It seems a person only
needs to say the word “government” nowadays to incite outrage among many. I
wonder why. With the ongoing fight between
Inverness Township and the City of Cheboygan thwarting a needed water service
to the proposed Meijer site, we should all have proof that our local townships,
19 in number with 95 elected officials, serve their own interests. Do not
interpret that as serving their township ratepayers. Interpret it as what it
is. Ninety-five elected officials preserving part-time jobs that often pay as much
as average full-time Cheboygan jobs. There is often little or no measurable benefit
to anyone beyond his or her own board table. As Inverness Supervisor Mike
Neuman publicly stated to frustrated residents waiting for Meijer, “we are just
part-time elected officials”. Our 19 townships are stuck back in an 1846 Twilight
Zone of horse and buggies. Will the State of Michigan eventually grow a pair
and stand up to the powerful lobbying group, the Michigan Townships
Association, and say we do not need hundreds of these small ineffective government
units wasting Michigan tax dollars while providing little or no services.
County government, just as old, has
undergone some change from those earlier days. Cheboygan has at least reduced
the number on the board from nineteen supervisors to seven district Commissioners.
Cheboygan County has a well-documented failed Development Department and
anti-growth Planning Ordinance, but still exists in most part to extend the
outreach of state government and serve state interests. Counties are partners
with the state in public health, mental health, courts, vital records, land and
property records, disaster preparedness, solid waste management, highway and
road administration and maintenance (the Road Commission in Cheboygan),
property tax administration, law enforcement, elections administration, and
incarceration of convicts.
If Inverness Township is a worst-case
example of a township unable or unwilling to facilitate or accommodate business
growth, Cheboygan County and its administrative staff is working hard to chase new
enterprises down the road. The subsidized Cheboygan County Marina competes with
private enterprise. That Marina, our only county owned recreational parkland,
serves a handful of county residents who own a yacht. It has operated for years
on a break-even basis by repeatedly ignoring capital infusion needed for
maintenance and repair.
The County Commissioners, and they admit the yacht
harbor business in the Straits area is already over served, now choose to throw
more money into this watery grave. They are fast approaching the point of no
return by committing to spend over $800,000 in tax dollars on replacing fuel
tanks and a new fuel dock. Did they say replace? The proposed replacement fuel
tanks are more than 60% larger than the existing tanks. Government never thinks
smaller when our tax dollars are a never-ending source of easy money.
With several more longtime City of
Cheboygan main street businesses closing, a committed group of “Bring It
Cheboygan” volunteers is employing desperate measures including decorating more
than 20 empty storefronts attempting to slow the slide. In this do or die
scenario, the County plans to spend more tax dollars tearing down the historic Gold
Front building.
The Gold Front Ballroom
has a storied past. It was not hard to find a picture of the celebration at the
Gold Front in 1944 when the US Coast Guard first stationed the USS Mackinaw at
Cheboygan. The building fell on hard
times and went to a County tax sale. Cheboygan County sold it years ago in an
ill-conceived land-contract sale. That sale failed this year and with more
years of neglect, the County is hurriedly seeking the easy way out. They are
seeking a $200,000 grant with a $42,000 match of local tax-dollars to demolish
the Gold Front.
There was apparently no investigation of possible grants to
preserve this historical building. Bring It Cheboygan and those involved volunteers
are trying to slow the downhill slide of Main Street while Cheboygan County is using
our taxes to push the sled down the hill faster.
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