Lenawee County Road Commission loses $685,000 to Clinton for road project

By CRISTINA TRAPANI-SCOTT

CLINTON — The Village of Clinton Manager Kevin Cornish said the receipt of $685,000 of federal stimulus money should allow the village to proceed with the Tecumseh-Clinton Road renovation project in 2010 as he had hoped.

The money, which was earmarked for a county rural task force project, was awarded to the village last Wednesday by a vote of two to one of the task force committee made up of Cornish, Lenawee County Road Commission representative John Keck and Lenawee Transportation Corporation representative Marcia Bohannon.

“It’s very good news for us,” said Cornish. “We need the money in order to get the project done. It’s extremely good news.”

The money does come with the resolution that the village will give $600,000 to Lenawee County Road Commission should the village receive a Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) Category A grant that it has applied for. “We are still working aggressively to secure the category A money,” Cornish said.

The village has been looking at ways to fund a $2.3 million renovation of the increasingly deteriorating road for several years without passing the bulk of the cost on to its residents. It’s already secured funding through grants for half the cost of the project, the stimulus money will leave $600,000 that Cornish said will likely be paid half with village funds and half through a loan.

The Tecumseh-Clinton Road project was one of three projects the task force was looking at as stimulus projects. The county’s Rogers Highway project estimated to cost around $800,000 and the $365,000 Munson Road project in Hudson were also considered. The task force eliminated the Hudson project by steering category D funds toward the project. Because Tecumseh-Clinton Road is classified a rural or urban minor arterial road, Cornish said it was a higher priority road than Rogers Highway, which is classified rural major.

The stimulus funds are currently “tentatively” awarded to the village. Cornish said engineer drawings must be completed and an MDOT grading must be done in order to obligate the award. “The village’s drawings are 95 percent complete and should be finalized in about two weeks,” he said. “Then we’ll send copies to MDOT and get graded. We’ve got so much of the work done already.”

Cornish added that the Road Commission is working with its attorneys to draft an amended maintenance agreement on changing the jurisdiction of the road. The two entities had been going back and forth on changing the jurisdiction, with the village taking responsibility for a portion of the road from around the Pilkington entrance north to Michigan Avenue and the county taking jurisdiction of the road from Pilkington to the south village limits. Currently, the village and county split the road from Clinton-Macon Road south. “We anticipate that everything should be fairly straight forward,” said Cornish.