Street plan seems unfair

Is it just us, or does anyone else find this week’s effort by the Manistique City Council and Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians to get federal funding to fix up some local roads as a wee bit disingenuous?

At its meeting this week council voted to include 10 local roads in the tribe’s inventory. These roads will still be local roads, for all practical purposes, except they will now be eligible for federal funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Very few of these roads, if any, are contiguous with tribal lands in the city. While some Manistique folks might enjoy the federal help in maintaining and fixing up local roads, we’re not sure if a pig farmer in Texas — or, for that matter, a mill worker in Escanaba — likes his federal tax dollars being used for local roads in Manistique.

Escanaba, Gladstone and every other local burg has local roads, but you don’t see Uncle Sam splitting hairs to help them with potholes and such.

While the tribe would probably qualify for a good neighbor award, it all seems a bit much.

An argument can be made that the casino in Schoolcraft County has led to more traffic on city roads, leading to more upkeep, thus the tribe agreeing to help out makes perfect sense. But, perhaps the Sault Tribe, which has always been generous with its revenue-sharing funds, can dip into those monies for the local help.

Pretending these roads now fall under the tribe’s jurisdiction isn’t fair to every other municipality that doesn’t get any federal help for their local roads.

The Daily Press

Escanaba