The Little Thornapple River Drain has been in the news for a couple of years, and most area residents are familiar with the issue.  However, it likely will bring more surprises and comments, more likely howls, in early 2018.

 

The boundaries of the assessment district itself and the methodology for calculating who pays assessments for the drain and how much, will be reviewed and updated, a project expected to be completed by late winter 2017 or early spring, 2018.

 

The record of properties in the assessment district dates as far back  as 1929 and has not be reviewed since then.  It is not uncommon for some drain assessment districts to be unchanged since first drawn in the late 1880s.

 

A consulting engineer will be hired by the Little Thornapple River Drainage Board to determine the district’s boundaries and methods to use to assess property owners in the new district and handle required public hearings. Stacy Hissong, attorney from Fahey, Schultz, Burzych and Rhodes, and the drain board’s legal counsel, said there will be changes.

 

Some who have paid since the beginning of the restoration project may find they won’t be assessed for the work for the next two or three years, or even longer, Hissong said.

Conversely, others may find themselves added to the assessment roll.

 

The assessments on this year’s winter property tax bills are calculated on the present formula.

2018 winter taxes will be determined by the updated assessment district boundaries and methodology on figuring the cost, she said.

 

The review will also solve the mystery of why Kent County’s Drain Commissioner Ken Yonker sits on the board with Barry and Ionia county drain commissioners, Jim Dull and Robert Rose.

No Kent County residents pay assessments and it is debatable if the river flows into that county, but history does not reveal why a Kent County representative is on the board at all.

 

Yonker would like know if he will continue.

“It’s not right….it’s not fair for me to vote to levy taxes when we have no skin in the game,” he said.

If Kent County is found to have no land in the assessment district, there are legal mechanisms to remove Yonker, Hissong said. The board will ask for requests for proposals from several consulting engineers, with the provision that the work be done no later than January, 2018.