Can We Clear The Air? Shiawasssee County Drain Office
September 28th, 2005 | by christine |Can we clear the air a little here?
Tina Fett, former Deputy Drain Commissioner
September 28, 2005
I have been asked by many people, over many months about some of the statements that have been made in the media regarding the Drain Office, myself and the activities going on there even now.
First, I had only seen Gary Holzhausen maybe a total of 5 times in the Shiawassee County Drain Office in the 14.5 years that I worked there. Two occasions were during a Christmas Party, and two other occasions were in December 2004, after he was the Drain Commissioner-elect. He did not, himself, work on more than one project that I was aware of, during my tenure; that was when I first came to work for the Drain Office in August of 1990. Holzhausen Excavating was contracted to do a portion of the Doty, Hurrell and Kelly #2 Drain Project, as they were low bidder for the Kelly #2 Drain. After that time, the work performed in Shiawassee County was done almost exclusively by Bruce Holzhausen, Gary’s brother. Most of the actual drain construction or maintenance done by Gary or his crew was done primarily in Genesee County. After their partnership dissolved, Gary and/or his employee Homer Bennett submitted many bids for projects with no success as low bidder. So, I had very little professional contact with Gary Holzhausen.
Knowing how to run the Drain Office and administer the Michigan Drain Code P.A. 40 of 1956, as amended, is a lot more involved than knowing how to dig a ditch.
The most current ‘revelation’ in the media, is that Spicer Engineering, the over-paid, over-inflated, new savior of the Holzhausen Drain Office will be reimbursing $300,000 to the Revolving Fund. Okay. That’s normal. Every year, you assess drains that have utilized the monies in the Revolving Fund for maintenance. That amount can be anywhere from $100,000 to $300,000 per year. It depends on the year.
Were there drains that hadn’t been assessed even though work was done on them several, even many years ago? Yes. Were there reasons? Yes. The most obvious one that I will bring to light here is the Youngs Intercounty Drain. Probably 10 to 12 years ago, the Drain Office contracted with Spicer Engineering to do a drain assessment district for assessment of the Youngs Intercounty Drain that owed monies to the Revolving Fund. They provided the map; the district was assessed, and the trouble began. Landowner, after landowner objected to the line of the district. The boundaries were all wrong in a certain area, or so they claimed. The Drain Commissioner, Bernie Butcher went on site and verified the landowners claims, they were right. The map was wrong. Bernie asked that the landowners all be reimbursed the taxes that they had been paid. I am not sure why, but Spicer’s were never asked to correct their mistake, but I could do nothing about that. I hope they haven’t used their incorrect district line yet again.
The decision of the County Commissioners and County Coordinator to bail out the Drain Commissioner, due to incompetence, by hiring Spicer Engineering at such a premium is not in the best interest of the landowners. The landowners will ultimately have to pay this high premium for a job that was only a part of the duties of the Deputy Drain Commissioner. And, who will be accountable for the integrity and accuracy of this work?
Spicer Engineering is not infallible. They have made their share of mistakes over the years on the many projects they engineered for the Drain Office, but I was there, going over their work with a fine tooth comb, asking for corrections. Who is protecting taxpayers now? Since Spicer Engineering is reporting directly to the County Coordinator and not the Drain Commissioner, who is actually assessing these drains? This is an admission made by County Commissioner Jerry Walden when asked. He said they are reporting to the County Coordinator. Is that even legal? I don’t know, but shouldn’t that be asked? I am no fan of the current Drain Commissioner for obvious reasons, but I will disagree to the end that any other Department Head or elected body has the right to supervise an elected officials’ employees. And, if Spicer Engineering is preparing rolls, they are employees of the Drain Commissioner. Per section 280.262 of the Drain Code: “The commissioner shall enter on the roll a correct description of the tracts, parcels, or subdivisions of land benefited by the drain and place opposite each description the amount of the percent heretofore determined upon by him or by the board of review.” Does anyone really think he has a clue how it is being apportioned, by what methodology or by his approved method? I would almost venture a guess, that if those assessments were challenged in court by an individual landowner, the landowner would likely prevail. If the Drain Commissioner has not determined the amount to be assessed, who did? Is that legal? And what is the remedy? The question of the legality of having Spicer Engineering report directly to the County Coordinator, instead of the Drain Commissioner, challenges the legality of the drain assessments being levied.
While working at the Drain Office, I witnessed several ‘errors’ by Spicer Engineering:
*Wooden Joint Drain: The assessment district map was incorrect. After finding several errors in the map, including parcel size, drain route and district boundaries, it was sent back for their correction. It had to be sent back a second and third time for corrections that were not made the first time. This took so long, that we missed the deadline for the assessments to be levied, so the first year of an installment loan payment had to be made from Revolving Fund monies and the assessments were behind by a year for the balance of the roll. Oh, and the bonus: they were over-budget, and after refusing to pay their billing above and beyond their stated amount for the project, they settled on only collecting $7,000.00 over their projected amount.
*Corlett Creek Drain: Right-of-ways had to be returned three or four times for corrections. When I went over them and tried to follow the route and course of the centerline of the drain, it was described as going right through the middle of many of the homes already built on the parcels and nowhere near where the actual drain ran. On one of their attempts to correct the wrong parcel descriptions and/or wrong centerline description, they attempted to use the language “as on file in the Shiawassee County Drain Office” to avoid actually describing the centerline. I felt this was inadequate and would not accept them as a properly defined route and course and would not accept them as properly executable documents. They finally got them right. Oh, and they were over-budget. I refused to pay any additional monies.
*North Creek-Orser Consolidated Drain: On a petitioned project, they had described the lands included in the assessment district. Since we had received the legal description of the district (their project) at the last minute, there was not enough time to verify it?s accuracy before publishing it in the paper as required by statute. It was wrong. We had to re-publish, re-mail and re-schedule the hearing. I sent a billing to Spicer Engineering for the time it took to accomplish this in manhours, copying, postage and publication. They failed to pay the amount, even though they had agreed to pay it when their mistake was brought to light.
*Owosso Drain: When Spicer Engineering prepared the legal notice for publication for the Board of Determination, they failed to include lands in Bennington Township. So, even though that township actually contributes surface run-off to the Owosso Drain, it wasn’t enough to re-do and put the whole project on hold, so it was modified. When they put together the drain assessment district, they improperly valued some lands as having 4 and 5 acres when they actually had only 1 or less. It was only a few parcels, and didn?t amount to much, so they said they would pay for the difference. To my knowledge, they have not done so, and I doubt that they would.
So, my point is this: Isn’t this a classic case of the fox watching the henhouse? Who is making sure that Spicer gets this right?
When I went to work in August of 1990, for less than $20,000/year, I didn’t have any idea what a drain was, let alone a drain assessment. Yet, without any training, or previous experience, I was able to file assessment rolls by the middle of October. Sounds like the same timing Spicer Engineering is offering with a $50,000 budget, new software, survey crew, engineering staff, and at least two people working on the data entry full-time.
