By Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


A number of improvement projects have been taking place at the Green Oak Township hall.

Some updates were provided during a recent board meeting. A new parking lot is one of the larger projects that has been completed at the hall off of Silver Lake Road.

Supervisor Mark St. Charles tells WHMI they’ve always had problems with parking and when the township hall was built 20 years ago, it was done so with the absolute minimum handicap accessibly possible. The parking lot was reconstructed and went from 48 to 78 spots with much-improved handicap accessibility.

St. Charles said he thinks that’s one of the biggest improvements in that people can actually get through the building. In the past, he says parking was it was at both ends of the building which involved a long walk all the way around, which does not equate to handicap accessibility. He added it was always tough trying to find a place to park but now, there’s great parking any time of day.

A new roof is also going on the building. St. Charles said when they first started out in it, there were problems from a lot of rain with wood getting soaked and curled – which they’ve worked with it for the past two decades. It more recent years he says they noticed more heaving of the roof and the the loss of shingles so the board decided it was time to bite the bullet and put a new roof on. St. Charles said they went with a metal roof this time, which means they won’t have to deal with it for the next 50 to 75 years.

Meanwhile, some repairs will need to be done to the boardroom following what St. Charles said was an unfortunate event a few weeks ago in which a pipe in the wall that goes to an outside spigot was left on for a contractor that dripped and leaked all weekend long. He says staff came in on a Monday to find the board room literally underwater.

St. Charles says everything was cleaned up and ventilated to avoid any threat of mold but ultimately the carpet can’t be saved so it’s something they’ll have to deal with. He said they’ll be in the process of getting some prices to get it replaced but painting might also need to be done and an initial quote was around $21,000 worth of damage.