Okay, maybe Grand Blanc Twp. isn’t necessarily comparable to Rome, but last Wednesday township officials, recognizing that roads are the arteries to commerce, recreation and development, took the first steps towards repairing and upgrading the deteriorating thoroughfares.

The township’s transportation committee recommended – and the board agreed to look at more information – the possibility of bringing a local road maintenance and non-motorized pathways millage before voters.

And this is one millage that township residents should seriously consider approving. Planning is still in the early stages, so a millage amount and road repair scheduled haven’t been decided, but residents owe it to themselves, businesses and families who may want to move to the growing area to reserve judgment until the board presents a proposal. And if it’s feasible, approve it.

Would Heritage Park, Trillium Circle and other development sites be as interested the Grand Blanc area if they knew they were building near crumbling streets riddled with potholes?

Of course the reason the millage consideration is even necessary is because the township, like many communities, has problems getting road improvement projects approved and then completed by the Genesee County Road Commission, which seems to be about as efficient at maintaining roads as FEMA is at maintaining levees.

But where the county services have failed, the township has the opportunity to expand upon road maintenance. It will also be more accountable than the Road Commission – how many people even know where the road commission offices are, when they hold their meetings and how to voice their concerns? Most township residents know where township hall is and aren’t afraid to let officials know exactly what they think.

Some people have suggested city residents pay for a portion of the township’s road repairs because, after all, the township completely engulfs the city and city people have to drive on township roads to go anywhere.

Those same people who whine and complain because they want the city to contribute seemed to have forgotten that township residents visit Kroger, Qdoba and Trillium Cinemas; or, those who travel north to get to their offices in Flint, Heritage Park or the restaurants on Hill and Saginaw roads travel over city roads.

The city has – and this is based on several incidents where residents have written or called city officials, thanking them for the work clearing, maintaining and plowing city roads – has an excellent DPW that clears, plows and maintains city roads. The city also focuses every summer season on road maintenance – something it can do because city residents have approved a road maintenance millage.

If you want to live in the city, it may cost a bit more, but you pay for the services you receive and the city delivers.

Deer park may be a bygone, fading memory, but if township residents don’t approve the road millage should it go to a vote, the vacant, fading, crumbling businesses will be a far more everlasting, grim reminder of the once promising and decaying advancement they let pass.

As one township supervisor in another community said to me, “Government can’t give you anything that it doesn’t take away from you first . . . Roads are the gateway to your community—you neglect them at your own peril.”

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