The Alcona County Board of Commissioners claims that downtown Lincoln is too toxic for veterans.

At the Sept. 7, 2022, the Alcona County Veterans Affairs Committee had requested the BoC, an approval to allow for a BEA (baseline environmental assessment) of property that has been donated to the ACVAC and consequently to the county by the Lincoln DDA to build an office and hall for Alcona County Veterans.

At the meeting, Chairman Adam Brege brought the request up for discussion. The five commissioners had a copy of the paperwork related to the BEA request. Understand that what was being requested by the ACVAC was to have a current BEA to take place on the donated property. After brief discussion, Vice-Chairman Commissioner Dan Gauthier stated why he was not going to vote in favor. Gauthier verbally painted a bleak picture of unsolvable hazards. Gauthier didn’t provide any proof, nor state where and when he got his information.

Gauthier said it was not in the county’s interest to have to deal with all these contamination issues. The purpose of the ACVAC request for the BEA was to ensure that Gauthier’s suspected problems do not actually exist.

Commissioner Bill Thompson stated contamination can affect well water from as far away as 800 feet. Alas, there were no members of the board that came to the veteran’s defense. By a roll call vote the request was denied. The decision to not even investigate if the contamination still exist or does not exist, is just another slap in the face to the entire Alcona County community.

On August 4, 2020, the proposal for an 8-year county wide millage was passed 2654 yes to 964 no. The ACVAC has been discussing the matter of relocating to a new office and hall since October of 2019. We have been unapologetically turned down by the BoC at every proposal.

James E. ‘Mac’ McCormick,

Glennie