By Shelby Stewart
Staff Writer
Ortonville- During a special meeting on Monday night the village council voted unanimously to approve splitting the Crossman park drain project into two sections and the cost of $60,000 for the east drain project. They will move forward as soon as possible with the east section, and will do the west section at a later date.
“Tonight we are talking about phase one, we’re calling it,” said Bob Hauxwell, village DPW manager. “Phase one east, and that would be regarding abandoning the drain pipe that runs from behind Papa Bella’s all the way into lot 42, which is the feed store, and a majority of the work would be on lot 43, which is the old doctor’s office.”
The phase one project will only take 3-4 days, and the reason for splitting the project up is due to the current drain being in the way of a new engineered septic field behind the business buildings on Mill Street. Currently, Oakland County would not allow a new septic field because of the drain pipe that runs through the area.

The main issue is the flooding of Crossman Park, and the village council approved moving forward with improving the drainage in August, but the owners of the building on Mill Street planned to put in a new septic system this spring.
“That old pipe that runs through there its 127 feet of six inch pipe that has to be abandoned to make room for Kratt’s to put in their septic field,” said Hauxwell. “The county will not allow them to work on their new septic field to accommodate those buildings with that drain pipe going through.”
The west phase of the project will be rerouting the drainage to the Kearsley Creek, and will also begin hopefully this spring. Splitting up the project will add some cost, due to mobilization of the equipment, but the cost is not yet known. Currently, approximately $22,000 has been spent on the Crossman Park drainage project. There is $100,000 budgeted for the project.
The council also approved Keift Engineering to edit the drainage design for $1,200, as the original route would not be allowed by Oakland County. The vote was approved with a 6-1 vote, with councilperson Nivelt voting against it.