Traverse City commissioners will vote tonight (Monday) on placing two proposals on the November ballot related to the city’s Brown Bridge Trust Fund, which could free up to $3 million for city park improvements. The proposals would also allow the city to borrow money from itself for interfund loans. Commissioners will also vote on several street and water projects, hold a public hearing on the 2025-26 budget, and hear presentations on the city’s draft strategic action plan and pavement assessment management plan.

Brown Bridge Ballot Proposals
After multiple meetings and a public input process, an ad hoc committee of commissioners tasked with studying potential ballot proposals related to the city’s Brown Bridge Trust Fund (BBTF) will present its recommendations tonight. The ad hoc – including Commissioners Tim Werner, Heather Shaw, and Mitch Treadwell – is recommending two proposals for the November 4 ballot.

The BBTF was “established to hold funds generated from oil, gas, and mineral rights on city-owned land, specifically the Brown Bridge Quiet Area,” according to the city’s Bay Brief. “The interest from this fund helps supplement the city's general fund annually. However, the principal itself can only be used with voter authorization.” In 2014, voters approved capping the fund at $12 million and directing any additional dollars that came in over the next five years to a dedicated account for park projects. Over the next five years, nearly $2 million in funding went to projects including Hickory Hills Ski Area, Wags West Dog Park, Lay Park, Clancy Park, and the Brown Bridge Quiet Area.

In 2019, nearly 76 percent of voters agreed to once again cap the BBTF at $12 million and use the excess for park projects for another five years. That time around, commissioners also changed the rules for how the funds could be spent, limiting allocations to $250,000 for a single project and dropping a match requirement for projects – both moves intended to benefit smaller neighborhood parks and spread dollars across more projects. Funding has been allocated to improvements at Boon Street Park, F&M Park, Arbutus Court, Ashton Park, Highland Park, Indian Woods Park, and Jupiter Gardens. In 2023, voters eliminated that $250,000 single-project limit and approved using $746,245 from the BBTF as a local match for a roughly $2.3 million state grant to acquire 528 acres to expand the Brown Bridge Quiet Area.

The most recent audit now puts the BBTF’s cash balance at $11,671,521, according to a memo from Werner. The first ballot proposal recommended would ask for voter permission to spend up to $3 million of that funding in a five-year period – November 2025-November 2030 – for “projects that increase access to city parks and/or parkland acquisition.” Commissioners would develop a list of funding priorities – in conjunction with the Parks and Recreation Commission, staff, and the public – that would be adopted by the board and available before absentee ballots are issued in late September. A survey earlier this year, which garnered almost 300 responses, showed initial public priorities like improving and/or adding pickleball courts at Slabtown Corner, updating playground equipment at various parks, planting more trees and enhancing beachfront areas, and improving safety and accessibility around parks through improved bike lanes, pedestrian paths, and parking.

The second ballot proposal would allow the city to use up to $5 million from the BBTF principal for interfund loans when recommended by the city treasurer and approved by the city commission. “The city treasurer would only make such (a) recommendation if it were financially advantageous to the city to borrow money from ourselves rather than an outside source,” Werner wrote, “with an interest payment being made back to the BBTF on the interfund loan – allowing the fund to continue to generate interest income while saving the city borrowing costs.” Commissioners are being asked to approve the language for both ballot proposals tonight to provide enough review and revision time with the state ahead of an August 12 deadline.

City Street/Water Projects
Commissioners tonight will vote to approve contracts for several street and water projects. The first is $3.8 million with Team Elmer’s for local street reconstruction work this year, including East Ninth Street (Union to Cass), Eleventh Street (Pine to Lake), East Twelfth Street (Union to Cass), Fulton Street (Jefferson to Randolph), and Griffin Street (Pine to Locust). Another contract for just under $42,000 will cover construction staking through LandTech Surveying. Commissioners will also vote to allocate roughly $37,000 for annual street line and centerline painting tonight, plus approve a $573,685 cape sealing project for four miles of local streets – extending the pavement by up to another decade. As part of that project, new on-street bike lanes will be installed on both sides of Carver Street between Woodmere and Garfield. Parallel parking will be added on Fern Street to offset the change.

Commissioners will vote tonight to approve a contract for services to improve water pressure and fire flow at the Grand Traverse Commons campus, “which includes buildings used by the City of Traverse City and Garfield Township Joint Recreational Authority,” according to the Bay Brief. “The water system improvements will serve properties including TBA-ISD, Greenspire School, and the Cathedral Barns.” The proposal includes a construction contract with Walton Contracting for an amount not to exceed $994,048, plus a consulting agreement with Hubbell, Roth & Clark for construction engineering services up to $98,500. The city is managing and funding the construction upfront but will be fully reimbursed by the Grand Traverse County Brownfield Redevelopment Authority by the end of 2026.  

Also on Tonight’s Agenda...
> Commissioners will hold a public hearing on the city’s proposed 2025-26 budget, as well as the TC Downtown Development Authority and Traverse City Light & Power budgets. The city budget – which comes in at $88.4 million across all funds, including $25.4 million in the general fund – aims to dedicate one percent of general fund operating revenues to complete streets initiatives, boost public arts funding, add 11 new staffing positions and increase two others to full-time, and tackle several capital projects including repairing the North Union Street Bridge and upgrading city water and sewer infrastructure. Tonight’s public hearing will be followed by a June 2 adoption vote – the deadline by which commissioners are required to approve the budget under the city charter.

> Consulting firm Future iQ will give a presentation to commissioners on the city’s draft Strategic Action Plan. The plan, which has been in the works since fall 2024, looks ahead through 2035 and provides recommendations for “addressing rapid change and envisioning how the city will thrive in the next decade,” according to a memo from City Manager Liz Vogel. Prior to the commission meeting, Future iQ will present the plan to the public at a Community Summit from 4:30pm to 6pm today at the TC Senior Center at 801 East Front Street.

> Finally, staff will present an introduction to the city’s pavement assessment management plan (PAMP), a document that will show pavement preservation work planned for the next five years. Commissioners aren’t expected to take any action on the plan tonight but could adopt it at a future meeting. The PAMP will be available online in the future and will allow residents to see upcoming projects several years out.

Pictured: Brown Bridge Quiet Area