I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
For Michigan’s drivers, the misery of potholes is getting worse.
Officials say there isn’t enough money in the kitty to fix all the bad roads. Here’s why:
No state agency is more closely tied to the price of fuel than the Department of Transportation, which maintains 10,000 miles of state highways and is mostly funded by taxes on gasoline.
“In the past people drove a little less when fuel prices went up, but then they got used to it and went back to driving as usual,” said Bill Schreck, spokesman for the MDOT. “Once we get in the $3 range people start to drive less and they continue to drive less.”
Overall gas tax receipts are down 7 percent over the last two years, Schreck said, and data from January and February seem to indicate gas sales are beginning to decrease more rapidly.
Continued -The decline in revenue, coupled with steep increases in the cost of diesel, asphalt, steel and cement — primary products for road construction — means MDOT needs $320 million more just to keep state roads from deteriorating further, Schreck said.
“It doesn’t take an expert to go around and note that Michigan roads are falling apart,” said Mike Nystrom, spokesman for the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association, an organization of approximately 750 road and bridge contractors, “We have just witnessed the worst pothole season on record, and it is not just because of the weather. It is related to chronic underfunding.”
Michigan had the best roads in the nation in the 1960s and ’70s, he said, “but we have let our roads go.” While Wisconsin collects 32 cents in road tax for every gallon of gas sold and Ohio gets 28, Michigan collects only 19 cents.
Lack of money for roads means companies involved with road work are moving out of state, Nystrom said. Michigan will lose a tax base as these companies leave, he warned, and bad roads will discourage new companies from locating in Michigan.
At current funding levels there will be no new road projects in Michigan, he said, and, in what he called a “sad state of affairs,” several Michigan counties are choosing to scale back their road systems. Rather than continue to carry out Band-Aid fixes on some old roads, they are crushing the asphalt and turning them back to gravel.
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