To Members and residents of Six Mile Lake,
The Charlevoix County Board of Commissioners has placed the Antrim County SAD consideration on their upcoming agenda for this Wednesday July 22nd at 9:30am. Interested individuals are encouraged to attend. By now, everyone should know that Ellsworth, St Clair and Six Mile Lake are not included in the current proposed SAD district in Antrim County that would fund improvements at the Bellaire Dam and do limited dredging there which may or may not help the current repeated flooding situation on Six Mile Lake. The question being discussed by these commissioners would be whether to join Antrim County and allow the addition of the property owners on the Charlevoix portion of Six Mile Lake to be included. If that happens then all the remaining property owners in Antrim County on Ellsworth, St Clair and Six Mile Lake would be included, the current SAD enlarged and the additional monies collected would then fund the replacement of the Ellsworth culvert and the dredging of all of the interconnected waterways down to the dam which were identified in the Army Corp of Engineers study as chokepoints impeding water movement out of the lakes down to the Bellaire dam.
If allowed to move forward we all will have a new SAD tax on our property tax bill. There is discussion of exactly how much this will cost each of us and this has been a sticking point with the Charlevoix County Board of Commissioners. Costs will vary greatly per year depending on the current project and rate of progress. The current proposed SAD without Ellsworth, St Clair and Six Mile Lake is approximately 6.2 million. Add us in and the project balloons to over 10 million. Estimates per property owner per year vary between $250 and $1000 for the next 10 to 20 years. If the Charlevoix County Board of Commissioners ultimately decide not to join will improvements at the dam without additional dredging and leaving the Ellsworth culvert as is solve the flooding issues along the entire Upper Chain? No one knows but right now these are the two options being presented by Antrim County Dam Operator, Leslie Meyers…join in or not.Due to the woeful conditions of dams across the state will the State of Michigan come through with any monies for this project that would reduce the costs? Is there future grant money that could also reduce costs? All questions no one knows the answers to. Finally, there is a new group in Ellsworth called the Chain Link Bridge Project that intends to fund raise to replace the culvert, just in case, if the Charlevoix County Board is a ‘no’ so there’s that.
Again, the Charlevoix County Board of Commissioners will be taking up this issue this Wednesday, July 22nd at 9:30 am in the Shirley Roloff Center 13513 Division St, Charlevoix. Plan on attending. I’m sure the discussion will be very interesting and a decision could be reached.
Cherie Hogan
Communications/Membership