City of Negaunee informs residents in first-ever ‘State of Our Infrastructure’ open house

NEGAUNEE, Mich. (WJMN) — Wednesday evening, the City of Negaunee held a ‘State of Our Infrastructure’ open house at Upper Peninsula Brewing Company.

The open house consisted of not only charts and blueprints of current and upcoming projects for the city, but also pizza, beer, and community bonding. Residents of Negaunee were discussing their streets and infrastructure with neighbors and city workers alike.

Negaunee City Manager, Nate Heffron says that Negaunee has a ‘dig once philosophy’ when it comes to inspecting and paving new roads.

“The whole purpose of this meeting is just to give the folks of Negaunee an idea of the status of our infrastructure,” said Heffron. “So it took a couple of years. We had to go through inventory, everything, look through records. We got several grants to help us take care of these assets and figure out what’s wrong, where do they stand.”

Heffron said the recent and proposed project are a result of that information-gathering process. He referenced the city’s big, upcoming water and sewer project as one example. “That water project is roughly a $6 million project, and the sewer project is roughly about $8.5 million. What that means is we’re going to get upgraded water and sewer. That definitely needs to be done and the streets will get paved as well,” Heffron said.

“It’s not like one day I wake up and say, ‘let’s pave that street because we have to look underneath that street first,’ we have a different philosophy here. We certainly don’t want to pay for one year and then the next year rip it up because we didn’t do our diligence and make sure that the water and sewer got underneath it first,” said Heffron.

You can find all updated information on cityofnegaunee.com.