Back to square one
Laurium must restart annexation process
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HOUGHTON - In response to an official request from the village of Laurium that the Houghton County Board of Commissioners address the question regarding a Final Order for the annexation of the property of the George Gipp Recreational Arena, Commissioner Glenn Anderson said Laurium will have to start the legal process over again.
During the August board of commissioners meeting Tuesday, Anderson said annexations are rare in Michigan, highlighting a unique aspect of Michigan's local government structure. Under state law, villages are an intermediate level of government that remain overlapping jurisdictions with their host townships. Because the village is already physically inside the township, moving territory between them functions very differently from standard city-to-township annexations.
"Since 1895, MCL (Michigan Compiled Law) lays out what legal process that the village and the county - and sure enough, the county, but ultimately the county board is the deciding agent," Anderson said. "The village has to provide the county a resolution which includes a legal description, reasons for the annexation, and the village council's resolution to the county board."
Under Michigan law, he said, if the county board approved the annexation request, the order would be sent to the Secretary of State's office.
"That office would then send a letter to the jurisdiction, saying the annexation has been recorded, making it official," Anderson said.
Anderson cited an August 11 Daily Mining Gazette article on the topic, saying neither the county nor the village seems to know if the annexation referred to by Laurium actually was filed beyond the village or the township level.
"I have no idea whether that process was done or not," he said. "Reading the newspaper report, the village of Laurium, is not sure whether the process was actually done properly and whether it was sent to the Secretary of State's Office."
Anderson said because Laurium has documents regarding two annexations, one in 1970 and the other in 1975, he suggests the county requests Laurium begin the process over.
"It looks like it was 1975 when that event occurred, and so my personal advice would be that we ask the village of Laurium to provide us with a copy of the resolution that the started the process with in the 1970s, including the legal description, and the reason, and a copy of the village council's resolution," he said. "Then the county clerk can go back to the minutes of this board in 1970s and determine whether in fact the county board even received it, and if they did, what month they would have approved it."
Anderson said having those dates would allow the county clerk to contact the Secretary of States' Office to determine if the annexations are on record.
"If not, then village of Laurium would have to start the process anew," he said. "It's a simple process,