Kozicki Touched a Bay City Nerve That Needs a Real Jolt

Ideas, Leadership Are Priority for Community Growth

February 12, 2007
By: Dave Rogers

Ziggy Kozicki, former Bay City commissioner and school board member, wrote an op-ed column in The Times Jan. 28 that has struck a nerve with lots of folks. For one thing, he is coming up with ideas in a community that needs lots of good ones. Some of these ideas were:

International Trade Zone;

Task force to develop and market water resources;

Support Great Lakes Maritime Museum and Great Lakes Maritime Institute;

Great Lakes Waste Water Research and Training Center;

New educational consortium and educational consolidation;

Community rebuilding zones; and, most importantly

Forget past mistakes and move ahead with new leaders. The idea of an international trade zone is a good one; Dow Chemical was on that track in the early 1960s, in fact got approval from the government, but never pursued it and the zone went unused. Supposedly we are part of the Flint Free Trade Zone area but none of our community leaders or economic developers have mentioned the possibility of using this or confirming the validity of the connection.

Word on the street is that Consumers Energy has Bay City on the short list of five potential sites for a new billion dollar power plant. Advantages here are the ability to receive coal by water or rail. Key to the decision is said to be whether natural gas is used as the primary fuel source; in that case the plant could be almost anywhere. Keep your fingers crossed.

Waterborne commerce is the driving force behind plans of many Great Lakes ports. The port of Bay City-Saginaw, while second busiest in Michigan, could be expanded. This may require developing dockage and warehouse facilities on unused land at the mouth of the river. That would avoid the low water problem in the river. A planning process should be underway, in our opinion, to find land and figure out how to tap into St. Lawrence Seaway initiatives like short sea shipping and Highway H-2-O.

Also, from water quality reports that surfaced in Jeff Kart's story in The Times last Sunday, we should be pushing the long-delayed partnership with the Saginaw-Midland Water system. Such a merger was turned down in a referendum the early 1970s when a few workers feared for their jobs and unions conducted a last minute campaign. That has turned out to be very short-sighted thinking and not conducive to job retention or development. Last I knew the Bay County Road Commission was talking with S-M leaders about a merger. I hope those talks are still alive.

Is anybody on board with these ideas?###