BOC Facility Tours & Blair EMS - May 22, 2024

Our tour began at the Law Enforcement Center on Woodmere Ave.  It's obvious that our county and city law enforcement (who share this facility) are outgrowing the space.  This was a former bank retrofitted for law enforcement, and doesn't quite suit their needs right now.  More immediate needs are an updated HVAC system.  Sheriff Michael Shea told us that in the past year heating and/or cooling has failed 5 times and have lasted a number of days.  Better designed storage for their evidence room.  Red Flag law may increase the number of firearms the department must secure.  Finally what must be addressed is the water leaking into the basement locker room.  Repairing the sidewalk so water flows away from the building, seal the foundation and remove the lockers to clean and sanitize behind them to eliminate the possibility of black mold.

Next we toured the Sheriff's Office Boat Barn, a well constructed block facility on Trade Center Drive that houses the boats, dive trailer and their Humvee rescue vehicle.  This is also a storage facility for off-season tires, large confiscated property, their gun cleaning station and carwash.  Little to no improvement is needed here.

From there we toured the Public Services Building on LaFranier which is home to Animal Control, County Veterans Affairs, Construction Code offices, Department of Public Works, and Environmental Health.  This building was originally built by an oil and gas company, it's been adequate but may become cramped when the state mandated septic system inspections go into effect in the coming years.  One small annoyance is the inadequate signage.  Might I suggest one color coded sign with lines painted on either the walls or the floors to each department, much like hospitals do.   One last note for these services, Animal Control is only able to respond to calls about dogs and dogs ONLY!  They cannot respond to calls about other domestic animals or wildlife.  

Finally we toured the Health Department building on LaFranier, next to the Public Services Building.  The one thing I took note of was the very large and nicely equipped Emergency Response training room in the basement of the Health Department building.  The training room at the Sheriff's office on Woodmere is much too small for our growing law enforcement department.  I don't see why they cannot utilize this room when they need to conduct trainings.

Purpose of Tours:  Nick Agostinelli of the Building Authority conducted the tours, at the end pointed out that the Commission owns the property from behind the Health Department Building all the way to Garfield.  He suggested that we can build on this property a new Sheriff's' office, 911 facility, and other county services building to our specifications with asphalt roads from the LaFranier campus to Garfield and to Hammond for ease of access, cutting into nature trails already on the property.  I cannot image what a project of this size and scope will cost.  I would like to see a comprehensive plan with costs.  I do not believe this is something the BOC can or should approve without the voters deciding.  Put this on the ballot in November and let the voters decide as was the case with the Blair Township EMS facility.

Board Of Commissioners Facilities Tour

The Blair Township EMS Facility held it's ribbon cutting (firehose decoupling) Wednesday, May 23 as well.  It's a beautiful facility with updated technology and much improved functionality over the old fire hall on Co. Road 633.  At just a fraction of the size of the proposed County Services Campus, this facility costed $6.4M to complete.  The property was gifted to the township from TCAPS, so that cost was all building and parking lot.  

Community invited to tour new fire station in Grand Traverse County

Summation:  As county commissioners it's our responsibility to support and maintain county services for the residents of Grand Traverse County.  But more importantly it's our responsibility to spend YOUR tax dollars wisely.  As a small business owner, small business consultant and single mother, if there's one thing I know is how to stretch a dollar and pinch pennies until they squeal!  Sure, we all love bright shiny new buildings, but in my opinion we can fix what's wrong and make due with the current county services buildings a while longer.  What's important to the residents of Grand Traverse County is our secondary and residential roads.