LANSING, Mich., Sept. 22, 2021 — Today, the Michigan House of Representatives passed a budget that includes historic investments in health care, childcare and infrastructure. Eligible municipalities will also see an increase in revenue sharing to better fund their services such as police and fire.  The budget provides substantial funding for continued development of the Muskegon Third Street Wharf project, Muskegon Access Health and the Muskegon-based EXIT program.

 

“One thing’s certain: Greater Muskegon won big today,” said state Rep. Terry Sabo (D-Muskegon), a member of the House Appropriations Committee. “In addition to the transformational investments made across the entire state, the Muskegon area received focused investments that will put us in a position to emerge from this pandemic stronger than ever. These items represent my legislative goals of continued economic development of our local area and assisting individuals to emerge from these tough times with full-time employment and solid health care for their families.”

 

In addition to $2.3 million for environmental cleanup work on the Harbor 31 project, it included three important investments in the Muskegon area that Rep. Sabo directly guided:

 

  • $1.5 million for continued work on the Third Street Wharf project. This funding gives the city of Muskegon much-needed assistance in achieving a transformational and ambitious vision for the area. Improvements include redevelopment of the public activity space, fishing piers, shopping docks, construction of a dockside office complex/maritime museum and some other changes.
  • $1 million for the Muskegon Access Health program, which provides robust and affordable health coverage to low-income workers and their families in Muskegon County through a cost share model with the private sector.
  • $600,000 for the EXIT program, which provides individuals returning to their community from incarceration at the Muskegon County Jail with job and life skills training, education and work experience.

 

“In a minority legislative position, relationship building is all you have,” Sabo said. “No amount of hyper-partisanship, name-calling or condemnations will help you improve the lives of your constituents when you don’t have the votes to back it up. Thanks to my relationships with Gov. Whitmer’s office and my fellow legislators on both sides of the aisle, we were able to bring back substantial funding from taxpayer dollars to the Greater Muskegon area.”