Time to tow away road commissions

Three hurdles need to be cleared if advocates of abolishing the Ingham County Road Commission are going to succeed.

The Legislature needs to pass a billallowing county leaders to dissolve their road commissions. Thegovernor needs to sign the bill. And then nine of the 16 members ofIngham County Board of Commissioners need to support Commissioner AndySchor’s proposal to do so.

None of the three seem unattainable. It couldn’t happen soon enough.

This isn’t an indictment of current RoadCommission Chairwoman Shirley Rodgers and the rest of the current crew.Rodgers brings up good points about the good-ol’-boy network in Masonthat probably isn’t limited to the road commission.

She is rubbing people the wrong way withher micromanaging of personnel decisions as she tries to get moreminority representation into the workforce, but Rodgers isn’t running aone-woman crusade. And change for the better doesn’t come withoutupsetting the applecart.

Rodgers sees an injustice and she’s out to correct it.

That said, the road commission is in thenews, yet again, which should really be the exception and not the norm.If it’s not Rodgers, it’s the hubbub over the fifth lane on OkemosRoad. Or it’s the controversy about township officials feeling leftout. Or Waverly Road. Or something.

This is all coming from a board that’scompletely unaccountable to voters. Its members serve six years. In thesame time, term-limited state representatives are elected andre-elected three times. 

Commissioner Mark Grebner wants all fiveof the county road commissioners to resign. All five of them can — andare — telling him to take a hike.

They don’t have to return telephonecalls. They don’t have to listen to a majority of citizens. They don’thave to listen to their staff. They get their money from the state, andit’s up to them to spend it.

Instead of taking politics out ofimproving and plowing roads — which is what road commissions aresupposed to do — these fiefdoms are just another sandbox for politicalplay.

Putting county road improvement dutiesunder a new county commission committee makes the most sense. The16-member board manages to run the Health Department, animal controland the parks. 

The two counties that don’t have roadcommissions — Wayne and Macomb — are two of the state’s largest, andthey’re doing fine. There’s no public outcry, and they have many moreroads to manage than Ingham.

Scrapping the road commission savesIngham County about $70,000. But more important, it gives citizens anelected official they can hold accountable. Don’t like that potholedcounty road? Call your county commission and complain. You don’t liketheir response? Call you neighbors and vote him or her out.

Ingham County’s roads have aprofessional manager charged with managing the fewer than 70 employeesand overseeing 1,249 miles of road. Let the professionals do their jobsand let elected officials have the final sign-off on the $22 millionIngham County has been allotted in recent years.

The holdup seems to be in the MichiganHouse, where a measure that allows county commissioners to shut downtheir road commissions stalled after Republicans in Northern Michiganbalked.

The Yoopers and those Up North have goodrelationships with their road commissioners and don’t want the bodiesdissolved by a rogue band of power-hungry county commissioners.

They support changes that require countyboards to jump through hoops before putting a road commissionelimination question on the ballot. 

Making the process overly difficultchases away interest in making the change, which may be the point, butit defeats the purpose.

The current proposal lets county do awaywith road commissions if they want. If elected leaders like theirboards, they can keep them. To calm down opponents, county votersshould be given a window to override the commission’s decision throughlocal referendum, if the public feels that attached to its roadcommission.

It’s hard to imagine voters rushing to take advantage of the opportunity, but the safeguard is needed.

If Senate Majority Leader RandyRichardville is right, Michigan is the second-most governed state inthe country. We have county, township, city, villages governmentscombined with school boards and community college boards and ISDs andregional groups and all the rest.

Getting rid of county road commissions is an easy first step.