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HARRISON TOWNSHIP — Residents looking to improve several canals won at the April 22 Harrison Township Board of Trustees meeting as the project finally moved forward after weeks of revisions.
Structured around the resident-initiated and funded special assessment district process, the earlier steps to fund the dredging of canals included residents along Riverdale and Powers streets who did not see any value by being part of the SAD. Trustees agreed with those residents and put the SAD approval process on hold.
“Looking at it and working with some of the people who were involved with the project, we decided that sort of to reflect what the board had said at that meeting, as well as some of the residents’ concerns, we’d be pulling out 16 of the properties that abut that east-west canal as opposed to the north-south canal,” Harrison Township Clerk Adam Wit said.
The updated SAD focuses on the Lakeshore, Archer and Pardee canals. While the township worked with contractors to update the project’s estimated cost, Wit said it was within “pennies” of the original $611,534 estimate. Trustees approved resolutions to determine who will be assessed and to schedule the project’s second public hearing for Monday, May 13.
Ken Mulder, president of the Huron Pointe Homeowners Association, was thankful for the SAD process to continue forward after it was originally delayed and expressed surprise at the response from Riverdale and Powers streets residents.
“We had made this public; all of the information, the quotes, the testing, everything else,” Mulder said. “We did not hear the same sentiment prior to the meeting that you heard, even in our own internal public meetings, so it was a little bit of a surprise to us.”
Water equipment tracking
In order to hold up its end of a 2022 Drinking Water Asset Management grant, trustees approved the purchase of around $5,120 worth of gear for the Water Department to begin GPS tracking its equipment.
“Part of that grant is going out and mapping all of our assets, which are water shut-offs, main line valves, individual residential shut-offs, fire hydrants,” Harrison Township Public Services Director Justin Murphy said. “We’re working in partnership with our engineer, Wade Trim. They’ve already located some of the assets and for us to fulfill our location requirements, I’m looking to purchase this equipment.”
The equipment was recommended to the township by engineering firm Wade Trim, and Murphy says it can be used in the future to map water main breaks and any other incidents or work. The GPS coordinates will be uploaded to the township’s geographic information system map. As part of the grant funding, 25% or about $1,280 will be reimbursed to the township by the state of Michigan.
