Township board works on road work priorities

By RICHARD JENKINS

[email protected]

Ironwood Township — The members of the Ironwood Township Board of Trustees want to run their road work plan by the Gogebic County Road Commission before formally adopting it, but the consensus Monday was they should seek to maximize the available funding.

The board discussed four general options the township received from the road commission — completing milling work on roughly 0.35 miles of Sunset Road east of Section 12 at a cost of roughly $75,000, repaving 0.25 miles of Mountain View Road from Curry to Lake Road at an estimated cost of $52,500, work on 1.05 miles of Vanderhagen Road from Sunset Road to the intersection with North Star Road at a cost of $252,000, and spending roughly $22,000 to chip seal various roads in the township as preventative maintenance.

The township would be responsible of 60% of the costs for each of the options, according to information given to the board.

No formal action was taken and the matter was tabled, but the discussion supported putting off the Vanderhagen work until next year so the township could “get more bang for its buck” and have the other three projects done this construction season.

“Why don’t we tentatively say that’s what we want to do, but then follow up with (road commission highway engineer Phil Strong) and see what his thoughts are,” Trustee Kevin Lyons said to township Supervisor Jim Simmons. “If they’re adamant that they really need to get Vanderhagen done this year, then bring that back to us and we’ll re-decide.”

In other action, the board:

—Accepted Darrin Kimbler’s resignation from the planning commission and announced interested applicants have until Feb. 7 to contact Simmons.

—Authorized township Treasurer Maria Graser sign two contracts authorizing the township to collect summer taxes on behalf of the Ironwood Area Schools and Gogebic Ontonagon Intermediate School District.

—Decided to retain Makela, Pollack & Ahonen as the township’s auditors for another year.