TRAVERSE CITY — Three city police officers were dispatched to a recent meeting about the controversial removal of three dams along Grand Traverse County's Boardman River.

Homeowners are angry about a breach that caused extensive flooding and property damage to homes in the area.

The meeting was called by the dam-removal Implementation Team to answer concerns related to the Oct. 6 breach at Brown Bridge Dam that damaged an estimated 53 homes. The cause for the breach is under investigation, but it is known that a temporary dewatering structure deployed to remove the water above the dam over a two-week period instead discharged the water over the course of six hours, raising the water level beneath the dam five feet.

Resident concerns ranged from homeowners frustrated by the handling of insurance claims to individuals opposed to the removal of the dams in the first place.

The former assert their damaged households should be assessed in a fair and timelier fashion by insurance adjusters. Residents David and Pam Hoyt, for example, lost both their furnace and hot-water heater due to flooding.

The Hoyts estimate their $350,000 home incurred between $25,000 and $30,000 of flooding damage. The couple say they resent that damages are being assessed at depreciated values, forcing them to pay out-of-pocket for the difference of replacing the appliances.

"You might've noticed that we've already experienced sub-freezing temperatures," David Hoyt said. "It seems we're being backed into a corner where we have to sign-off on anything the insurance agents offer us simply so we can heat our homes and take a hot shower."

Others, including many who own waterfront property on the dam impoundments, claim removal of the dams violates their private-property rights by significantly drawing down the water to a free-flowing river. They further say that the drawdown places at-risk the ecosystems that have developed between the dams over the past century, and that the breach potentially moved sedimentary toxins downriver.

Advocates of the dams' removal say the project will result in a free-flowing river that will present more recreational opportunities for county residents and visiting tourists, including fly fishing, kayaking, canoeing on the river and hiking and picnicking along the proposed riverside trails.

Officials said the breach will not deter them from proceeding with the removal of the Brown River Dam as well as the Boardman and Sabin dams.

"To give answers such as 'the cause of the Brown Bridge failure was a mystery’ clearly explains the competency of the team handling this project,” said Mahinda Samarasinghe, a retired civil engineer. "They went on to explain that more investigations are needed to find out the cause. They continue to show their ignorance and the incompetency while an expert dams engineer with 45 years experience, clearly explained the very likely cause of failure in a Traverse City Record-Eagle article on Nov. 4, in which he pointed out the blunder of driving sheet-piles in close proximity to the earthen embankment as the very likely cause of failure.”

An Implementation Team email sent the day after the contentious public meeting stated: "The IT remains committed to the openness, active collaboration and communication that is the foundation of the Boardman River Dams Project. Please be assured that we are listening, and that we will be responding to these issues in follow up communications."

The email said the Implementation Team would continue to study the "processing of damage claims and dissatisfaction with the timing and level of insurance payments;" address "questions/concerns regarding exposure to sediment in the spoil areas and downstream of the dam" and river turbidity; study the "potential for flooding as related to the removal of the dams on the Boardman River;" monitor "fish health;" and continue its "engineering investigation into the cause of the abrupt release of water on Oct. 6."

Bruce Edward Walker is editor-at-large and former Property Rights Network communications manager and science editor for the Mackinac Center.

Michigan’s home-based caregiver dues skim should be on its last legs with the rejection of Proposal 4, but a similar forced unionization plan exists in Connecticut.

Michigan Proposal 4, which would have locked a scheme orchestrated by the Service Employees International Union when Jennifer Granholm was governor, was rejected 56 percent to 44 percent on Election Day.

This comes seven years after the SEIU used a mail-in election to forcibly unionize Michigan home-based caregivers.. As a result of that scheme, the SEIU has taken nearly $33 million from dues taken out of Michigan caregivers’ Medicaid checks.

The SEIU convinced home-based caregivers in Connecticut to unionize, but there are serious questions about the details of the plan.

One significant difference in Connecticut is that The Arc Connecticut opposes the unionization. The Arc, which has branches in various states, advocates on behalf of those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

The Arc Michigan actively supported the forced unionization of home-based caregivers in the Great Lakes State. It gave $50,000 to the dummy employer that was used in the scheme. Its executive director, Dohn Hoyle, was the head of the unsuccessful Proposal 4 campaign.

"Our concerns only involve the people we represent,” Leslie Simoes, executive director of The Arc Connecticut, told Capitol Confidential. “We represent those in the intellectual and developmental disability community. We don't represent everyone who would be affected by what is being planned.

“We do not oppose the unionization. People have the right to unionize. But our concern about this is the potential impact on the individual budgets of the folks we represent. If the unionization causes pay increases, that would affect their individual budgets, which could result in them having less hours and less resources." Simoes said.

Connecticut's situation is not a quietly orchestred forced unionization scheme like what happened here. What’s happening in Connecticut is taking place in public, with hearings and news coverage. In Michigan, the SEIU’s scheme took place covertly, without the public — and without most caregivers — knowing about it.

In September 2011, Connecticut Gov. Daniel P. Malloy signed two executive orders drafted to open the door to the unionization of the state's child care workers and home-based caregivers. In Connecticut the caregivers are called “personal care attendants.”

Gov. Malloy had been backed heavily by the SEIU in his 2010 campaign.

"The executive order gave the union access to the workers," Simoes said. "In the (unionization) election there was overwhelming support for the union. They voted for it despite very strong organized opposition against it."

Simoes said she was not sure what entity is supposed to be the employer of the caregivers under the unionization plan in Connecticut. That issue appears to be a major stumbling block to getting the union operational.

She said the state would not be the employer, but the state, in essence, would be the only entity that could raise pay or provide benefits. In Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder signed a law earlier this year declaring that home-based caregivers are not state employees and therefore not eligible for unionization.

"We know they (the caregivers) are not going to be able to get anything involving working conditions," Simoes said. "Considering what these folks do, working conditions don't apply to their situation. It (the union’s collective bargaining) might be about wages and benefits.

“But then . . . how would they be able to do benefits, if you only work 10 hours per week, and also work at Wal-Mart?” Simoes said. "A lot of these folks only need minimal support. How do you get benefits for doing things like driving your father twice a day? How do you negotiate for benefits with your aunt?”

In Michigan, the obstacle of defining what would be the employer was sidestepped by creating a dummy employer, the Michigan Quality Community Care Council.

"Sounds like what happened in Michigan was even worse than what's happening here," Simoes said. "Ours is at least a little more transparent. But many advocates are very vocal in their criticism of what's happening here in Connecticut."

Simoes said that the state of Connecticut seems to be struggling to figure out how the set-up would be run. It is already months behind deadlines that had been set for putting the system into operation.

"I think when the union did this they really missed the boat," Simoes said. "...This (unionization efforts) is happening all over the country. It's different in different states. The unions are looking for new pools of workers."