ESCANABA — The Escanaba City Council approved a resolution Thursday in support of renaming the Escanaba River Bridge after the late Tom Casperson, who represented the Upper Peninsula in the state legislature for many years.

Casperson served in the Michigan House of Representatives for six years, starting in 2003. He was then elected to the Michigan Senate in 2010, serving until he was forced to leave the legislature in 2018 due to term limits. He died on Nov. 29 following a battle with lung cancer.

During Thursday’s meeting, Mayor Marc Tall read in part from a resolution to rename the U.S. 2 and 41 and M-35 bridge over the Escanaba River to honor the late legislator, who was instrumental in the reconstruction of the bridge. The bridge was completely reengineered and widened over a two year period, being completed in 2019.

“Whereas, the city of Escanaba would like to honor the memory of former State Senator Tom Casperson for his dedication to the people of the Upper Peninsula and the city of Escanaba in support of this project and the years of service he has provided the community, now therefore be it resolved that the city council of the city of Escanaba would like to support renaming the Escanaba bridge to the ‘Tom Casperson Bridge’ for his many years representing the citizens of thecity of Escanaba and vital role in ensuring MDOT received the resources needed for the essential upgrades for this project,” read Tall.

The resolution was seconded by Karen Moore, a relative of Casperson, and approved unanimously by the council.

“My only regret is we did not do this when Tom was alive,” said Council Member Peggy O’Connel.

While the resolution throws the support of the city behind the name change, more support would be needed to officially change the name of the bridge, which is located in Wells Township.

In other business, the council approved spending up to $2,500 to hire engineering and architectural firm C2AE of Escanaba to prepare an application for a Drinking Water Asset Management Grant from the State of Michigan. If received, the grant would offset the cost of planned infrastructure work by up to $300,000.

After some discussion, the council also approved extending an open offer to NextEra to extend the city’s full requirements energy contract if the price of electricity declined to $43.93 per megawatt hour or less. Energy prices are not near these levels, and the city does not anticipate a price drop of the magnitude needed to trigger the agreement anytime soon.