Study: Chocolay Township is Michigan’s third-safest city
CHOCOLAY TOWNSHIP — A Marquette County community is apparently the third–safest community in Michigan to live in.
ValuePenguin is a personal finance research and data analysis company. It studied FBI statistics for violent crime and property crime in Michigan from 2013, the most recent year for which those numbers are available. Chocolay Township came up as the third-safest city in Michigan.
“We do a lot of community policing,” Chocolay Township Police Chief Greg Zyburt said. “All our officers, we’ve been here at least 15 years. A lot of people know us by first name, and if they see something suspicious or kind of uncommon, they’re not afraid to call us.”
A relative lack of poverty also contributes. Chief Zyburt says the township’s position as a bedroom community for Marquette means incomes that are above average for the region.
“We have the lakeshore, 12, 13 miles of lakeshore, and we have some nice homes and people pay some big taxes, so they expect some extra services,” he said.
The survey is limited to communities with 5,000 residents or more, so most U.P. municipalities don’t appear on it. However, here’s a rundown of the other communities that do show up.
Kinross Township also made the top 10 at #6. Houghton came in at #41. Marquette and Ishpeming weren’t far behind at #48 and #50.
Forsyth Township is ranked 66th. Ironwood is in the #88 position. Menominee is 100th.
Sault Ste. Marie is ranked at #122, which may not sound great at first, but that still reflects a crime score below the state average. Escanaba is #142.
You can also find the full results of the study at www.valuepenguin.com/2015/01/2015-safest-cities-michigan-study.