Sumpter board approves changes in building fee schedule, applications

Sumpter Township has approved new fee schedules and application documents for the Building Department that raises some rates and reduces some.
At the Sept. 10 regular meeting the board approved the documents as presented by Trustee Tim Rush. The documents had been tabled at the Aug. 27 meeting for more information.
Trustee Don LaPorte pointed out the new $275 fee for new construction would save the resident money. Trustee Rush said a 1,500 square-foot home would save $150 for electrical under the changes.
Trustee LaPorte said some charges went down and one went up by $3.
Rush said they had compared Sumpter’s rates with surrounding communities to come up with these fees. Included in the packet of information were comparisons with Huron, Ash, Monroe, and Van Buren townships.
According to a memo in the packet, in January, the department restructured the way inspections for resale/rental permits are conducted, to provide services to the residents beyond what could be provided with the old method of performing resale inspections.
Originally, the building inspector would perform one initial inspection, detailing the required fixes to the seller or home-buyer and would then perform a final inspection after the fixes had been made.
Now they have all four trades performing initial inspections with the building inspector performing the final, to ensure all fixes have been made. It is with this in mind that the fee has been raised from $150 per permit by an additional $75 per permit, in order to more adequately cover the cost of each inspector going out to the home in question.
In other business at the Sept. 10 meeting, the board:
• Approved $17,549.99 more than was allocated (including contingency) for the $140,635 Willis Road Sanitary Sewer Lining Program being done by Inland Waters Pollution Control, Inc., of Detroit. The work was expected to be done within seven days, but the project required more than seven shorter installations with multiple mobilizations and additional labor, traffic and bypass requirements. There reportedly were extraordinary ground conditions, heavy ground water, and high flows. The township’s consulting engineer Ryan Kern of Hennessey explained the work and said this is phase one of the project. He said they also went in and grouted all the manholes that were leaking because of the high-water table. Kern said all the work was done by mid June. Trustee Matthew Oddy said he would like to see change orders come in during the project, not so far after it is done;
• Watched Richard Pollman of the National Weather Service present the township with Skyready signs. He said Sumpter is the first unincorporated township in the state of Michigan to earn Skyready designation. “Next time severe weather threatens, you’ll be able to warn township residents,” he said;
• Heard township attorney Rob Young report on his activities over the last month, including seven hours spent on the lease and development agreement for the branch library. He said the branch library will be finished by the end of October and it will benefit the entire community. Young also thanked Trustee Rush for his efforts to get the township Skyready, with “relentless updates, sometimes twice a day”;
• Heard Trustee Oddy say he would like to have the board work on the issue of pay for employee Erica Campbell, which has not been settled. He also asked Young to push Nationwide for pension accounts that should be sent to each employee, not just reporting to the township. He said it’s been eight months since pension accounts became a problem;
• Heard Mary Ban again speak about the uncut brush that is making intersections unsafe. She also said she sent a message to the head Washtenaw County engineer asking them to widen Rawsonville Road as they did from the freeway to Huron River Drive. She said between 3 and 5 p.m. traveling the road is a public safety hazard because of all the traffic. It needs to be widened and a turn lane put in, she said. She also asked for a handrail to be put on the step outside the side door. She said it’s a high step and she was unsteady using it and Jewell Butler almost fell there;
• Heard former Treasurer Peggy Morgan say she talked with a representative of Comcast who told her they have standard lines that come in, not HD, and haven’t done anything different to cause reception problems for the township’s government access channel. Morgan said he told her he didn’t want to come to a township meeting and be in between the township and who they hired to put in the new system. He said they just let the township access the system and don’t do anything else. He also said residents can have their lines checked. Morgan said the humming on the township cable channel is terrible. In commenting on the pension problems, she called it, “a big mess that Scott [Holtz] got us into and there’s no hope of getting us out of it soon…” Attorney Young said Holtz opted not to pay the fee, when the pension account was transferred to MERS, which brought on the present problems. “I didn’t think when he proposed it that it had anything to do with the board,” Morgan said. “I thought it was for union members and they didn’t know anything about it”;
• Heard Trustee Don Swinson announce that a Gospel concert will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28, at the pavilion on the Sumpter Township fairgrounds, put on by the Progressive Civic League and the Belleville Area Council for the Arts; and
• Went into closed-door session with township attorney Young to update and review the status of the Michigan Association of Fire Fighters union negotiations (Trustee LaPorte was excused during this part of the discussion since he is a fire fighter) and to discuss and review the lawsuit brought by Sheldon Futernick. Young said Futernick has brought 12 or 13 law suits against the township since 1995. He said on the last sewer case the township paid $15,000 in 2005 or 2006 and Futernick has asked for half a million dollars.