One of the St. Joseph County Road Commission’s (SJCRC) leading staff recently received the top award in the state for a rural road engineer. At a regular SJCRC meeting Wednesday morning, board members learned that Assistant Director and Engineer Garrett Myland received the “Rural Engineer of the Year” award from the County Road Association of Michigan (CRA). An award also goes to the “Urban Engineer of the Year,” but for the “Rural” title, Myland won over engineers in similar positions all around the state.

At a monthly work session this past Wednesday morning, St. Joseph County Road Commission (SJCRC) staff brought board members up to speed on the status of several pending projects, including a statewide “bridge bundling” project that will see a bridge replaced on Nottawa Road. Board members also addressed a few standard procedural items for the beginning of the new year, continuing a series of several such items addressed at a board meeting on January 6.

The St. Joseph County Road Commission (SJCRC) voted Wednesday to pay half the total amount to replace sprinklers damaged by road work equipment in White Pigeon Township earlier this year. Residents in the Wahbememe subdivision had sprinklers installed outside their own property lines and within the property of adjacent, county-owned throughfares when road work required use of a grader, which uses a long, narrow, horizontal blade to scrape roadbed surfaces level. After discussion, commissioners agreed to pay half the replacement costs and to warn that items placed in roadway property in the future could be subject to damage without compensation. Commissioners also approved health plans, received updates on road work, and conducted an annual evaluation for Managing Director John Lindsey.