Time Bombs: Governmental choices that have future ill effects

    I call them time bombs, although maybe stink bombs would be a better description.

   They are the choices (either a decision to act or not to act) made by a governing board or other public officials that has had or will have unfortunate consequences. They lie there, awaiting just the right circumstances or the passage of enough years, before exploding. While these bombs are rarely earth-shaking, unlike their real-life counterparts, they can be (like a sink bomb) messy, annoying, and often expensive to fix or remedy.

    They are often the result of choosing the easier path, or putting priority on here-and-now pocketbook considerations, or giving deference to prevailing public opinion.  Sometimes these ill effects are unintended and unforeseen. But too often they are the outcome of deliberate calculation, of picking today’s expediency over tomorrow’s benefit or potential difficulty as well as our all-too-human inclination to get along rather buck the trend. Whatever the motivation, someone—a new set of representatives or officials—somewhere down the road, inherits the problem and has to take care of it. They get to “pay the piper.”

   Of course, to be fair, the dire predictions don’t always materialize. Also, when they do occur, the impact can turn out to be much ado about nothing.    

    In nearly 40 years of working as a newspaper reporter, I’ve seen a few of these bombs go off. (Hindsight is indeed wonderful; I won’t claim to have foreseen everyone of them.) A lot of these ill effects have involved residential development and land-use decisions. Officials, due to the pressures and fast pace of rapid growth that occurred in past years, made decisions (or had no other alternative due to state law) that in retrospect have not turned out too well.    

     The existence of private roads (often narrow in width and poorly maintained) that service housing developments in town and in the country is a prime example of existing and looming difficulties. Another example (in my opinion) has been to allow subdivisions with lots that are too small and condensed, causing parking problems and also not providing enough room for owners to add onto the original house, causing young families to move rather than stay put. Still another example was not requiring the construction of a service drive on South Grand Avenue years ago when the first freeway businesses were being proposed. Traffic congestion has been the legacy.

    On the state level, the lack of a long-term strategy for maintaining and fixing our highways and bridges, namely by providing adequate funding, has come back to haunt us. Another possible time bomb could be legislative actions initiated in recent sessions and aimed at K-12 schools that might be pushing education into a questionable direction, with too much emphasis on standardized testing and one-size-fits-all measures of student performance at the expense of the art of teaching and the myriad ways a young person learns. Also, the overemphasis of testing, which is then used as a measure of teaching and administrative performance, is promoting an adversarial relationship within the schools rather than a teamwork approach.

    I have little doubt that unknown (or even known) time bombs await us, the consequences set in motion by an action already taken or not taken by a governing board. Of course, to be fair, the dire predictions don’t always materialize. Also, when they do occur, the impact can turn out to be much ado about nothing.    

    Since history (or more accurately human behavior) tends to follow familiar pattern, it is highly probable that these bombs will continue to be created. Our hope is that, realizing the pattern, we can take that longer view and be more cognizant of the larger ramifications.

     I thought about this after a recent Fowlerville Village Council meeting. Trustees, with several members of the public in attendance, had a lively discussion of whether or not to plant new trees on the Village right-of-way (that green strip between the road and sidewalk) along North Maple Street. That, in itself, was not the issue. What sparked the debate was the fact that several feet underneath the east strip lays the recently-installed sewer line, while on the west strip resides the new water line.

   A brief background. Last spring, work began on the North Maple Street Improvement Project. This work included taking out the existing water and sewer lines and installing new services, including new leads from the main pipes to each residential home. The plan also called for putting in a new storm drain under the west curb, constructing new sidewalks along with curb and gutter, and applying two coats of asphalt.

   The Village engineer had recommended that all of the trees alongside the street and a few in the front yards of residents be removed, noting that it was unlikely they’d survive the root damage caused by the necessary digging. Several of the residents objected. A few attended the council meetings to voice these objects, and found support for looking into the proposition of saving as many existing trees as possible.

   An arborist was hired. This person, in turn, examined the situation, met with the concerned residents, and concurred with the engineer. Because of the root damage from digging, it was doubtful any of the trees would survive.

    The then council (the November 2014 election resulted in two new trustees joining the board) voted 6-to-1 to give each resident two new trees for each one that was destroyed, creating a new precedent. In the past the Village has either not replaced them, or installed trees as officials saw fit.

    The Village manager—based on the recommendation of the arborist and the Village engineer--has recommended that the trees not be planted in the right-of-way, citing the possible damage to the lines and future cost to taxpayers. Instead, her plan was to offer a choice of four different maple trees that the Village would plant on the resident’s property.

    Several homeowners, hearing of this plan, objected. They prefer that the trees be put back in the strip and that council (in their opinion) had made that promise to them last spring. In that stance, they have the support of at least three of the seven council members. Those trustees also stated their impression that the agreement from a year ago meant the new trees would be put back in the right-of-way. There was also doubt expressed that the maple tree roots would ever reach the depth of the sewer and water lines. Presumably, maple tree roots spread out in search of moisture rather than penetrate deep into the ground.

    The discussion also addressed a past project from several years ago, namely East Frank Street, where trees were planted under primary electric lines, despite DTE recommending that this not be done. Presumably, the time bomb here is that the trees, upon reaching a certain height, will be trimmed. Thus, instead of an attractive row of shades trees with their normal crowns, we’ll eventually be greeted with a horseshoe-shaped opening at the top of each of these trees.

    Whether or not the new trees on North Maple Street will eventually reach a depth that causes damage to the water and sewer lines may be debatable. Whether or not planting trees above these pipes is good policy is a subjective judgment.

  The time bomb, in my mind, is that eventually, long after most of those involved in the current discussion—elected representatives, the manager and arborist, the homeowners, and this reporter—are gone to (hopefully) a better reward, the lines will need to be dug up and replaced. And all of those beautiful maples, maybe 60 or 75 years old, or even older if the underground lines hold up and not roots reach them, will have to be destroyed.

   Then a future council will get to face the issue, assuming our descendants are fortunate enough to still be operating as a representative democracy with a measure of local decision-making. The bomb will go off, and these officials get to deal with the collateral damage.