Olive Township voters reject roads millage; township board meets next week

OLIVE TOWNSHIP — Olive Township voters rejected the renewal of their township's road millage in last Tuesday's state primary election.

The 2-mill, four-year road improvement millage failed by 26 votes, 579-605. Voter turnout in the township was 33.74 percent of registered voters.

On the same ballot, Olive Township voters approved a four-year renewal of the Olive Township Fire Rescue millage at 0.75 mills.

The failure at the ballot didn't surprise township supervisor Todd Wolters, who said he "can understand why they voted it down," given the current economic conditions, concerns about rising prices of everyday goods and the downturn in the economy.

More:Holland fiber project passes, Ottawa County commission shakeup: Primary election results

More:After uproar over LGBTQ books, Jamestown Twp. library board to try millage again in November

More:Ottawa County board members ousted over handling of COVID-19 pandemic

The road improvement property tax has been levied at 2 mills by the township since at least the early 2000s.

The millage would have generated $442,000 in its first year of collection. The millage funds re-paving, paving of gravel roads, re-graveling and dust control on the township's 40 miles of gravel roads.

The township uses the funding collected by the millage to put up the matching funds for the Ottawa County Road Commission to do road work on township roads, as well as local projects taken on by the township.

"For us, it usually takes collecting two years of the millage just to get a half-mile of road paved," Wolters said.

The township board will discuss whether to try for the millage renewal again at its next meeting, Aug. 18. The meeting falls too late to seek a second chance in November, as local ballot proposals for November's election are due Tuesday, Aug. 16.

Wolters said he is not inclined to ply voters again.

"The voters didn't want it," he said. "So we're not going to push it. I'm only one of five votes on the board, though, so we'll have to discuss how we move forward."

The previously-authorized road millage expired at the end of 2021. Wolters said the board is unlikely to want to take money from the general fund to pay for roads with the potential need to spend money on remedying the groundwater situation. About a quarter of the millage pays for dust control work on gravel roads.

"At this point in time, when folks are asking us to pave their road, it's not going to happen, at least not for a while," Wolters said. "The funds aren't there."

The one other millage that failed in Ottawa County on Aug. 2 was Jamestown Charter Township's library millage, which provides the funding for the Patmos Library.

An opposition campaign to the millage developed out of complaints about books in the catalog that discuss LGBT gender and sexuality. Led by a group called Jamestown Conservatives, the "no" campaign was successful in defeating the millage renewal. The library's board voted Monday night to place the millage renewal question on the November ballot.

— Contact reporter Carolyn Muyskens at cmuyskens@hollandsentinel.com and follow her on Twitter at @cjmuyskens.