By Sterling McGinn
The State of Michigan will be handling building permits and inspections—at least for a while.
The Luce County Board of Commissioners opened their August meeting with a moment of silence in memory of county building inspector Dennis Alberts, who died on August 15.
“I have met with the person from the U.P. who does the inspections, and the process for getting a new building permit is on the state’s website. You enter all of your information right there and pay on the website,” said District 3 Commissioner Christine Rathje. “The plan review would be done pretty quickly, like within a week. Once your plan is set to go, you can start your building and you contact the inspector from the U.P. He plans his schedule based on who calls him and he starts mapping out his days figuring out where he is going to go.”
Rathje said that the state inspector plans to be in Luce County one and a half to two days per week.
“This doesn’t have to be a permanent decision,” said Rathje. The board will continue to advertise for someone certified and qualified for the position.
In other business, Sara Stephenson requested the approval of the hiring of a Juvenile Division Caseworker/Compliance Officer. The position will be 100 percent funded from the Basic Grant within the 11th Circuit Court.
“This is completely new—we have never had a diversion program here,” said Stephenson. “What I would like to do is place this in the school. The diversion is to divert kids out of the court rooms. This will go for civil infractions or MIPs. It will be based off a referral program, so if anyone at the school has somebody, they can be referred to the program.”
The officer’s primary responsibilities include monitoring and enforcing diversion plans for juveniles and their families. The position may also help with truancy issues at the school.
The position will be part time, offering 20 hours a week.
In other news, the lake level special assessment districts for Big Manistique Lake and North Manistique (Round) Lake were discussed.
Luce County Treasurer Belinda Bridges requested $38,000 from the county to pay for the North Manistique Lake special assessment district. The funds will be repaid by two-year payments of $150 per lake residence; one payment in 2025, and one in 2026. The $38,000 will come from the delinquent tax revolving fund.
In compliance with regulations from Environment Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) for lakes with dams and court-ordered lake levels, the Luce County Commissioners have been working with attorneys and engineers. They are updating lake level orders and establishing official authorities to regulate the dams. This work requires creation of a special assessment district.
Special assessment districts are geographical areas with residents and property owners on the lakeshores of the lake who benefit from the lake level projects. District residents share the costs of dam upgrades or anything related to lake level updates. Special assessment districts costs are only billed on winter tax bills when expenses have incurred.
Because of the costs of updating lake level orders in the circuit court and the creation of the special assessment districts, the special assessments will need to be charged to cover those costs.
“They [the attorneys] said in the very beginning that if it was over $200, they can split it up into two years said District 5 Commissioner Tony Immel. “Since there are more parcels on Big Manistique Lake, they are looking at about $190—that is not an issue on Luce County portion—but on the North Lake, there are less parcels, so it would be more per parcel.”
Big Manistique Lake residents will be charged a one-time fee of $190 on their winter taxes.
A hearing to review the special assessment role and computation of costs will be held at the Erickson Center on Friday, September 12. The North Manistique (Round) Lake hearing will take place at 1:30 p.m. and the Big Manistique Lake hearing will be held at 5:30 p.m.
Finally, Judge Beth Gibson requested $4,000 to cover the cost of temporary sitting judges during Judge Brian Rahilly’s leave of absence and Judge Clayton Graham’s suspension.
Commission chair Michelle Clark wanted to know where the money would come and the time period the money would be used. “We have cut our budget to bare-bones when we approved it,” said Clark.
“We have to have judges and we have to pay them—we really don’t have a choice,” Clark said. “Where is this money coming from? We don’t have any extra.”
Treasurer Bridges indicated that they will have to go through the budget to find where the funds will come from, but would likely come out of the general fund.
