It’s time to connect the dots, and MITA needs your help. Every summer, MITA hosts a handful of visits with legislators to job sites to help them understand how infrastructure is built and why it is important to fund our currently underfunded system properly. Every summer, we host visits to job sites, giving them a firsthand look at how critical projects are built and why proper funding is essential to prevent our system from further decline. Current estimates of underfunding for our highway system are $3.9B and climbing. Water and sewer funding is short by almost $1B annually. Legislative job site visits are the most impactful and effective way to communicate to elected officials exactly what goes into building our infrastructure in Michigan and the importance of proper funding in order to get the job done correctly.
The ask. Please fill out the attached form if you are interested in hosting a legislative job site tour. MITA’s goal is to have tours from every corner of the state encompassing all aspects of infrastructure construction in as many legislative districts as possible. Once submitted, MITA will try to pair a lawmaker or group of lawmakers with your job site. A MITA representative may or may not be able to attend depending on how many are occurring, but rest assured; we will certainly bring the person in charge of the event up to speed on talking points. In most cases, it is as simple as an explanation of the size and scope of the project as well as the number of man-hours on the project. We want our elected officials to see how our industry can turn jobs into lasting careers that can support families and communities. And, all of us who live in Michigan deserve good infrastructure.
MITA understands that this is a big ask and disruptions of this nature are less than desirable but paramount to our efforts to secure long-term stable funding. If you have already hosted local elected officials at your job site, please let us know so we can track all our collective efforts.
