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Bulletins History of FLASH BULLETIN! Sheridan Township Sewer Project BY CASS Committee for an Appropriate Sewer System
Early in2006 your township council under the direction of Supervisor, Dave Lu, began to examine the possibilities and cost of extending the City of Fremont's sanitary sewer connection to include more of the residence including those on the southern and western sections of the Fremont Lake. Since the firm of Moore and Bruggink of Grand Rapids, MI, had been the designers of the original city sewer system and the extensions, they were the first and only firm contacted. Moore and Bruggink directed the township to apply to the State of Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) for a grant to fund a initial design study. The application resulted in a grant of over $31,500, $25,000 of which was then eventually paid to M&B by the township. In the spring of 2007 the design report from M&B was given to the township and made available to the public at the Library in Fremont. THIS DESIGN WAS A CARBON COPY OF THE DESIGN THAT THEY HAD SUBMITTED AND WAS PAID FOR 30 YEARS AGO!! 05—09/08/: We have had a number of discussions with the Supervisor , Dave Lue and the M&B project engineer, Steve Groenberg, pointing out the problems with the design. “The gravity line was shown going through or under a number of houses on Wilcox and Greene streets. The maxim depth of the hole on Wilcox Ave would have to be 37 ft and 65ft on Greene. Blocking of the Lake outlet to lay the pipeline would result in major flooding. During the two weeks that the construction would take. During the several months of construction the residents would be without any sewer facilities. Several of us met with Lue and Groenberg to no avail. They refused to address our concerns. The Engineer’s response was “ We plan on providing Porto pottys during construction.” 10/31/08( Halloween): we have an even scarier situation. The state of Michigan Dept .of Environmental Quality (DEG) had been evaluating the design submittal for approval for a low cost loan. The key project manager in Lansing. stated that the plan as presented was totally unworkable and since the state funding is very tight he recommended that the funding request be put off until next year. He said that several alternative design, namely the STEP system or combination of step or grinder system would be significantly less costly as well as far less intrusive on the properties. Yesterday we found out from the Supervisor that he intends to go forward in spite of the obvious problems and fund the project using a much higher rate bank loan. This with the knowledge that the system cannot be built as designed and has significant technical flaws. The people at Moore and Bruggink have been pushing hard for this approach to protect their proposed $250,000 final design fee. This does not make sense! The bank loan is more costly, the present design will not work and is not cost effective (according to the experts in Lansing), and the DEQ must approve the final design before anything can be started . Also the $31,500 grant from the state that was used to pay for the design proposal the second time will have to be paid back to Lansing if any other financing source is used! Or if the design is not approved by the DEQ.
The Supervisor plans to give call notice for Dec. 18 to all of the residents within the sewer district to "listen to comments of the people". M&B has told us that they would like to pass out petitions for a vote. The Supervisor stated that there would not be a vote at this meeting.??? It is important to attend this meeting to keep the bond proposal and flawed design from being railroaded through 12/6/07: See the more detailed description of the different types of approval processes under Michigan law in the Assessments section. 1219/07: The Supervisor at the Dec. 18th Board Meeting had not advised the interested parties nor published legal notice of a partition meeting so the earlier plans for a meeting to establish a sewer assessment district were put off. He now says that he will notify all parties of a meeting sometime in January
01/14/08: The Supervisor, Dave Lue, says that he is sending out letters announcing a meeting in the Township Hall on the evening of January 22, at 7.00 pm. He says that there will be a representative from DEQ, David Worthington, who is well aware of the technical and cost problems with the design, several people from Moore & Bruggink, perhaps a Banker, re the outside bond issue, and Brian Hettinger, Director of Public Works for the City of Fremont. The Supervisor has told us that this is to be a discussion meeting with no attempt at petitioning or voting. 01/14/08: The Says that he is sending out letters announcing a meeting in the Township Hall on the evening of January 22, at 7.00 pm. He says that there will be a representative from DEQ, David Worthington, who who is well aware of the technical and cost problems with the design, several people from Moore & Bruggink, perhaps a Banker, re the outside bond issue, and Brian Hettinger, Director of Public Works for the City of Fremont. The Supervisor has told us that this is to be a discussion meeting with no attempt at petitioning or voting. 01/19/08: At the previous meeting on the sewer system in June when none of us had even heard of the project and did not have the project outline available to study. Therefore were understandable few negative or questioning comments. The lack of comment, I believe, encouraged M&B to try to push very hard by suggesting the outside bond issue. 02/20/08: The meeting on Jan 22 was well attended. The people were given only 2 minutes to voice their comments and were not allowed speak again. My proxy was not allowed to read my commens since because of a death in our family, I could not attend .We were told that a "straw pole" would be taken to determine whether the project should be funded with an outside bond or reapply to the DEQ for 2009 financing., or temporarily shelve the project. The new plan is still uses the gravity system and runs it along the lake front for both Wilcox and Green Aves. The Engineers are projecting only a 17ft maximum hole depth (34ft hole at the top) all along your waterfront. This hole depth uses only a ½% grade pitch-- -not at all recommended in dry sand . The required minimum grade of 1% will require a 37ft deep hole at the farthest point. 03/9/08: The votes must be in by now. We were not allowed by Dave Lue to have any of our people observe the count nor have copies of the ballots. We were told off in extremely foul language. We may expect the results to be whatever the Supervisor and M&B want them to be, following his their agenda. The proper estimated 1st year cost for each parcel owner will be over $4200 per benefit. using the outside bond approach! Instead we now have a pseudo-petition vote to form a district and go ahead or not! A 50% affirmative vote is not needed to reapply for the DEQ financing. There was no vote before the previous application!! If a Bond issue is used the $31,500 payment will be absolutely have to be paid back the the state. Let's get the state funding applied for 2009 and give M&B time to go back to the drawing board and get it done right.
This is not the time to overload your residential debt in the face of dropping property values and a threatened recession. VOTE NO on the Petition and apply for DEQ/2009 The DEQ, in conversations this week, would like to have an application for 2009 funding. They also feel that the STEP or grinder system is far more economical and functional than that proposed. DEQ have the same cost and technical concerns that we have voiced.
02/20/08: The meeting on Jan 22 was well attended. The people were given only 2 minutes to voice their comments and were not allowed speak again. My proxy was not allowed to read my comment since with a death in our family I could not attend .We were told that a "straw pole" would be taken to determine whether the project should be funded with an outside bond or reapply to the DEQ for 2009 financing., or temporarily shelve the project. The problem at Chain-o-Lakes was not the grinder system but the result of sloppy and seriously faulty engineering. The engineering company from Grand Rapids had a judgment of over $500,000 levied on them by the courts after a law suit.
04/06/08: We do not have much to report since Dave Lue has cut off and refused us any pertinent information. He refused to give us copies of any of the board meetings. This is totally illegal! The Supervisor has told us in February that he had the $31,500 grant monies in an escrow account and therefore could be returned to the state when we went to an outside higher priced bond issue. Did M&B standstill for delaying their payment for the double-dipped project?? Or did they waive the payment in trade for the construction design contract.? We would like to review the time line of the accounting for these transactions. 07-08/08 The supervisor has paid M&b the $20,000 of the “not to exceed” proposal contract and a bonus of $5000 What is going on? May -Oct/2008: Dave Lue stated that “he was working on the funding and talking to lake side land owners to try the “Gerrymander” a new sewer district. 01/02/09: Lue reported that the loan from the state was approved! 02/02/09 : A detailed 6-page report was received from the DEQ detailing the faults of the M&B plan both from a technical and cost standpoint, but also calling out lack of required environmental and population studies The six page letter from DEQ dated Feb 2, 2009 pointing out the reasons for rejection of the proposal from the Engineering Firm and requested appropriate action and comment from Lue within 30 days. This request was completely ignored by the Supervisor. He even told several people that the loan was approved! He also failed to share this report with all of the trustees. Even if other financing could be found the DEQ would not approve the proposed design for construction here. 06/24/09: The DEQ had no response from the Supervisor, Dave Lue and could not reach him by E-mail or phone for over a period of three months! Messages and calls were never returned.. The DEQ finally sent a registered notice to the Township that the S2 grant money that were supposed to be used to purchase a satisfactory design be returned to the state within 90 days as well as interest @8% beginning from the draw down date of June 25, 2008. principal was $31,500. As of 10/1/2009 the board of Trustees have terminated the sewer project and paid $33,110.39 back to the State of Michigan. We know that M&B were overpaid on the not-to-exceed, contract, price by 25%. A total last year of $25,000. It would seem that the Township should have a cause of action to recover significant reparations from them. The Supervisor, Dave Lue, and perhaps the trustees should be held accountable for this mess!! And subject to imprachment and recall.
The elections are coming up. Let's make a change!! * We will be closing down this website. It has accomplished its purpose of keeping the public informed about what has turned out to be a very expensive mistake. Thank you all for your help help!
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