The Crawford County Road Commission is asking the voters of the county to renew the current millage for Roads.

This is a 1 mil millage that generates approximately $530,000.00 per year to improve roadways under the jurisdiction of the Crawford County Road Commission. Particularly roadways on the Road Commission’s Primary Road system. These would be roads to include, but not limited to, North Down River Road, Pere Cheney Road and Sherman Road, Stephan Bridge Road, etc.

100% of the millage dollars go to road improvement projects in Crawford County. We try to repair the worse roads first. For years the Road Commission have rated the Primary Roads to determine which roads are to be worked on. The rating system considers deficiencies, such as potholes, or cracking, ride ability. Traffic Count and cost to maintain the surface/mile are also factored in.

Average cost/mile for a paving project will range between $220,000 – $260,000/mile. There are currently about 30 miles of road that are in dire need of repair. This equates to about $6.6 million in today’s dollars.

With the millage generating $530,000/year and State and federal dollars that are allocated to the road commission for this work, which is approximately $600,000/year, the road commission would have approximately $$1,130,000.00/year to spend on these improvements. At $1,130,000.00/year we could accomplish this goal in 5-6 years.

If the millage is not renewed and the road commission only had the $600,000 in state and federal funds, it would take 10-11 years to do the same amount of roadways, and probably longer than that because the rate of inflation would increase the cost of materials and who knows where fuel costs will be by then.

Some of these roads will not last that long, so if the funds are not there to repave the roads, the Road Commission would be forced to turn them back to gravel until funding was made available to pave them.  This would be a major step backwards. It would also mean that the Road Commission would have to reduce maintenance activities in order to save money to match the federal and state funds. Every road project that uses state and federal funds must be matched by the Road Commission by 20%. Critical Bridge Funds need to be matched by 5%.

Since its inception, every Primary Road Project has utilized Road Millage funding, some in part and others completed 100% with Millage funds.

Some of the projects being proposed with the millage funds are, North Down River Road; Bald Hill Road to McMasters Bridge Road 2.8 miles, Pere Cheney Road; Staley Lake Road easterly 1.57 miles, Sherman Road; House Road north to Calker Road 2.60 miles, Stephan Bridge Road from M-72 to North Down River Road 1.94 miles and many more.

Some of the road projects that have been previously completed entirely or in part with millage funds are Military Road, County Road 612, Chase Bridge Road, Fletcher Road, Old 27, Twin Bridge Road, Four Mile Road, Wakeley Bridge Road, South Grayling Road, County Road 502, and North Higgins Lake Drive to name a few.

Please remember this is a renewal. We ask that you take out your last property tax bill and see how much you are paying for the road millage and ask yourself if it’s worth it.

Please vote Yes on the upcoming Road Millage Renewal

Thank you for your consideration