Canton to receive $750,000 in road funds
Oct. 16, 2018 PLYMOUTH EAGLE.
Plymouth Michigan News
Canton Township will receive an additional $361,112 from Wayne County to be used for repair and maintenance of crumbling neighborhood roads.
The funds, bringing the Canton Township allocation up to $750,000, will come from the 2018-2019 county budget, according to a statement from Wayne County Commissioner Joe Barone who worked with Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, to secure the funds for Canton.
“This represents a fairer distribution of county road funds earmarked for the township,” Barone said.
The Township Road Initiative was implemented in 2014 as a one-time program to provide funding for neighborhood roads within the nine townships in Wayne County, Barone said. Barone was successful in his bid to bring the once-discontinued program back to Wayne County last year. In addition to reinstating the program, Barone said he was able to nearly double the allocation for Canton Township by providing critical impact on a fairer formula for distribution in the recently approved Wayne County budget.
In the previous budget cycle, Canton Township received $388,888. This fiscal year, Canton will see an increase of more than $360,000 for a total allocation of $750,000. Since taking office in 2015, Barone has been a strong advocate for additional neighborhood road funding to repair neighborhood roads in his district.
“Our local neighborhood roads are the last in line when it comes to road repairs. With limited funding from the state and
federal government for major county roads, our neighborhood roads are left in the hands of our private homeowners to repair through special assessments which may be more than they can afford,” Barone said.
“The last thing I want is to have one of my constituents forgo paying for food or medicine because he or she is forced to pay for a special road assessment that they never signed up for. I am very pleased that we were able to work with Executive Evans and his staff to bring much needed funding to our neighborhood roads.
“It will not fix all of Canton’s subdivision streets, but it sure is a welcome addition to our fourth consecutive balanced budget,” he added. “Anytime we can bring funding back to our community, I am happy and feel that I have done well for the people who put me in office.”
“Making all of our Wayne County communities an attractive place to live, work and raise a family has been a top priority of my administration since the day I was elected,” Evans said. “I am happy to partner with Commissioner Barone to provide some much needed relief for Canton Township and the other heavily-populated townships. With the cooperation from our federal and state elected leaders, we will continue to strive for realistic and reasonable solutions to fix our statewide infrastructure problems.”
Barone, R-Plymouth Township, represents District 10, which covers Canton Township, Plymouth Township and the city of Plymouth.
Plymouth Voice.
