By Tom Gilchrist
Staff Writer
CARO — The Tuscola County Road Commission wants leaders in nine townships to support removal of all trees — not only dead ash trees — in the road right-of-way along 40.6 miles of roads.
The Road Commission has received verbal confirmation it’s been approved for a $582,000 grant to remove trees in the right-of-way, which typically extends 33 feet in both directions from a road’s centerline.
But County Highway Engineer Michele L. Zawerucha said at Thursday’s meeting of the board overseeing the Road Commission that state officials have indicated that if workers use grant money to cut trees in an area, they must remove all trees in that stretch.
“In a nutshell, it’s either we cut everything in the road right-of-way, or we don’t get the grant money for that mile,” Zawerucha said. “So if we move forward and left (trees) out, we would be stuck holding the bill. They wouldn’t give us the money for that mile.
“We either have to decide if we’re going to lop some of these (40.6) miles off, or we’re going to play hardball and say ‘There’s a safety issue here and we need to do what’s right for the public, and take all the trees.’”
The intent of the tree-removal program is to reduce accidents in the county, according to Road Commission officials, who said they determined areas for tree removal by using historical data about crashes involving fixed objects along county roads.
Much of the removal of trees — which would occur in the coming winter — is set to take place in Watertown, Arbela, Tuscola, Millington, Ellington
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and Elkland townships.
Road Board members agreed to seek support of such tree removal by Boards of Trustees in those townships and three others: Vassar, Fremont and Columbia.
“The other thing I would want is the backing of the county commissioners,” Road Board Chairman Jack Laurie said. “That’s why I was really hoping that there would be some of them here today.”
Road Commission officials said commissioners Craig Kirkpatrick and Roger Allen were invited to Thursday’s Road Board meeting, but neither commissioner was in attendance.
Kirkpatrick said he didn’t receive an invitation “that I know of,” but declined comment about Laurie’s hope that county commissioners will support the tree-removal project.
“It seems like that would be a very contentious issue with a lot of property owners, so I wouldn’t want to even comment,” Kirkpatrick said.
Kirkpatrick added that “To tell somebody that their favorite shade tree is going to come down is a good way to get slapped.”
The Advertiser couldn’t reach Commissioner Allen for comment.
Laurie, at Thursday’s meeting, said the tree-removal project “is a result of some of the citizens in the southwest corner of the county coming in and talking about dead ash trees and the safety issue, and … Kirkpatrick was with them at one point, because obviously we don’t have the money to do the job that needs to be done.”
Laurie said Kirkpatrick “raised the issue ‘Was there money available someplace else?’ and so Michele (Zawerucha) picked up on that, and applied for this safety grant.”
The trees the Road Commission has targeted for removal are located in the following areas: Ormes Road in Tuscola and Vassar townships; Bray Road in Tuscola and Arbela townships; Lewis Road (sections 19, 20, 29 and 30) in Arbela Township; Arbela Road (sections 27 and 34) in Arbela Township; Belsay Road (sections 35 and 36) in Arbela Township; Irish Road (sections 17 and 18) in Millington Township; Murphy Lake Road (sections 3 and 10) in Millington Township; Millington Road across all of Watertown Township; Brown Road (section 33) in Fremont Township; Brown Road (section 4) in Watertown Township; North Lake Road (sections 4, 5, 8 and 9) in Watertown Township; Center Road (sections 15, 16, 27 and 28) in Watertown Township; Deckerville Road across Ellington Township; and Bay City-Forestville Road across Elkland Township and west of Remington Road in Columbia Township.
Arbela Township Supervisor Kenneth Panek, in attendance at Thursday’s Road Commission meeting, said the owner of trees along the south side of Birch Run Road close to the township hall, “had some concerns” about their removal.
But Panek said he supports Road Commission plans to remove trees along various stretches of township roads.
“My position is they should be taken down, especially those ones on Birch Road,” Panek said. “They’ve got witness marks on ‘em. I mean big ones. People have hit those things, and they’re very close to the road.”
Zawerucha said the Watertown Township Board of Trustees “is behind what we decide” regarding tree removal in that township.
Road Board Vice Chairman Gary Parsell stressed that the Road Commission must follow the rules specified in connection with the grant money.
“When they redid State Street in Caro, and they took all those trees down, everybody said ‘Oh, this just ruined the whole thing’ and it went on for six months,” Parsell said.
“They planted the new stuff and everybody forgot about it. You don’t even know it. But (people said) ‘You’ve ruined the town by taking the trees down.’”