Clinton Township trustees approve cost share for roadwork

CLINTON TOWNSHIP — Over $866,000 was allocated for roadwork projects across Clinton Township, with the Board of Trustees entering two cost-sharing agreements with the county on April 13.

The two agreements with the Macomb County Department of Roads, the agency that owns most of the non-neighborhood roads in the township, cover repairs to both major roadways and mending work for neighborhood streets.

The agreement with the county for the 2026 Pavement Preservation Program, costing the township $809,130 as a 50% project match, sees “Detail 7” asphalt repairs planned for Canal Road from Hayes Road to Clinton River Road and Moravian Drive from Metro Parkway to Cass Avenue.

“(Detail 7) is a full-depth, basically replacement of a slab,” said Mary Bednar, the township’s public services director. “They’ll cut out or saw cut and do a replacement of that area.”

An asphalt overlay of Romeo Plank Road from Clinton River Road to Cass Avenue is also included in the agreement.

The agreement with the county for the 2026 Subdivision Pavement Preservation Program, costing the township $57,558 as a 25% project match, has work planned for subdivision roads as well as Laurel Street from Gratiot Avenue to Hardy Street and Iroquois Street from Gratiot Avenue to Radde Street.

The program, which Township Supervisor Paul Gieleghem says the county established last year, serves as somewhat of a stopgap maintenance effort for neighborhood streets.

“It is not a permanent fix,” Gieleghem said. “It is an overlay. It is a capping of the road. But what we found is that in areas where this has been done, given new standards that have been put in place, those caps last a lot longer than what they have in the past.”

The program serves as an alternative to neighborhoods establishing a special assessment district, which is a localized property tax raised to pay for select local roads. With numerous difficulties facing the SAD process in certain areas — be it unwillingness or inability from residents to support funding a SAD, or there not being enough properties to reasonably share a SAD’s cost — the program allows for some repairs to be made in those areas, something Gieleghem says the township has lobbied the county for in its ongoing road funding campaign.

“I’d like to take some degree of credit on behalf of the township for this program’s creation,” Gieleghem said. “We focused in on those areas where we know that we cannot get a special assessment district … which then, if there’s full reconstructs on those streets adjacent to them, the cost would actually be lower.”

 

Public comment proposal
Trustees also debated adopting a new policy for public comments at township board meetings. The policy would limit commenters to three minutes of speaking during two public comment portions, one at the start of the meeting for agenda-related items and one at the end for subjects not on the agenda. While this policy would bring the township in line with its surrounding communities with respect to policies for public comments, it would be a sharp departure from the current policy that allows people three minutes of public commenting on every agenda item along with a dedicated public comment portion at the end of meetings.

The response to the policy was divided. At least four members of the public who spoke were against making the change, while Township Clerk Kim Meltzer and Trustee Dan Kress were the most heavily against making the change due and thus limiting the speaking opportunities of township stakeholders. Trustee Shannon King proposed extending the time allowed for comments under the new policy to five minutes, but that amendment was rejected by a 3-3 vote.

Trustee Bruce Wade proposed postponing voting on the policy until the next meeting, which is April 27, where he expected Trustee Julie Matuzak to be present in order to have a full board to make the vote. Postponement was approved by the board, with Meltzer and Kress being the only votes against, and no further action was taken on the proposal.