Article courtesy MIRS News for SBAM’s Lansing Watchdog newsletter
House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) said he wants to see a Senate Democratic roads plan. Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids) said the focus should be the budget.
That’s the upshot after Hall, Brinks, and Budget Director Jen Flood joined other key lawmakers and government officials Wednesday for an hour inside a Capitol conference room. Meanwhile, nearly 4,000 union road workers gathered on the lawn, with large maintenance trucks being driven around the Capitol loop.
With less than a month to go before the state government shuts down if a final budget still isn’t signed, Hall emerged from the conference room with House Appropriations Committee Chair Ann Bollin (R-Brighton) and Vice Chair Matt Maddock (R-Milford) with little movement on negotiations to report.
“I get frustrated about this,” Hall said. “They asked me to put a roads plan on the table. I did and we passed it through the chamber. Then they asked me to pass a budget. (Bollin and Maddock) did a phenomenal job finding $5 billion in waste, fraud and abuse. We passed it through the chamber.
“Now, it’s me trying to solve their problems for them about what their road plan should be. I would just say, at some point, the media should ask the Senate, ‘Where is your roads plan?’”
At about that moment, Brinks walked out of the conference room with Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing) and they were asked by The Detroit News, “Do you guys have a roads plan?”
“We got to get a budget done,” Anthony said.
“It should be the budget,” Brinks echoed. “The budget is the thing the constitution requires.”
When asked about Hall’s determination to see the Senate’s own road funding plan ahead of further budget-making actions, Senate Majority Floor Leader Sam Singh (D-East Lansing) said he doesn’t understand the idea that chambers need to have their own specific plans.
“What is needed is for people to be in the room and have a real discussion. To put these kinds of false demands on something when everyone can just get in the room and negotiate it . . . that’s what’s been done in this Legislature for decades, so why (do) we have to have something new because the Speaker is demanding that?” Singh said of the concept of both chambers and the Governor having individual plans. “Quit the grandstanding. I know (Hall) loves his press conferences, but if everyone’s in the room, I think we could get to a good deal.”
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was in East Asia on a trade mission, but Flood and other administration officials were in the room.
Outside, a few thousand yellow-vested union workers from across Michigan’s transportation sector camped out on the Capitol lawn, participating in an industry-wide rally designed to push the Senate particularly to make a long-term road funding plan part of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 budget plan.
Lansing Mayor Andy Schor, Michigan Chamber of Commerce President Jim Holcomb, numerous construction company executives and union workers headlined a rally that gummed up the Capitol loop for much of the late morning and early afternoon.
“This isn’t just about potholes. It’s about people, jobs and keeping Michigan communities strong,” said Janice Sharper, owner of A Sharper Service. “Every day Lansing delays action, jobs are lost, costs climb, and Michigan drivers end up paying the price.”
In attendance at Wednesday’s rally was Jaymie McMann, a 27-year-old union carpenter from Muskegon. He confirmed to MIRS his company did pay him to attend Wednesday, “but I was gonna come out, period.”
“I do have a project going on right now, but I thought it’d be more important to come out here and attend and show my support,” McMann said.
He explained he was working in Grand Rapids on the Pearl Street Bridge rehabilitation project, crossing the Grand River. He described it as “literally falling apart,” with chunks of rubble “you could just kick” and “push it off with your hand,” with rebar – the steel bars intended to strengthen concrete – showing.
“People can’t see because they’re too busy going over top. It’s going to be a huge hazard,” McMann said, saying how overall, he’s encountered bridges “you can pretty much see straight through . . . you can see straight through the sidewalk, and (with) one hit with a hammer, you’re looking underneath at the river below. That’s pretty sketchy.”
Jim Zmetcalf, 60, of Jackson, described himself as a heavy equipment operator since he was 8 through his father’s company. Zmetcalf said he could take MIRS down the I-94 highway, pointing out bridges that are starting to come apart and steel that needs to be taken out, “not just scabbed back together.”
He described many of Wednesday’s attendees as guys that have done construction work for 30 to 50 years, getting up at 4 a.m. to drive to a job more than one hour away.
“There are nights when you’re so tired you’re just lying down, waking up in your (same) clothes,” Zmetcalf said. “It’d be nice to see the state put things together and come up with a plan. A lot of families depend on it, not just workers . . . but people driving on the roads . . . it’s not just for us, it’s for the whole state of Michigan.”
He explained he’d sat on bridges fearfully before, with two semi-tractors in front of him, thinking they “possibly could collapse.”
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