Planning Commissioner Barbie Clairmont interjected during Tuesday’s Delta County Board of Commissioners meeting, demanding the commission remove a discussion about the proposed annexation of land from Escanaba Township to Cornell Township. After repeatedly being told she was out of order by Commission Chair Dave Moyle, a sheriff’s deputy intervened and Clairmont was returned to her seat. (Escanaba Daily Press photo)

By ILSA MINOR

Daily Press

ESCANABA — The Delta County Board of Commissioners voted not to move forward with a controversial plan to annex more than 19,000 acres of Escanaba Township into neighboring Cornell Township Tuesday.

“Unfortunately, there’s going to be losers tonight. And whether it’s going to be the farmers that want to put in the solar that lose or the people, if the annexation did go through, the people that are going to be dragged along kicking and screaming, basically, that they don’t want to go. There is no win on this. There’s only loss, and the loss is the whole community,” said Commissioner Bob Petersen

The debate at the meeting started early, with a disagreement among the commissioners about the adoption of the meeting’s agenda. Commissioner Steve Viau requested a closed session with the county’s attorney be added to allow for discussion of the written opinion from Matthew Kushel, the attorney representing the circulators of the annexation petition. However, Commissioner Bob Barron objected and the motion, effectively barring the item from being added.

The adoption of the agenda was further delayed by Escanaba Township Planning Commissioner Barbie Clairmont, who began interjecting from the audience.

“Chairman, point of order please. Chairman, point of order. I wish to take the item B-9 off the agenda. Remove it from the agenda. After Barron was served a cease and disorder, it’s my constitutional right to stand here … this is what I’m supposed to do. Point of order,” said Clairmont, before law enforcement intervened.

Clairmont provided the Daily Press with a copy of the document she said she sent to Barron. It is unclear if the document has any legal standing.

Dozens of people spoke about the annexation proposal during the meeting, which was held at the Delta County Commerce Center to accommodate the crowd. Many took aim at Barron personally, due to his role in the annexation proposal.

“Are you going to do what’s bests for the county, or are you going to do what’s best for Commissioner Barron? That’s the question,” said Dave Adamini, of Wells Township.

Barron has been an active participant in the annexation plan from its inception and is one of 26 landowners formerly contracted with Orion Energy for a solar development that was squelched by Escanaba Township when the township scrapped an existing stand-alone solar ordinance and replaced it with a more restrictive amendment to the township’s zoning ordinance.

“You deliberately … regulated this thing out of existence,” Barron told Escanaba Township Treasurer Kim Knauf-Wycoff, who gave a presentation reiterating the township’s position against the annexation proposal.

Because Cornell Township relies on the county for zoning instead of managing its own zoning like Escanaba Township, Cornell is regulated by the far more permissive solar rules in the county’s zoning ordinance. The annexation would have allowed a solar development similar to the one proposed by Orion to move forward.

“Most of these landowners that want to go are second, third, fourth, fifth generation, and now we have a chance to keep our land and make it a profitable … effort for the next two, three generations,” said Escanaba Township resident Tom Barron, partner in Barron Farms with Commissioner Barron.

As Barron could financially benefit from solar development, many have stated he had a conflict of interest and should not vote. However, Kushel, who attended the meeting, said a conflict of interest was “legally impossible.”

“(The Michigan Supreme Court) stated, very clearly, that the boundaries and whether a boundary change should occur is a political question. They stated that there’s no vested right in a municipality’s boundary. There’s no legal interest that any individual has in the boundary of their municipality,” he said, citing a 1977 case between Midland Township and the Michigan State Boundary Commission.

While there was support for the annexation proposal and solar in the township, the majority of people who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting were against the annexation, solar in Escanaba Township, or both. Those who spoke against solar primarily cited concerns about ground water contamination and a lack of financial benefit to residents who did not lease their land for solar panels. Those who spoke against the annexation largely focused on Barron’s involvement or the petitions themselves, pointing to the number of residents who have filed requests to have their name removed from the petitions and repeated claims that residents had been lied to by petitioners.

“At no point did I lie, forge signatures, or intentionally deceive any individual to get their signature. I went door-to-door with legal paperwork and did my best to explain what I was doing,” said John Miron, of Escanaba Township, who was the primary gatherer of signatures for the petition.

Kushel argued that the petitions were clear, as they contained a description of the proposal and a map of the proposed annexation area. He also stated there was no legal process for names to be removed after the petitions were submitted, and argued against claims made by the township that there were too few signatures or that the names of those who signed were not properly posted.

After hearing from Kushel, Knauf-Wycoff and the general public, the commission took a vote on whether or not to receive the application for annexation, effectively acknowledging that the document had been presented to the board. That motion passed, with only Commissioner John Malnar opposing. Malnar’s vote was largely symbolic, as Kushel had previously told the commission that voting to receive the application was merely procedural and voting not to receive it would not, by itself, kill the proposal.

The commission then had a few options: accept the annexation, reject the annexation outright, or review the application for annexation and act on it at a later date.

“I understand that there’s a law that was developed in the 1850s, and I do firmly believe, and I will reiterate, that the property rights of the 26 land owners have not been, necessarily, respected — they’ve been trampled on. But this is not fear of … I’m not afraid of a problem. This has nothing to do with fear. I can’t support something based on — I think this is the wrong way to do it,” said Commission Chair Dave Moyle, responding to statements from Barron that the commission was afraid to do the task before them and review the application.