Tri-County Citizen

Village spends $10,000 to get $50,000 for Showboat Park trail





CHESANING – The Chesaning Village Council agreed to pay up to $9,950 for engineering services on the new Showboat Park river trail project.

The Michigan DNR recently awarded a $50,000 trust fund grant to the village of Chesaning for the development of the river trail. Chesaning Village Administrator Troy Feltman explained that the village will be required to submit engineered drawings of the trail to qualify for those grant funds.

“To be honest, there is no leeway. If we want the grant, we have to increase the village’s contribution to cover engineering,” he said.

Feltman reasoned that since the work wouldn’t all be done this year, they could spread the village’s $9,950 contribution over two fiscal years.

Feltman worked with OHM Advisors to put together the engineered plans for the project. OHM estimated construction costs of $57,350. The village’s contribution already includes $7,600 worth of donated labor. The cost of design and construction engineering is estimated at $10,200. The grant covers $50,000 of the project. The balance was calculated at $9,950.

After discussing the issue, Councilman Michael Cicalo commented, “You’re still paying $10,000 to get $50,000. The consensus [from parks and recreation] is we still want it.”

Parks and recreation committee member Cindy Weisenberger said the committee recently completed the process of updating the five year master plan. “If we don’t re-coop the money in grants, it doesn’t make sense to continue to do [five year master plans],” Weisenberger said.

Cicalo, who also sits on the parks committee, said, “If we don’t do the five year plan, we don’t get any grants.”

Weisenberger added, “Last time we did the five year plan, we didn’t apply for any grants.”

Feltman said, “I certainly support the master plan.”

Councilman Don Swartzmiller said, “It’s planning for the future. We’ve got a lot of park land in Chesaning.” He talked about the need to budget the expenses, rather than having them come out of the general fund.

Cicalo said, “Troy has been stressing budgeting.”

Feltman said, “To me, the budget is a tool. My goal has been to stabilize the budget.”

Weisenberger explained that parks and recreation has a very new board. But they’ve already run a sucker tournament and will be handling the 5K run/walk for River Days to generate revenue for parks.

Sedlar said, “If we could get these events so they support themselves, that would be great.”

The Chesaning Village Council agreed to pay up to $9,950 for the design and construction budget.


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