Huron Mountain Club Sues Road Commssion

The Huron Mountain Club has been at odds with the Marquette County Road Commission for months.

Now the group is suing over the access road leading into the club’s gates.

It’s County Road KK in Big Bay.

The club wants the Road Commission to follow its own decision from last February to turn part of the road over to them, along with the bridge over the Salmon Trout River.

The lawsuit is trying to force the Road Commission to do that.

The Road Commission initially voted to abandon the road and the bridge.

But after word of that got out, area residents expressed a great deal of concern that the Road Commission hadn’t done the process properly.

The Road Commission’s lawyers agreed.

Road Commission engineer/manager Jim Iwanicki says their own counsel told them they’d made mistakes in the process, and he says it was that advice and public input that convinced them to re-start.

He says they’re going through the process again now and he doesn’t expect anything further to be done with it until after the lawsuit is resolved.

The Huron Mountain Club’s local attorney, Brian Sheridan of Ishpeming, wouldn’t speak on camera.

But his law firm released a statement today.

It claims the club spent its own money in 2008 to repair the bridge.

And after that, the Road Commission asked the club to take over the road and the bridge to spare taxpayers the cost of maintaining them.

The statement says, in part:

“After a legal review…, the Club has concluded that all of the statutory requirements were met. The abandonment resolution was, and is, valid…Because the Road Commission has refused to abide by its previous resolution…the Club has asked the Court to intervene…”

The Road Commission is asking to dismiss the lawsuit.

There’ll be a motion hearing about that on February 12th.