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MDOT declines $255K safety grant for Bamfield Road project

LINCOLN — The Alcona County Road Commission gave up a $255,000 Michigan Department of Natural Resources safety grant after lack of township participation on the project, according to Managing Director Jesse Campbell.

The funding, along with contributions from Curtis Township and the road commission, would have been used to improve the safety of a curve on Bamfield Road in Curtis Township.

“(MDOT) extended the grant into this year,” Campbell said. “This is kind of a last call.They were going to give us $255,000 and we would have had to match it with $255,000.

Campbell told trustees during a Wednesday meeting that he met with Curtis Township officials who said they would not pay anything on the safety project. This is after the road commission put thousands of dollars into engineering for the project and grant submittal.

“It doesn’t meet the actual safety standards (Curtis Township officials) feel it should be,” Campbell said. “I am just bringing this to the board to say we are going to be penalized for this.”

Campbell said because the road commission was going to refuse the grant it would make it harder to get grants in future opportunities, he said.

Trustee Theodore Somers asked whether the grant funding could be used for another project. Campbell said it only could be used for the safety project it was issued for.

According to Campbell the scope of work that was going to be done with the grant was to move a curve in the roadway and include more safety signage on a curve where many traffic accidents occur on the roadway.

Curtis Township officials wanted a more severe fix, which would have included removing hills and filling in a small lake near the curve.

Vice Chairman Harry Harvey said that project would be extremely costly.

Campbell said he did not think MDOT would sink a lot of funding for that scope of work for the project. He said the road commission already has spent a fair amount on engineering.

“We’re looking at $30,000 to $40,000 into it already,” Campbell said.

Additionally, he said if the road commission were to pay a full share of the match funding for the grant the project would have to begin in a few weeks, an unreasonable amount of time for the project to begin at this stage.

“There are curves all over Alcona County; you don’t go cutting them out of our infrastructure, you just go and you try to make them safer. It is irritating,” Campbell said.

Jason Ogden can be reached via email at jogden@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5693. Follow Jason on Twitter @jo_alpenanews.

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