search. The county board has previously said that they want the commissioners elected by voters on Nov. 5 to participate in choosing the next administrator.
- Issued “intent to apply” letters to the county sheriff’s office, emergency services department, senior services department, parks and recreation committee, planning commission, Habitat for Humanity, Homestretch Housing, and the county’s Energy Futures Task Force. These organizations seek 2% grants from the Grand Traverse Band in fall/winter 2024.
“We’re not approving the submission (of 2% grant applications); we’re approving permission to write the application,” Wessell clarified.
The board approved this item by a 5-1 vote with Lautner opposed, saying “while I appreciate the fact that we should put a lot of grant requests through … we’re kind of competing with ourselves when we get a lot.”
- Unanimously approved an intergovernmental agreement with Leelanau Township for the construction of a communications tower on Kitchen Road.
