Bear Creek Township fire station, voting hall proposal on Feb. 27 ballot

BEAR CREEK TWP. — In the upcoming presidential primary election, voters in Bear Creek Township will decide whether to approve a bond proposal that would build a new fire station and voting hall.

The bond proposal would allow the township to borrow up to $4.1 million to complete the project, which is estimated to cost $6 million. The township has already saved more than $2 million to put towards the cost of the project.

The proposed millage rate is up to 0.5152 mills.

The full proposal reads:

“Shall the Township of Bear Creek, County of Emmet, Michigan, borrow the principal sum of not to exceed $4,100,000 and issue its unlimited tax general obligation bonds, in one or more series, payable in not to exceed 20 years from the date of issue, to pay all or part of the cost of acquiring, constructing, furnishing and equipping a new fire station, including all site improvements, appurtenances and attachments? If approved, the estimated millage to be levied in 2024 is 0.5152 mills ($0.52 per $1,000 of taxable value) and the estimated simple average annual millage rate required to retire the bonds is 0.4315 mills ($0.43 per $1,000 of taxable value).”

More: 75 years later, Resort-Bear Creek Fire Department celebrates the past and looks to the future

Al Welsheimer, fire chief of the Resort-Bear Creek Fire Department, said the proposed project would include both a new fire station and a meeting room for voting. The current Bear Creek Township offices would remain in place.

“The thought process behind this is building out for the future,” he said. “We know that the growth of Bear Creek Township is going to be on the south side of (the township) because the north side and kind of the east side is already grown out as far as development goes in single-family dwellings. That whole south side is going to be the push for residential development.”

Welsheimer pointed to several ongoing or proposed housing developments as evidence that the township’s population will continue to grow over the next several years.

“There’s growth coming,” he said. “It’s just, when is it going to come?”

The township’s current fire station has four trucks and two bays, and the building is “bulging with equipment,” Welsheimer said.

“We’re currently storing another piece of equipment off site that’s not even on our property because we don’t have room for it,” he said.

The new station would be adding four drive-through bays with eight doors.

“The big thing about it is by building a station, it doesn’t require us to acquire more equipment to fill the station,” Welsheimer said. “We have equipment right now that would be filling that station. We have a truck that we’re due to take delivery of here within the next 30 days, another tanker to haul water.”

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The new station, which is planned to be built at 1710 Click Road, would also allow the fire department to expand its ISO coverage to the entire southern part of the township.

According to bankrate.com, an ISO fire rating is a score provided to fire departments and insurance companies by the Insurance Services Office (ISO). The score reflects how prepared a community and area is for fires. While it mainly focuses on the local fire departments and water supply, there are other factors that contribute to an area’s score.

According to township documents, establishing this new station could help reduce property insurance premiums for properties within five road miles.

The new building would also serve as a voting location for Precinct 2 voters in the township. Currently, the township rents space from the Petoskey Snowmobile Club for elections.

“The snowmobile club we know is a private-owned organization,” Welsheimer said. “They generously let us rent it from them and they’ve done that in the past for several years. But on the same token, if something was to happen to that group and they sell that building or say, ‘No, we’re not going to let you rent it anymore,’ we at Bear Creek Township is without a voting location for those residents. So it’s our duty to find a place to rent or we build our own and have our own.”

Welsheimer added that the new building would be fully ADA compliant and be much more accessible to voters.

“It will be a larger building with a larger parking area, so parking won’t be an issue,” he said. “The bigger impact is it will be a new building and have all the latest as far as ADA requirements and accessibility for people and easier flow for voters to go in and out.”

The new building would be approximately 14,000 square feet, with 6,000 square feet of that reserved for the fire station.

Welsheimer said one of the main questions township residents have asked is, why does the building have to be so big?

“Anybody that’s in the building trades, anybody that’s in construction, anybody that has built anything in the last 10 years knows that there’s no better time to build something than when you’re currently building it,” he said. “So, could we go with a smaller building? Yeah, we could go with a smaller building. But, the cost of adding on to that building in five years or 10 years could be a third of the cost of what you’re paying right now and the taxpayers that are paying for this potentially would be saying ‘Why didn’t you build it big enough the first time, anticipating this growth?’”

Welsheimer noted that the current township hall has been added on to five times over the years.

“Each time it’s cost a third more or half more than it would have cost at the beginning,” he said. “And we can’t predict what’s going to happen in 20 years, but you look at past history and we already know the growth is here, so we need to plan for the future. We think that now’s the time to go for the future.”

The presidential primary election will take place on Tuesday, Feb. 27. For more voting information, visit emmetcounty.org/officials-departments/county-clerk/elections.

For additional information on the township, visit bearcreektownshipmi.gov.

— Contact Jillian Fellows at jfellows@petoskeynews.com.  

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Bear Creek Township fire station, voting hall proposal on Feb. 27 ballot