Special Meeting Minutes December 14, 2015 7:00 pm These proceeding tonight are being recorded to help prepare the minutes Meeting called to order in village hall by President Cherokee Thompson at 7:00pm. Roll Call: Present: Paul Griffin, Linda Norton, Steven Rogusta, Dave Sumner, Cherokee Thompson, Mary Harrison, Rhonda Griffin, Rick Greiffendorf. Absent: Heather Alten. Pledge of Allegiance was led by Trustee: P. Griffin. Thank you for coming to our special meeting we are here tonight to discuss Bridge. We have here tonight Steve Bishop from Fleis & Vandenbrink also we have Susan Hammond from County Commissioners, Larry Humel from VBCO Road Commission, Deb Shields from Senator Tonya Schuitmaker office, Jennifer Humphries from Rep. Nesbitts office. I want to thank you all for coming. Also I want to thank all the residents for coming out tonight. Big thank you to all the trustee's that have pulled together this past week to keep things running. Anne Brown is here also she is running for Nesbitts position. At this time I would like to ask you to hold all comments and questions until our speakers have spoken. We will give you an opportunity to ask questions. At this time Steve you have the floor. A packet has been handed out to each of the board members that has a lot of information of what has happened and what the options are. I want to go over these options. Packet contains pictures of the bridge, also forms that have been filled out to be in state compliance for your files. Follow up of the inspection. The bridge is inspected the every couple years. Look at the tab that's labeled SIB Act 51 fund. Whatever the solution is developed in fixing the bridge. I want to discuss the financing available to make this happen I suspect the village is not going to be able to afford to fund this with cash what funding options that are available. The SIB State Infrastructure Bank for financing at a low interest rate. There are different options for financing out there need to find what is right for the village. There are four options for repairing the bridge, please don't consider these the only options these are only thoughts on paper. There may be questions like can we combine options one and two and the answer is always going to be yes. How do we as a group package these repairs to get the benefits you want? Each Option has a brief describes, Estimated Cost, Load Restrictions, Estimate Life expectancy, Maintenance Cost, Estimate open traffic. Option one would be the bare bones option a band-aide effect and which it would have a low weigh limit. Not a permanent solution. Quick, and dirty solution. Five to Ten years life span not a long term solution with high maintenance cost. Option two: More involved replaces the middle steel beams. Life span of approximately ten to twenty years. Option three: Further improvements would replace all the steel under the bridge. With this is option we could get the state involved with financing the requirements would require that state regulations would have to be met. Life span twenty to thirty years, Maintenance cost would be Medium level.
Option Four: Replacing the bridge completely. 1.5 million dollars for this project. Bare bones bridge no fancy railings no sidewalks or no lighting. Also the options for culvert in place of the bridge would involve the DNR to give permission due to the black river. Still looking at the cost of 1.5 million. At this time the board member ask questions D. Sumner question having a single lane bridge. Steve stated that we may end up with more problems. Also D. Sumner ask the question about the MDOT Loan is that a guarantee. Steve stated that no it s not a guarantee they operate the funds for bridge repairs because you re in an emergency need right now that will elevate your status when they look at your bridge compared to other bridges. Your competing state wide for this money we need convince this committee that your bridge is in more need than others. R. Greiffendorf stated that we need to let them know that is effect the commerce in this area with all the blue berry farms in the area. We have millions of dollars of commerce that is traveled on this bridge to get to the State Road M43. S. Hammond stated that the income that the village has coming in on taxes is not enough to brow money for the bridge repair and she would rather just shut the road/bridge down I don't think we as the village of 200 people can afford to support the bridge for the township or county. If you take a loan for any of these options you won t have any money to plow the roads in the winter, and if you look at our roads we can t even afford to repair them. L. Humel, I am on the board for the bridge funds. To submit an application now village emergency it s a federal/state match. At a federal level are there any grants out there. No-one has been able to locate any. Question by C. Thompson is there no such thing as critical bridge list any more. Also C. Thompson asked L. Humel how this will affect the county with the road being closed. L. Humel stated that it is the only direct road to the main road they have looked at other routes and that the other roads will suffer from the amount of traffic that will have a definite impact on the other roads. There is more traffic that travels thru Breedsville than most realize. A road count was done on all roads the amount of traffic on 215 was more than 380. S. Hammond asks if we could change the village limits. Residents in the surrounding area that attended the meeting was not happy with the increased amount of traffic that they are receiving on their roads with the heavy trucks that are passing thru. R. Greiffendorf thanked L. Humel for the quick response from the county when this first happened. Also C Thompson thanked the Dave and Brad Thomas for calling to let us know there was a problem with the bridge and for them staying at the bridge until the county arrived.
R. Griffin wants to ask the Columbia township fire department how this affects them. D. Johnson stated the response time will be effected they use their station 2 that's on 52 nd. To 24 th. Johnson also stated that all area Department have been informed of the bridge closure. Many residents as well as officials are all concerned with the weight limits on all the other bridges and roads on the detour route. And what is the realistic solution to fixing the bridge and what is the township and county looking at to help with the repairs of the bridge. C. Thompson made a statement that if we don't fix the bridge everyone in the county is going to pay for it. It's going to beat the tire out of the roads and older bridges. So when I go and ask people for help they need to look at do I help Breedsville out or do I repave the roads in three years. And we still don't have a bridge. What is the lesser of the two evils? R. Griffin also ask what is the effect from the business her in town. Bob from the corner store stated that in the last couple days since the bridge was closed his sales are down 25 percent. C. Thompson states this is a big loss for this little store and that he also spoke with the other businesses in town and them to have been effected by this closure. C. Thompson stated that we would do everything we can to keep the businesses and future businesses in Breedsville. The Farmers were asked what the effect will be. That when the harvest season starts it will be a big impact on them as well. The floor was opened to the residents for questions. Beverly from 52 nd street stated that the increase of traffic on her road has increased a lot not only with cars but trucks and they just had the bridge repaired on 52 nd street and concerned that the big trucks that are going over the road will damage the bridge on 52 nd as well as damage to the road from the heavy trucks. She stated that she didn't mind paying a small millage to help with this. C. Thompson stated that we have contacted everyone from the state to help. It's going to take time this is not going to happen overnight. A resident ask about a way to do a Go fund me account to help Jimmy Valentine I live on the corner of 41 about the trucks we hear the trucks the logging trucks j breaking all day and night it just shakes our house. They are obviously over weight maybe there's a way we can lean on the industries that have for so many years have taken advantage of this bridge and profited I'm sure greatly from the use of it and if they would like to continue to profit from this avenue that I m sure that a lot of them are used to using seems to be a very convent road for the logging trucks and a lot of other industries to go thru maybe they need to pony up a little bit and help us out here.
S. Hammond stated that maybe the township or county could have a special assessment to help the village out with this cost. C. Thompson stated that we need to work together to get this done. Jeff Green from 192 w. Main with the option 123 by the time it s paid for it s at the end of life expectancy. It s obvious that we need to replace the bridge. I think the village has another option and that's a do nothing option there is obvious a lot of commerce that travels 215 all the way through Grand Junction thru Pullman to Fennville it has an eminence value to the county as well taxes goes as the state as far as commerce goes. I think the county and state need to have some accountability for the failure of this bridge and the roads in this area. You have replaced all the bridges in the area but this one. Michigan allows some of the heaviest trucks in the country to use these roads it beating the heck out of the roads all over the place. I was doing the numbers while Mr. Bishop was speaking and you re asking the average household to pay at least $200.00 or more a year in taxes to cover the cost of the loan that's a lot of money. So it s a real commercial interest for the state and county to fix that bridge to keep 215 open as it is to the farmers in the area, but we can't afford it. I was wondering if the village board would consider a do nothing option and let the county and state and township step in and open it back up for commerce. Someone stated that there is one problem with this the Governor will suspend elected boards and town governments and installing emergency financial management. C. Thompson asks S. Hammond about the Millage if it need to be put to a vote. Need to ask the township to collaborate with the village to increase the millage. It would have to be but to a vote. C. Thompson stated we our best thing to do is to collaborate with the township. Holding the bridge hostage is not the answer. We need to find any funding for this it takes. We have turned it into the insurance to see if it was covered. We are doing everything within our powers. We are were within inches of having a major disaster in our village there was a rod that shot out of the bridge and came with 32 nd of an inch from hitting the gas line that is attached to the bridge. We were really lucky someone up there must like us. Is there any more questions? Someone ask what the stability of what is there? S. Bishop stated that if the dam break didn't take out the bridge then chances are it won t but it all depends how the weather is. C. Thompson stated we are going to keep asking for help until we get help. Discussion on the route of detour. Question of foot traffic is it safe for foot traffic. S. Bishop will check on the foot traffic safety. Is there any other questions? Someone ask how long consumers were going to be here working on the gas line. R. Greiffendorf stated that consumers have been absolutely wonderful in their response time, and working day and night to get the gas line relocated.
Jeff Green stated they wanted to comment you Cherokee and village council for getting this together so quickly and being prepared. C. Thompson stated thank you also our next meeting will be January 12 th at 7:00 pm if anyone wants to come out your more than welcome we may have more updates at that time on the bridge any one is welcome. I want to thank all you great folks in the community for coming out tonight. If it weren't for you all we wouldn't have a village and we appreciate you paying your taxes and living here it's a quiet place to live everyone knows everyone it nice that you can walk out your home and wave at your neighbor and say hi we don't want to lose that in our village. I would like to thank Steve and John for working on this they dropped everything they were working on and came down right away to help us out. Most companies don't do that they are a great company and that is why we chose to use them. I want to thank you both. Sue, Larry, Deb, and Jennifer we appreciate you coming and hope that you get back with some news on what you know because we can use all the information we can get. I want to also thank everyone that came out tonight is there anything any of the board members would like to say? R. Greiffendorf stated states give us the money. Everyone laughed Meeting adjourned at 8:45 pm. Thank you. Linda Norton, Clerk, Village of Breedsville