County paving Bemis Road from Katona ranch to Renton Rd.

Jerry Bies of Bemis Road in Van Buren Township could not understand why Wayne County paved more than a quarter mile of Bemis from Sumpter Road to Katona’s ranch earlier this summer.
He started pestering everyone he could think of to get answers and, on Monday, work crews were out on Bemis continuing the paving from Katona’s ranch to Martinsville Road. On Tuesday, paving was announced to be to Renton Road.
This was not scheduled, since Sumpter Township got a letter from the county a few weeks earlier saying there would be no further paving on Bemis this year.
Bies knows it was his determined efforts
that that got the paving done.
Bies said when that first strip was paved
the worst part of Bemis was farther down the road and that part was left untouched.
He attended a Van Buren Township Board of Trustees work/study session to ask about Bemis paving and officials said they didn’t know anything about it, but would check.
He said neighbors kept referring to the paved part as “Evans’ Special Driveway,” since Wayne County Executive Warren Evans keeps his horse at Katona’s ranch, at the end of the newly smooth part of Bemis.
Bies said VBT Supervisor Kevin McNamara told him nothing was wrong with the road. But then McNamara came out and went for a very slow ride with Bies, so he could point out the problems. He said McNamara and Treasurer Sharry Budd had come out together to look at the road.
He said he kept emailing Wayne County Commissioner Al Haidous – seven times in all — about the road, but got no reply. When he saw the commissioner’s telephone number in the Independent, he hurried to call it because he knew others would be calling and he wanted to be first in line.
A channel 4 television news reporter came to the door of Bies’ house wanting to interview him for a Bemis Road story. He wasn’t home, but the media was digging around, he said.
Commissioner Haidous told Bies he had a meeting with Evans about the paving and then, suddenly, the paving was scheduled.
After several meetings with Haidous, one with Bies pointing out 15 addresses where the roadway was bad, the commissioner told Bies that they would start paving Bemis on Monday, Aug. 21, and would pave to Martinsville. Next year, the plan was to pave from Martinsville to Renton Road, Bies said. Actually, next year’s paving was to be in front of his house.
Bies reported on Monday that one lane was completed. He measured it and it was 1.1 mile from Katona’s to Martinsville. Then on Tuesday, Haidous told Bies the paving would be more than first thought.
Bies said he was unable to find out who authorized the first strip of black top on Bemis in July.
“I’m glad I could follow through on this,” Bies said. He retired as a maintenance superintendent at the Ford south plant after 39 years of service. He started out as an electrician and is used to paying attention to detail.
Now he’s concentrating on the 13 “speed bumps” he found on the North I-94 Service Drive and Haidous’ aide Heather Hammer is working on that. Bies said she found it is a county road and so she turned his detailed information over to the county road department early this week.
Also, Bies complained about tree branches hanging over the Bemis roadway and Haidous reported they will be trimmed in the fall. Bies had reported that his motorhome is 12’10” high and he is afraid to drive it down Bemis between Sumpter and Savage roads.