Volunteer road advisory committee on its way

By Dana Casadei

Approval was given for the creation of a volunteer road advisory committee at the Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees meeting on Monday, March 24.

Township Supervisor Mike McCready brought the idea of this committee to the board, and mentioned the sheer amount of concern he’s heard, as have others, from residents about the state of the roads, and how bad their current condition.

“We wanted to formalize this committee, and raise the level of importance but also recognize the work they would have to put into it,” McCready said. “I think our communitiy is going to be passionate about it.”

The volunteer road advisory committee will be a communication tool to use with residents, home owners associations, and others to discuss how decisions are made regarding the roads and give status reports on the completion of projects. They will work together to find feasible options to maintain and improve Bloomfield Township roadways, and examine the current challenges happening within the township, and hopefully, find some solutions to present before the board of trustees, McCready said.

“We’ve been talking about doing something… a clean slate type of approach. Nothing is off the table; every comment, every suggestion would be addressed to find new and creative ways to address the problem of local, subdivision roads,” said Jeff Salz, chairman of the Bloomfield Township Planning Commission. Salz was one of the local residents who McCready spoke with before bringing this idea to the board.

One of the problems currently happening in Bloomfield Township is that the county doesn’t replace or upgrade subdivision roads and they have to be paid for by the residents. There is also no control over the roads because the county owns them.

“We can’t put up stop signs, we can’t put up speed limit signs, we can’t put speed bumps up… we have no control whatsoever,” Salz said.

Ideally, the volunteer road advisory committee will be able to create some ways of controlling the roads more while also repairing the roads, much to the residents benefits, officials said.

The committee – a group of about 10 people – will be a mix of residents from a variety of neighborhoods, and department heads too, such as Corey Almas, director of the engineering & environmental services department; and Noah Mehalski, director of the department of public works, both of whom have been asked to join. McCready will also serve on the committee.

Multiple board members agreed that this committee was something that needed to be created.

The motion, which unanimously passed at the board of trustees meeting on Monday, March 24, was to authorize the creation of the committee.