County declines participating in city streetlight project

by Angie Asam, Staff Writer

Rogers City manager Mark Slown along with Harry Wierenga of Fleis and Vandenbrink Engineering attended the finance committee meeting of the county board of commissioners to ask them to consider participating in the city streetlight project. The city asked the county to consider spending $33,000 to purchase six lights to put along Michigan and Huron Avenues along the courthouse. The lights would be the same as the new city lights along Third Street. The city recently was awarded a grant to continue their streetlight project further along Third Street south to Friedrich Street. Commissioners Carl Altman and Bob Schell, members of the finance committee, presented the request at last Wednesday?s full county board meeting.

?They want to do the same lights they have on Third Street, although there is some controversy over those lights,? said Schell. Commissioner Mike Darga was then the first to speak up saying he would not support the effort for more of the new city streetlights. ?My feeling is we didn?t really have a say on what those lights looked like. They invited us to go to a meeting and we saw a different light,? said Altman. The discussion continued and it was identified that the county will need to consider some type of lighting around the courthouse as it is very dark at night. But the discuss

ion at hand was whether or not to participate along with the city, something the board unanimously voted not to do.

The feeling of the board was that a different type of light, for security reasons would be more beneficial for the county to purchase. ?I am not pleased with these lights either (chosen by the city). Last year they asked for more money so the cost has come down. I would like those if they cast more light into the area below them. I don?t see where those lights are going to help us at all. If they would change the way they cast light it would be different,? said commissioner Mike Grohowski.

Altman echoed those comments in adding that the county would want lights for security and not aesthetic beauty. Commissioner Kris Sorgenfrei added that the county should begin looking into some different lights that they could have put up around the courthouse square.

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