The board discussed priorities for the remainder of its $6.8 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding Tuesday afternoon, as well as more detailed conversations about the land bank properties, courthouse upgrades and the Houghton County Arena.

The land bank asked for about $350,000 in projects, covering about 50% of demolition costs.

The buildings are concentrated in the Calumet area. Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance Executive Director Jeff Ratcliffe said that stems from the area’s past as the economic center of the Copper Country, and the large amount of housing stock that went into decline when the mines closed.

“I think it’s important to remember it’s a very strong economy up there,” he said. “It’s an important area for us to revitalize. It does benefit the entire region when we take care of blight in any area.”

Leah Polzien, executive director of Main Street Calumet, and Jeff Ratcliffe, executive director of the Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance, speak on behalf of funding for the Houghton County Land Bank during the Houghton County board’s work group session Tuesday. (Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette)

Treasurer Lisa Mattila said the county land bank is also working with Chassell Township on a blighted property. One recent project, the former Lakes lumberyard in Lake Linden, has recently been sold to a developer who plans to put two homes on the site.

“That’s what we like to see — the blight in the neighborhood cleaned up, less phone calls from concerned taxpayers,” she said.

The county is slated to get $6.8 million in ARPA funds, half of which it has already received. The rest should come by late July, said Administrator Elizabeth Bjorn. So far, it has obligated $1.9 million for areas including township road projects and the sheriff’s department.

The total project wishlist submitted by county departments totals $18.2 million. Board Chair Tom Tikkanen said he would give higher priority to projects that could leverage other funding, as well as ones such as roads that could be seen as tangible benefits of the COVID spending 20 years from now.

The Houghton County Arena’s 10-year capital improvement plan included about $350,000 in upgrades. Commissioner Glenn Anderson said a first phase of the most necessary work would include about $100,000 for window upgrades, bathrooms, and the metal siding on the north side of the building.

Commissioner Glenn Anderson said the city of Hancock could make an offer on the arena as soon as August or September.

At $9.9 million, the Houghton County Memorial Airport has the largest amount of spending. About $3 million comes from the construction of a new terminal, which would be roughly a 20% local match for other funding. Tikkanen said he would also likely be grant funds available to cover parts of other projects, such as $3.5 million to replace and reroute sewer lines. The 50-plus-year-old water and sewer lines are seeing infiltration and leakage, Anderson said.

“Overall, the airport is doing quite well besides the drama with pilot shortage, but the monitoring and the maintenance and the servicing of our airpark is a challenge because of the worn-out infrastructure,” Tikkanen said.

Britz said he sees the most immediate priorities as the $200,00 lagoon expansion and the $700,000 new fuel farm and truck.

The county board’s next work group meeting is scheduled for July 14. That will include a discussion of priorities for cybersecurity and physical security within each courthouse department.

Those issues have grown in importance since the start of the pandemic, with an increase seen in the number of phishing attempts, Bjorn said.

Tikkanen said the county’s property committee is meeting with an architect Wednesday to get preliminary costs on planning for security upgrades.

She also discussed the importance of upgrades to the HVAC system, which has seen numerous outages. During one such breakdown, temperatures reached 98 in the fifth-floor offices, Bjorn said.

“We found one gentleman that would come in and was able to fix it … I said, ‘How many years are you going to give me for that repair?” and he laughed,” she said.

Commissioner Kevin Codere asked if it made sense to put money into the courthouse rather than maintaining one floor and moving most county offices to another building. He noted the building’s age, as well as the difficulty of making entrances secure.

Bjorn said she anticipated the county maintaining some presence in the building for at least another 20 years.

Moving county offices is impractical for now because of building costs and the uncertainty about the ability to relocate the jail elsewhere in Houghton, Bjorn said. A new complex elsewhere could also include the sheriff’s department and district court, and possibly a new courthouse down the line.