Local and state leaders came out Friday to take a look at the failing culvert near Wexford Jewelers in Cadillac and continue their dialogue of how to find the money for the costly repairs.
The culvert has been deteriorating for years, but it got progressively worse, causing the city to put up a fence in April of 2023 but since then, no repairs have been made.
The culvert is located in the parking lot of Wexford Jewelers.
The jewelry store has been working to get it repaired but said the fact that nobody owns the culvert, is presenting a big problem, when it comes to paying to get it fixed.
Wexford Jeweler’s Keith Terwilliger has had a front row seat to the culvert sinking. With it right next to the retailer, he’s been sounding the alarm since the fences went up worried about a possible flood.
“It is worse than it was a month ago. I mean, it’s constantly getting worse. The thing that’s the most alarming is that the sinkholes are actually sinking. And as strange as that sounds, the area around the sinkholes is dropping dramatically,” said Terwilliger.
The city’s civil engineer Connie Houk-Boice said at last inspection, parts of the culvert are totally gone, she said the city has a plan in case it fails completely.
“If that happens, they will get in here with pump trucks and bypass pump it so that there’s no flooding that occurs in any of the neighborhoods around. We hope that we can get funding before that happens so that we can get out here and actually take care of this correctly,” said Houk-Boice.
Houk-Boice said they have two repair plans drawn up and the repairs should only take mere months to do, they just need the money to do the work.
She said the city is trying to take steps to secure funding by taking temporary ownership of the culvert.
“The city is trying to step up and assist with that and be the recipient of the funding so that it can get distributed correctly. And you know, the contracts can be done, and the contractor can get out and do the work and take care of that funding correctly,” said Houk-Boice.
Meanwhile, local leaders are also looking to help.
State senator Michele Hoitenga said she’s trying to secure a portion of the estimated $7 million price tag to fix the culvert on both sides of Mitchell Street.
“Fixing it now will cost much less because we can fix the culvert, fix the parking lot. But if we wait until a catastrophe happens, it’s going to be quadruple the amount that it is right now to fix it,” said Hoitenga
Terwilliger said it’s encouraging that so many people came out Friday to inspect the culvert.
“It’s critical to get the funding right away because according to the fire chief, the city manager and even Randy [who] works for county emergency manager, they refer to it as a ‘ticking time bomb,” said Terwilliger.
