CASSOPOLIS — With 29 bridges that rank among the worst in Michigan and impede economic development, Road Commission Manager Louis Csokasy offered the Cass County Board of Commissioners a remedy.
In a 35-minute exchange Thursday night, Csokasy proposed a $100,000 Cass County bridge (at least 20 feet long) and major culvert fund.

Spans range in age from three to 93 years old.

“This has been in the works for some time,” going back to when Terry Proctor was still administrator, Csokasy said. “We’ve done a lot of work on this over the last several years.”

The fund would be a restricted account established by the Board of Commissioners and funded annually for $100,000.
The Road Commission would present to the county board for its approval projects on an annual basis.

“It sounds like we’re subsidizing the Road Commission $100,000 a year,” Commissioner Robert Ziliak, R-Milton Township, said. “Why aren’t you budgeting for it out of your revenue?”

Csokasy responded, “Our main funding stream is driven by gas tax that has not changed since 1998. We actually receive less now than we did in 2000. With reductions in population, with cars being more efficient and people driving less because gas happens to be $4 a gallon, that number continues to go down.

“Last month I projected that the funding had decreased 3 percent. Last year the fund went down about 7 percent. Last month we received $26,000 less than we expected.

“I don’t want anyone to think the Road Commission’s broke, but in the last four years available cash has gone from about $1.8 million to, I project, about $800,000. We’ve looked at every asset and if it wasn’t performing, we sold it.”
Csokasy told Ziliak he’s “received some pretty positive response” from townships. “They’ve stepped up. They spent between $1.2 million and $1.4 million last year on local roads. They’re very participative.”

“Bridges and major culverts are entirely different than roads,” Csokasy said, adding that the county has 151 culvert structures more than three feet in diameter. “We have some over 10 feet in diameter.”

Some tubes  are concrete and some are wood. Four feet is the most common size. Calvin and Porter townships have the most.

“They have a life of their own and when they go out is a very sporadic thing. We inspect them on an annual basis, but nobody has the technical ability to pinpoint that a bridge has 3.2 years of life left. Funds can only be used when matching funds are available, which I believe is important because we can be very successful in multiplying this fund to quite some extent. Over time, this will allow for a pro-active approach to bridge and culvert repair that allows for the leveraging of state and local funds.

“I’m ashamed to tell you that our current policy is we fix them when they fall in the creek. That’s not a good policy. Fact of the matter is the other 82 counties in Michigan aren’t in much better shape, but that doesn’t make it right.”

“Bridge closures of up to three years have a direct impact on the economic development of the county,” Csokasy added.

“It’s hard to sell Cass County when it’s difficult to drive across the county with a fully-loaded truck because of weight restrictions. They also directly impact response time for first responders.”

Csokasy showed commissioners a front-page Kalamazoo Gazette article from March 29 which used Cass and Barry counties as examples of poor bridges.

“It says Cass County has the fourth-worst bridge system in Michigan,” he read. “And Michigan has the 48th-worst bridge system in the United States. That kind of tells you where we’re at.

“This is not a safety issue because we inspect our bridges and if we need to close them, we do. But if you saw this article and were contemplating starting a company in Cass County, this might give you pause.”

He considers the county’s three major industries lakes, agriculture with large equipment and trucks and traditional manufacturing plants.

Shutting North Shore bridge so stymied Kirkdorfer’s 2,300-acre farms and fleet — imposing a 7.41-mile detour — the business shouldered half the replacement cost to bring it back into public use.

On a map liberally dotted with green spread-apart spots, Csokasy exploded the “old notion of a family farm with everything contiguous to it, that horse left the barn a long time ago. This is the normal state of farming today. I tend to be a little more tolerant because I understand the economic value it brings to Cass County, but we’ve all been behind this (slow-moving) equipment on major roads.”

As for emergency response time, the Road Commission quarters the county into quadrant “districts.”

When the Redfield bridge went out last year, it caused a two-mile detour that added three minutes to response time; North Shore, 1.6 miles and three minutes to response time.

Culverts going out in the isolated southeast corner of the county could strand 11 residences entirely. It costs $65,000 each to replace them.

Csokasy said 10 of the 83 counties have separate funds like he proposes with a median amount of $59,000 and an average of $255,000.

“Only 10 out of 83? I’d prefer to be at the front instead of the back,” he said.

Csokasy said assuming a 50-year bridge life means replacing one every two years, which was done in 2006 and 2008, with plans for another in 2012.

“We’re working very closely with the Pokagon Band on another in 2013,” he added. “We assume 25-year lives on major culverts, so we have to replace six of those from 2007 to 2010. If I had this fund in place, these are the multipliers we would have dealt with. On an annualized basis, about $364,000 is what we’ve actually spent on bridges since 2006.

Nothing is free in the road business and in the bridge business. Everything is a match. We’re lucky on bridges because they pay 95 percent and we pay 5 percent, but they don’t pay for design, which averages $50,000. They do not pay for construction engineering, which is normally another $30,000.

“Before the Pokagon Band could go to the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs), they had to have a finished design, so the Road Commission paid half. Normally, the state and the feds do not pay for major culverts. It annualizes out to about $85,000. We just received $144,000 in grants for bridge updates and we’ll be applying for three more of those in the new round in July. We’re five for five, so we feel pretty good about that.”

Cass competes for state bridge funding in a group of seven counties.

Each submits three to five priorities and those requests are ranked. Last year, the state reconstructed three.

At 29, Cass has one of the lowest figures, Csokasy said, noting neighboring St. Joseph County has 93 bridges.
Cass has an operating agreement with St. Joseph, which has a bridge fund and installs its own wooden structures.