Glen Arbor Sun

January 17, 2008

Democracy Deficit in Michigan

Michigan’s presidential primary election has come and gone. The Republican candidates who graced our state the past two weeks have moved onto South Carolina and Nevada after Michigan native Mitt Romney secured the victory he needed to stay in the race. But the major Democratic candidates were notably absent from the motor state, and ultimately conceded the race — without delegates and without campaign stops — to Hillary Clinton after the New York Senator made the controversial decision to leave her name on the ballot. Michigan’s Democratic voters have a right to be upset about the democracy deficit that unfolded, and it remains to be seen whether the Democratic National Committee will actually re-invite the state’s delegates to the national convention in August, and whether those voters will punish their party in the general election, when the votes for this important swing state will definitely be on the line.

Our Gonzo reporter Paul Berg was able to interview Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer in Lansing Tuesday, as the votes were being counted. Their dialogue follows as a web exclusive for www.glenarborsun.com:

Paul Berg: If Hillary Clinton had withdrawn from this race as she pledged to do, would this primary still be held?

Mark Brewer: Well I don’t know to be honest. In late November, early December, the executive committee of the party made the decision to go forward with this. It was a virtually unanimous decision. We have almost 80 people on the executive committee, and it was unanimous. What that committee would have done, had at that point Hillary Clinton pulled off the ballot, I don’t know. I really don’t know.

PB: Once that decision was made at that committee level, we pretty much were locked into this course of action?

MB: Yes, that committee can change its mind. I don’t have the power to over-rule the committee. Basically I’m a creature — I’m a servant of my state committee. And so once they made the decision that they were going to follow this path, my job was to implement it as best I could.

PB: So there’s no — you don’t have kind of a gut feeling perhaps that a Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel ballot might not have been run?

MB: You know, I just don’t know. You know, it would be really speculative for me to guess.

PB: Well I guess when I first came into the situation I wasn’t certain where culpability lied. I didn’t know what I know now about the sponsorship of the bill. That it was that level decision … Since then, how has your office responded to the flak that you’ve been catching from the voters?

MB: Well we’ve gotten several different kinds of questions. The question about whether we’ll be seated at the convention, I think people worry about it, and it’s frankly the easiest question to answer. We will, for at least two different reasons. First historically, when penalties like this have been imposed on states in the past, they’ve always been lifted before the convention. Second, and it’s particularly true of Michigan and Florida, because Florida’s in the same boat, these two states are so politically important to the Democratic nominee. There’s no way you can be elected President without carrying Michigan, and probably Florida, but certainly Michigan. It’s inconceivable to me that the Democratic nominee will start the popular campaign by refusing the Michigan delegation access to the convention. Some way will be figured out to resolve this so they will be seated. So that’s one set of questions we’ve been answering, that legally we’ll be seated. A second question is, how did the ballot end up this way? And this is what we say we’ve experienced. The legislature passed the bill, the governor signed it. I, in the name of the party, under the law, put all the candidates on the ballot, which is my responsibility. All eight names were submitted. But then the candidates, half of them, pulled their names off, which was their right under the law as well. So that’s how we ended up in this situation.

PB: You could argue it was their obligation under the law given the pledges they had signed.

MB: Those candidates I understand interpreted the pledge to include withdrawing from the ballot. I understand that. Senator Clinton did not have that interpretation. And a final set of questions revolved around — it’s actually two final sets of questions. Why the write-ins don’t count, there are some people that are blaming the party for that, and I keep explaining to them that no, it’s state election law, that unless you give advance notice that you are a write-in candidate, those votes don’t count. That’s been a Michigan law, gosh, for nearly a dozen years I think. It’s obscure, and you rarely see it affecting an election like it’s going to effect today’s. So that’s another state election law to explain, and the final set of questions revolve around “uncommitted.” What does it mean, how will the delegates be elected, how can we try to make sure that they will vote for the candidate that I want them to vote for? So we take people through the process of how they’ll be elected here over the next couple of months and so forth. Those are kind of the four categories of questions we’ve been getting.

PB: Do people have a say in that process?

MB: Oh absolutely.

PB: They elect these delegates?

MB: Party members and precinct delegates, and there are nearly 20,000 people in those two categories now, but anyone can join the party before these conventions at the end of March. We’ll hold congressional district conventions at the end of March, and each of those conventions, they’ll elect delegates, uncommitted, delegates pledged to Clinton, whoever wins at least 15 percent of the vote.

PB: So uncommitted, you could see those precincts, at that level, decide to pledge them to Clinton, or …

MB: I suspect what will happen in a particular congressional district if there are uncommitted delegates, when the party members and precinct delegates gather that morning to elect them, I expect that those candidates will be interrogated. You represent uncommitted, but who are you really going to vote for? And that will determine who in fact gets elected. So it’s going to be a very open and transparent democratic process.

PB: That’s the level where I haven’t seen the word out …

MB: Yeah, and we’ll start to focus more on that. There’s stuff on our website about that, but we’ll focus more on that process once we get past the primary, and completely focus our education efforts on party members and precinct delegates who are eligible to vote.

PB: The process notwithstanding, there are a lot of people here who, even now that I understand it, I still see a rather large miscarriage of democracy and a lack of choice for the majority party in my home state. I was born in Cadillac and raised in Traverse City.

MB: Ah, okay.

PB: I can’t fathom — it hurts my feelings. People want to be able to blame someone. Is Governor Granholm perhaps the place where the buck stops in this game of chicken?

MB: No, I think the blame ultimately lies with Iowa and New Hampshire and this undemocratic system that we’ve got. We moved up to challenge them, and their response was, threaten the candidates to protect their own monopoly going forward. They’ve threatened candidates like that before, Delaware a few years ago, they also threatened candidates and they pulled out of those contests as a result. So I think, ultimately, the blame here is on Iowa and New Hampshire, and their defense of this indefensible system.

PB: I would say that seeing the promises Mitt Romney, John McCain, and Mike Huckabee were forced to make, you can see exactly what moving a state like Michigan up in the process does that it wouldn’t have done if this was February.

MB: From that perspective, yes, obviously they’re addressing our issues, which they wouldn’t have done, if we wouldn’t have moved it up. Do we wish the Democrats were here addressing our issues? Yes. On the other hand though, once the primary season is over, Michigan will be a targeted state. Our candidate is going to spend an enormous amount of time here. I suspect they’ll spend some make-up time here, because we’ll insist that they do that. I think come the first of the year, our issues will be front and center.

PB: However, how does the cause of disrupting this monopoly with New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada now I suppose — has that cause been served by this effort? Or does it just look more like a scramble?

MB: I think we’ll advance the cause. There’s been a lot more discussion nationally about this issue. People see Michigan and Florida being punished while Iowa and New Hampshire get to go early. That’s not fair. That’s not right. So I think we advanced the cause. Has it been painful? Yes, but a lot of times, we’re engaging in a form of civil disobedience, and when you do that, there’s usually a penalty associated that you have to suffer along with it. So, again, should we be going through this? Yes. Are we disappointed? Yes. But I think we have advanced the cause of reform. So hopefully in 2012 no state will have to endure what we’re enduring now.

PB: Is there a thought that there should be like a regional lottery? I see four regions in four smaller, perhaps less influential blocs represented now. And that may be by design. That means nothing too large happens too soon.

MB: There’s lots of different reforms out there. Senator Levin’s got a reform proposal. I mean anything would be acceptable for us, so long as no state or states are guaranteed the right to go first every four years. That’s our goal.

PB: To change tradition, which is always difficult ... no one likes to defy the laws of tradition.

MB: I appreciate the tradition, but the question I ask, is if you’re designing a nominating system from scratch with a blank slate, you would not design this system. It’s irrational. And I don’t think you can defend something based on tradition. If we were still basing things on tradition in this country, African Americans and women wouldn’t be voting, for example.

PB: Our next president could come from one of those groups.

MB: For states to resort to tradition to defend their status, I just think that’s a very weak defense. Traditions need to change. They need to be updated.

PB: Is the desperate economic situation that’s been brewing in Michigan since the auto industry expatriated, has that caused Michigan to make this move where say Illinois, or another Midwestern state wouldn’t have?

MB: Well, Carl Levin’s been leading this effort in Michigan for several cycles. So there’s been a consistent effort, it’s particularly timely now given our economic troubles, but I think we would have done this even if the automobile industry was thriving and the state was in great shape because after reform here.

PB: He’s pushed that into the party culture in the state.

MB: In the state, and because he’s been doing this for several cycles.

PB: Since perhaps 2000 or 1996?

MB: Ninety-six, when I first became chair, I know he was pushing for reform then, and I think he was pushing even before then.

PB: I guess going forward from there, do you feel what’s happening now, in January, will hurt the party in November? As far as the GOP having an exclusive, kind of, media for their message and chance to gain new voters?

MB: I don’t think so. I mean I think the fall election’s going to be a choice between two candidates who have very different visions for the future. Change on the Democratic side, and I think more of the same from the Republican side, and a lot of candidate visits, a lot of voter education, a lot of campaigning here, and I don’t think in the end that the results in November will depend on who was campaigning in Michigan in January. I just think that a lot of things will supersede what’s going on now.

PB: That sounds well and good, but if the nominee from the Republican side is John McCain, who has long been popular with Democrats, could this disenfranchise certain Democrats? Or Democrats that are anti-Hillary, could they see Hillary propelled to the nomination by half the delegates of Michigan and have a bitterness?

MB: Each of the Republicans have strengths and weaknesses. It’s going to be a different campaign against Huckabee, or Giuliani, or Romney or McCain.

PB: But McCain still intangibly benefits in the state, because of no Obama or Edwards to vote for, we could see some Democrats propel him to a victory here.

MB: I don’t know. I think they’ll be back here in the fall. This is the Democratic candidate and what he or she stands for, this is the Republican candidate. And frankly, McCain by and large is the candidate of the status quo. He supports the surge in Iraq — he said we could keep our troops there for a hundred years.

PB: The principle architect of the Surge policy …

MB: I mean, when we get to that point, and we’re differentiating between candidates and party positions, again, I think that will be the determining factor in the election. Not the fact that McCain did well here in a couple of primaries. Again, they all have strengths and weaknesses, but I think that will all be subsumed within the fall campaign.

PB: Living in South Carolina and Virginia the past few years, I’ve come to doubt that Hillary Clinton can win a national election … a very strong polarizing effect.

MB: That’s not something I can get into, because I have to stay neutral.

PB: Now [Wednesday] can you come out for Hillary?

MB: No, I will not come out for a candidate. I am unofficially uncommitted. I will not come out for a candidate until it’s clear that they are the presumptive nominee, that they clearly have enough votes to get nominated. At that point, I will probably pledge to that candidate. It’s particularly important for me to stay uncommitted for the next couple of months until we’ve finished selecting our delegates because I have to supervise that process and I don’t want people being suspicious that I’m trying to tilt it one way or the other.

PB: There does seem to have been a kind of political advantage taken by the Clintons, but it seems to be within the language, that they didn’t — that they’re not campaigning by remaining on the ballot.

MB: People made their choices. They interpreted the pledge as they saw fit. They’re all intelligent people with intelligent advisors and they made their choices. Now they’re going to have to live with whatever happens today.

PB: I guess, to wrap up, is there anything you’d like to express about this happening, and what the positives are? I know you’ve iterated that Michigan can move forward in this process, and by taking this penalty now, we’ve done a great service to other states. I want to be able to depict it as something that in the long run is a good.

MB: I think it is. I think it is, and I think there’ll be much more discussion of the unfairness of the system, because now people have seen what has happened. But as Carl Levin said here last week, he and I did a press conference together, another advance, another step on the road to reform would be next summer, when we are seated at the convention, and people will see that these threats by Iowa and New Hampshire are hollow. That even if a state has the audacity to jump ahead of time and threaten their monopoly, they still get seated at the convention. So, I think we have made progress, and painful as it may have been, I wish it was less painful than it’s been, but I think we’ve made progress.

PB: I would rather have seen, instead of Mitt Romney trotting out his memory of himself and his father at Cobo for the auto show, I would rather have seen Barack Obama there to speak to the downtrodden at Cobo, in Detroit, instead of these little trips. I’ve had to follow Romney around to these exclusive little places.

MB: Again, whoever the Democratic nominee is here, they will spend plenty of time here visiting auto plants and comparable venues.

PB: What issues do you think have been neglected during this campaign because of the lack of a Democratic voice? We hear a lot about the economy at least, but …

MB: What we’re hearing from the Republicans are the typical Republican solutions economically that don’t work. Continue the Bush tax cuts and that kind of nonsense, where we haven’t had, because the Democratic candidates aren’t here, we have not had the opportunity to debate the stimulus packages, for example, that all three of them have put together, the health care programs that all of them have put out, I think far exceed what the Republicans have done.

PB: I think crime too. Without Giuliani here there’s been nothing to draw attention to the crime problem in Detroit, Flint, and Saginaw.

MB: Or just talk about urban issues. These candidates have not done anything to address urban issues generally, so no, there are things that could’ve and should’ve been talked about that weren’t because the Democrats aren’t here. Hopefully, again, I hope we can make up for that once we get past the primary.

PB: we’re all riveted to watch and see that. Most exciting election year of my lifetime …

MB: It is very exciting. It’s a very historic time.

Posted by editor at 02:20 AM | Comments (0)

July 12, 2007

LOST in Leelanau — Part II

By Pat Stinson
Sun contributor

What follows is the continuation of a story we ran on June 14, with a not so cheery ending. We hope you’ll like this conclusion much more.

Leelanau County Animal Control Officer Paul Peschel took my little, lost Boston Terrier buddy, Grumpy, in the pet carrier to Cherryland Humane Society. Officer Peschel said Grumpy lived up to his temporary nickname while being transferred from the carrier to the shelter cage. After recently giving a little of his trust to a stranger (me) and having it abruptly taken away, Grumps was entitled to his grouchiness. Some lost animals that display aggressive tendencies while roaming free settle down once they are accustomed to their cage and the care of the shelter attendants, he said. I hoped that would be the case with Grumpy.

“A dog acts differently than when it’s just me chasing it around with a bite stick, (stick with a noose on one end),” he explained.

In the summer months, Officer Peschel responds to 70 to 80 complaints per month, anywhere in the county. The exception is the National Park, where he has no jurisdiction. Some calls are about lost or wandering dogs. (For those of you who are wondering, cats are considered “free will” creatures and aren’t, he said, covered under municipal law, though he tries to be helpful over the phone.) Other calls result in various animal control duties, including getting cows back into their pasture, removing dogs from chicken pens, gathering loose livestock or poultry and responding to neglect or abuse cases.

Officer Peschel said his best stories are about lost dogs that can be identified by tags or microchips. Less than half of the dogs he captures (such as Grumpy) have identification.

One of his big frustrations, he said, is when a dog runs away from him. If it’s wearing a tag, however, he can try to read it through binoculars. If the tag is from a veterinarian, he will call the vet’s office to obtain the owner’s phone number.

His favorite story is about a dog found wandering near Fort Road and M-22 with a Louisiana veterinarian’s tag. He called the New Orleans area vet’s office and got the dog owners’ phone number. When he called the number, an answering machine message conveyed the news that the owner had recently moved to Suttons Bay and it also supplied the new phone number. The dog was returned to its owner just half a mile from where it was found.

A person finding a dog at large with tags should try to locate the owner first, if he or she recognizes the dog. If it’s not wearing tags or the dog isn’t familiar, call the Sheriff’s Department.

“Don’t approach it, unless it comes to you,” he said. “If it’s near its own property, it may be more protective.” Whether or not the dog is wearing tags, if the dog is injured or unfriendly, (telltale signs of the latter may include ears back, tail down or between legs and otherwise acting nervous or afraid), call Animal Control.

“Be wary, because you can’t always tell,” he continued. “A wagging tail doesn’t always mean (it’s) friendly.”

Preferring to call himself a “dog finder” rather than “dog catcher,” Officer Peschel, though he’s been working in Animal Control for six years, still has tense moments of his own when approaching and capturing dogs.

“My most hesitant moment is lifting the dog from the ground to the truck, when the dog is at face level. The dog is the most vulnerable and so am I.”

Once Leelanau Animal Control brings the dog to Cherryland, it is observed carefully by staff to check its condition and behavior. Grumpy’s tail was bleeding and his eye was irritated, but he otherwise seemed to be in good physical shape. Since he wasn’t wearing a collar, he would not be put up for adoption for five days, in order to give the owner an opportunity to call and claim him. Officer Peschel said dogs with collars are given seven days before they are made available to adopt. Shelter attendants evaluate the dog’s temperament according to a classification system in place since 2003. Categories, as listed on Cherryland’s website, include: A - Adoptable to any home, B - No first time dog owners, C - No children (pre-schoolers), D - No other dogs or pets, E - No elderly or disabled persons.

I called on Grumpy’s condition a few days after he arrived at the shelter and discovered he was, indeed, a Boston Terrier, and that he had been named “Star” for adoption purposes. Star had given one of the attendants “kisses.” I was thrilled … and little more hopeful about his adoption chances. What I didn’t know was that Grumpy’s photo, description and classification codes were posted on Cherryland’s website, along with those of the other dogs and cats. (Cats are not assigned temperament codes.)

“Cherryland’s crew does a good job of deciding adoptability,” Officer Peschel said. “Unless a dog is unidentified and aggressive or bit someone, they work very hard.”

In fact, the shelter has a waiting list of people hoping to adopt certain breeds, something else I didn’t know when I was postponing my call to Animal Control.

For those two reasons, I was taken completely by surprise when I called Cherryland two weeks after Star was “admitted” and was told he had been adopted. I was ecstatic, in fact, until my husband came home and asked me if I would spend the same energy on a homeless person sleeping in our outdoor lean-to. Could we be guilty of calling ourselves stewards of the planet when we help man’s best friend, while sometimes ignoring the “man?”

Officer Peschel might be in a better position to (unwittingly) answer these questions. At home, his critter companions include a cat, three dogs and llamas. An EMT and EMT Specialist, he spent 17 years in emergency dispatch before joining Animal Control. Over the phone, he has helped mothers breathe for their babies and guided the novice to perform successful CPR. When the county A.C. position became available, he answered the “call.” Of the less than 10 dogs or so per year he guesses are purposely released in Leelanau County without collars, he said, “It would be like turning out your child and having it fend for itself.”

Then, he added: “To help things that can’t speak for themselves takes it to a different level.”

Thank you, Officer Peschel, and thanks to Cherryland Humane Society, an organization that truly promotes stewardship.

The number of the Leelanau County Sheriff’s Department (ask for Animal Control) is (231) 256-8800. For more on Cherryland Humane Society, visit www.cherrylandhumane.org

Posted by editor at 05:46 PM | Comments (0)

June 28, 2007

Remodeled Empire beach draws varying reactions

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

“This will not be your grandmother’s beach, not the beach you’ve had here the last 50 years,” Empire Village Council member Karen Baja admitted to concerned local residents in mid-June during a meeting of the Park Committee, which makes recommendations to the Council on matters concerning the public beach.

As she spoke, trucks were busy laying new asphalt on the road, sidewalks and parking lots at Empire’s magnificent public beach. The basketball court had already been temporarily razed, and walls erected between the parking lots and the beach. But most striking of all, a new playground — gigantic by the beach’s previous standards — now dominated the view for those arriving at the beach and, as it turned out, the view from much of Storm Hill as well.

Photo by Norm Wheeler

The Empire beach project is the result of a $500,000 state matching grant to upgrade and rebuild facilities like the public bathrooms, the road and sidewalks, and multiple private donations, which foot the bill for the new playground. To a minority of locals, the playground, the wall and the concrete are eyesores that damage the best public beach for miles around, and an example of local government failing its constituents. To others, it solves some of the beach’s biggest problems, and turning down the money available once the grant was secured would have been akin to looking a gift horse in the mouth. At a Village Council meeting on June 26, most locals spoke in favor of the project, and a couple of concerned youngsters pleaded for the new playground to be kept where it is. One even offered a list of 72 signatures in support of it.

The Empire beach project will undoubtedly attract larger crowds, especially children eager to enjoy the playground — a product of Gametime Corporation in Atlanta and the kind used in most schools and municipalities. Baja calls it “the Ford of playgrounds … not a Rolls Royce and not a Vega: we went with the middle ground.” Yet Empire’s new beachscape will probably go down as the most controversial local story of the summer.

Janet Weiler lives in nearby Lakeview Orchards, just east of Empire on M-72, and she comes to Empire beach to swim a mile every day during the warm weather to prepare for triathlons. “I moved here 12 years ago because I love Lake Michigan and our beautiful beach. I think what these people did here is a desecration of a beautiful spot that we were given here in Empire with a moral obligation to maintain. It breaks my heart to see artificial structures distracting from the amazing view.”

Ashlea Walter, a member of the Village Council who, like Baja serves on the Park Committee, takes a pragmatic approach. “I admit that when you first see (the new beachscape), it looks tall. Before, the only tall features were the slide and swings. What I think we all struggle with is that when living in a village or municipality, we have to consider the good of the whole. My frustration is that this has been in process for a while now. We’ve seen the schematic drawings; we’ve seen it on paper. We have held dozens of meetings about the playground.

“It’s probably not my first pick for playground material, but it’s wonderful to see how many kids are using it already — more than I’ve ever seen before the Fourth of July.”

The plan to remodel the Empire beach began over four years ago when deputy clerk Darleen Friend applied for a state grant to rebuild the public bathroom, which had fallen into disrepair, and fix the beach’s chronic septic problems. Encouraged by the Traverse City-based engineering firm Gosling Czubak (the Village’s sole client) and empowered by Empire beach’s prime spot on Lake Michigan and its proximity to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, the Village won the matching grant, which stipulated it would receive two-thirds of the $500,000 from Lansing and come up with the rest itself. The approval came as a surprise to many, and it allowed the Village Council to give the beach much more than cosmetic changes — like building walls.

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” — Robert Frost

Len Shalda, Superintendent of Empire’s Department of Public Works for the last three decades, had been calling for the erection of a wall between the parking lots and the beach to stop sand from migrating to the pavement.

“The last several years we’ve hauled out 300-400 yards of sand per year that blows onto the street,” he says. “We’d stockpile as much as we could, and the sand was free for anyone who wanted to come and get it. But the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) wouldn’t let us put it back on the beach. Being in a critical dune area, we have to do what the DEQ says.” As for concrete, the DEQ stipulates that the wall must be portable. “We have to be able to move it if they tell us to,” explains Shalda.

The series of walls along the axis where sidewalk and road meets sand, from the southernmost parking lot near the Empire Anchor to the Lighthouse near South Bar Lake, are between two and four feet tall. They are made of a shade of poured concrete that, Shalda says, “blends in with the beach. As walls go, this is a neutral color.” He contrasts the walls at Empire beach with the ugly cement gray of the walls at the public beach in nearby Frankfort — not to mention the lack of aesthetics paid to infamous walls in Berlin, China, Palestine and the Mexican border.

Some who visited Empire beach during June, while construction was underway, grimaced at the sight of a wall that had replaced an open view of sand and water. While sitting in one’s car, one was no longer able to watch the sun set into Lake Michigan. (The sidewalks and parking lots, themselves, have since been raised by 6-12 inches to alleviate the problem of seeing over the wall. In turn, critics accuse the engineers of solving a concrete problem by adding more concrete.)

Locals like Weiler say they were aware that a wall was to be built, but that they had no idea it was to be so high, or so out of touch with the natural landscape. “Maybe we needed some sort of barrier,” Weiler admits. “But we could have used dunegrass, or snow walls, or something to enhance the land rather than desecrate it.”

Holly Sorenson takes her criticism a step further. She claims she has tried to participate in the political process toward shaping how the remodeled beach would look, but to no avail. “About 50 of us met at the Town Hall and divided into groups to brainstorm alternative ideas after the original plan was unveiled. We came up with creative, wonderful ideas, but the Village Council voted 4-3 against us on every point. The Council thought they were doing good things, but they used bad judgment. They didn’t consult the community.” Another local attested that one of the key ideas that emerged from an “Envision Empire” brainstorming session more than five years ago was to install wooden boardwalks to benefit pedestrians. Somehow the boardwalk morphed into concrete sidewalks.

“Furthermore,” says Sorenson, “It was all completely backwards to hire an engineer for this project who had never done any beach work before.”

To be fair, the beachscape recommendations of Baja and Walter, as well as former Park Committee member Cheryl Fettes, were overruled by the other Village Council members, many of whom were voted out of office last November. Baja supported the wall because she envisioned it saving the parking lot — “a nice, utilitarian addition because otherwise the asphalt would crumble as cars parked closer and closer to the sand,” she says — while Walter did not support the wall.

“Ashlea and I inherited this,” Baja said. “The grant had already been applied for and awarded prior to our arrival (on the Park Committee). There is a new village council now, but we decided not to go back and revisit for fear of losing the grant. We assumed that the majority of people wanted improvements made to the beach.”

Private money on public land

The playground was the result of a dialogue that began with Baja in April, 2006 and led to $38,000 from two big donations and hundreds of smaller contributions from local residents who wanted to improve the existing playground for their children and grandchildren. The Village also took advantage of another matching grant, this one from Gametime, which agreed to match private donations dollar-per-dollar in the name of fighting childhood obesity. Critics have compared the playground, a two-story, multicolored plastic giant that sits just to the east of the basketball court and next to the swings, to an indoor jungle gym at a fast food restaurant. Once community volunteers erected the playground and realized that it dominated the beachscape, one asked if it could be moved elsewhere, possibly closer to the dock at South Bar Lake.

“Why did they pick this strange, bright-colored plastic and put it on public land?” Sorenson wonders. “I have friends who aren’t going to the beach now. It breaks their heart. We didn’t have to take that money just because it was there.”

As for public input, Baja points out that people didn’t seem very interested in the playground during public meetings over the last year and a half. More attention has focused on remodeling the beachscape. The playground was always a separate entity, though the construction for both projects took place in June for logistical reasons.

Naturally, both local and visiting kids are thrilled about their new playpen, and Baja emphasizes that making kids feel more included was one of the goals of the beach renovation.

Jack Gyr, a recent transplant to Empire from Benzie County, feels conflicted between aesthetics and practicality. “The playground and its castle rooftops look like something at the Magic Kingdom, and Disney World belongs in Florida, not here. At the same time, if kids are using and enjoying the playground, we adults should avoid getting too whacked out. Similarly, the walls are too high, but I saw people sitting on them like benches the other day watching the sunset.”

To Weiler, landscape integrity trumps all else. “Of course kids are going to love the playground. This has become like the checkout counter at the grocery store, where they beg for candy even though they don’t need candy. We go to the beach to love the sand and the sky, and the beauty of it all. We don’t need artificial things like that playground. And anybody who has any aesthetic sense would see that.

“What they’ve done ruins the beach. And they did it because they had the money.”

Arguing aesthetics, though, is like arguing over religion, admits David Hendricks, who held an informal gathering in mid-June attended by around 15 people concerned with the beach renovation.

Moving the playground would not conflict with the grant, Baja says, because it was funded with private donations, and would require only a community consensus and funds. But if the meeting on June 26 is any indication, the majority of the Empire public supports the new beachscape, and the playground and walls are here to stay.

The Glen Arbor Sun welcomes letters to the editor concerning the Empire beach controversy. Please email them to editorial@glenarborsun.com.

Posted by editor at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)

June 14, 2007

LOST in Leelanau

By Pat Stinson
Sun contributor

It was just over a year ago, on one of those warm spring days when the sun had heated the earth sufficiently to release smells of freshly-plowed dirt and flowering trees. The scents drifted past my nose on a warm breeze, as dog Lucy and I walked across a short field toward a stand of red pines on our property. Lucy stopped periodically, raising her long Sheltie nose and sniffing the air while she stood in shadows cast by the tall trunks. Wondering what she might be whiffing, I looked toward the forest. A flash of white between rows of conifers caught my eye and startled me. I edged a bit closer and, moving parallel with the trees, spotted a black and white little barrel shape on four spindly white legs slowly picking its way along a path in our woods. When it lifted its head, tiny ears flapping, I saw the unmistakable flat snout and cheeky features of a type of bulldog, though this little guy seemed smaller than others of the breed.

A half dozen questions crowded my thoughts: Was it lost, or did it regularly travel the short distance from a nearby subdivision to visit our woods? Should I leave it alone to find its way home? Should I approach it to check for tags, or follow it? I knew only one thing … Lucy would not be pleased to share my company with a strange dog. I quickly guided her the short distance back to our house and returned as silently as I could, all the while flashing back to a time 40-plus years ago when I had met another of its type quite unexpectedly. I had been outside, minding my own business, when a bulldog had charged me from a neighbor’s yard. The sound and sight of its rushing fury forced me to take refuge in the family car, serendipitously parked in the driveway. I lay on the old Pontiac’s horn as only a mortally-frightened seven year old could.

Today’s dog seemed harmless, at least from a distance. Its black-and-white coloring convinced me it was a variation of the breed — exactly which one, I had no idea. The word “Boxer” came to mind, though I knew the color and height were all wrong. What I presumed was a “he,” (after all – how could anything with “bull” in its name possibly be female?), had left the pines now and was leisurely heading toward the edge of our property. I watched as the little guy entered our crumbling, three-sided horse shelter and plopped himself down for a nap in a pile of leaves. He had obviously done this before. I crept back to the house and fretted over unanswered questions. While relating the story to my partner a little later, I discovered he had seen the dog walking in the pouring rain two days earlier. Lost! I pictured a fragile spinster calling for Fido every morning from her back doorstep.

I immediately went back down the hill to the shelter with a small dish of dog food and a giant tub of water. The interloper was sacked out on his maple-leaf bed. I moved as quietly as I could among the leaves and fallen branches, placed the dish and tub just outside the entrance to the shelter, checked to see if he was wearing a collar, (couldn’t tell), and tiptoed back to the house. I spent an hour online, researching bulldogs and boxers, and finally decided our little guy was a Boston Terrier — larger and more muscular than the toy versions in the web photos and lacking the breed’s usually-erect ears.

What to do with him? This was a Saturday, and I couldn’t place an ad in the newspaper until Monday. I went to work composing and printing FOUND notices for neighbors’ mailboxes and local stores. It was 10:30 p.m. when my printer gasped the last flyer from its tray and midnight before the notices were attached to neighbor’s mailboxes.

The next day, our lost dog was still asleep in his leaves. The forecast was for cold and rainy weather, so I lined Lucy’s pet carrier with a down vest, cut up a garbage bag to keep the carrier dry, and silently (except for crunching leaves and snapping twigs) put the crate next to him. He woke up and growled mightily while I re-filled his water & food dishes. I left him alone for a few hours and went back down at noon; he had eaten all of the food, drank most of the water, and had slipped inside the pet carrier where I could hear him lightly snoring. I refilled the food dish and tip-toed back up the hill to the house.

My new friend, who I nicknamed “Grumpy,” wasn't wearing any tags, and I had a decision to make. The weather was going to be even colder the next couple of nights. I knew I couldn't bring him up to the house, he was just too scared, and my Sheltie's high-strung temperament wouldn’t help. I didn't want to call Animal Control to take him to the Humane Society, because I wasn’t sure how long they'd keep him. As an older doggy with what appeared to be cataracts, one red eye, and an apparent hearing problem, Grumpy just didn’t seem like anyone’s second or even third adoption choice.

I called Leelanau County Animal Control anyway, told them about Grumps, and decided that I would run a free ad in the local paper for four days. During that time, plenty of folks, all women, called on their lost doggies — but none of them was Grumpy's owner.

The days got warmer, and Grumpy spent them laying in the sunshine, getting up only to pee or to eat. Then, one day I went down the hill with a big dog treat and left it on the ground a little further than usual from his shelter. I waited a few feet away. He started walking toward the treat, and I backed up slowly while he came within six feet of me, grabbed the biscuit, and took it back down the hill to his leaf pile. Later in the day, I took another treat down and clapped & whistled at him. He walked up to me, gingerly took the treat from my hand, and continued right on past me up the hill to devour it.

He was getting a little less Grumpy.

That night, about 8:30, I went down to check on him — he was gone! No Grumpy anywhere. I combed the forest — nothing. The neighbor's 80 acres is a dangerous place. Besides frequent coyote visits, the land is full of coyote traps. I roamed the empty fields.

I went to bed that night feeling disgusted with myself. I should have asked Animal Control to take Grumpy to the Humane Society, where he'd at least have a warm bed and where, if the end were going to come, if would do so quickly and painlessly.

In the early morning, I decided to rub salt in the ol’ wound and check to see if he had returned. There he was, curled up tightly as he could be, inside the pet carrier. I knew what I had to do. I called Animal Control, explained where Grumpy could be found, and the kind officer told me that he would only pick up Grumpy if I first closed the pet carrier door. Now that Grumps' strength had returned, and he was free to wander, there wasn't any guarantee he'd be here when Animal Control arrived. So, I walked as quietly as I could back down the hill, sneaked up behind the carrier, and with my traitor heart pounding so loudly I was sure it would wake him, closed the door on my little buddy. He woke with a start — growling and snarling and lunging at the carrier door. Animal Control came soon after and took him away.

Posted by editor at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)

November 09, 2006

Local boys explore America’s world role in new documentary

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

Now that the elections are over, let’s talk politics. Let’s enter the ring and debate about Bush, and the Muslim world, and the war on terror. Wait, no, not the kind of boxing match discussion that pits only two sides against each other — each off in their own corner bouncing up and down in arrogance. Those matches rarely lead to anything other than bloody noses.

Photo courtesy Avenue E Products

Let’s have instead the kind of political discussion that might not produce a winner — one that examines crisis and conscience, what it means to be American, and how our zeitgeist or “spirit of the times” has changed since we began uttering that loaded word, w-a-r, again. Where have we come from? Where are we going? And how do others react to the path we take?

Two young men with legitimate local credentials (they’ve summered in northern Michigan their whole lives) have created a unique and explosive documentary called “American Zeitgeist: Crisis and Conscience in an Age of Terror.” It has been premiering at film festivals all over North America since the spring of 2006 to rave reviews and standing ovations. “An important film about America and for America, one that counters the country’s partisan, bi-fractural politics and media,” writes openDemocracy.net.

Rob McGann, who summers in nearby Frankfort, directed and produced “American Zeitgeist,” and his high school buddy from Springfield, Ill., Aaron Blasius, a familiar face around Glen Arbor because he tended bar at Art’s Tavern for four years while putting himself through school, co-produced it. Both McGann and Blasius were actually in this neck of the woods when the 9/11 attacks changed the world or, as some would argue, reminded the United States that it was part of the world. “The mood that night at Art’s was one of stunned disbelief,” Blasius remembers. Just as in many small towns, suburbs and cities alike, the shock quickly turned into an “anticipation of what America’s response would be. It was nice to be able to spend time with friends and neighbors, and get a grip on what had just happened.”

Fast forward to February of 2003. McGann and Blasius were reacquainted and in New York (neither knew that the other had been holed up in northern Michigan); Bush and the U.S. military were poised to launch another invasion, this time of Iraq; and a year and a half after the terrorist attacks most New Yorkers once again opposed the sitting president’s politics. While perusing bars and coffee shops and listening to the chatter on the street, McGann came up with the question that would form the basis of the movie. “What does it mean to be American? What is our role in the world? Is it right to be offensive in a defensive-minded war?” These questions were going unanswered from Brooklyn to Crawford, Texas as the soldiers and peace activists marched off to their respective beats, their fingers drawn and pointing.

“American Zeitgeist” seeks to cut through all the political posturing that will continue long after the last troops die or come home. Instead this movie embraces the impossible task of asking what America is, what it does, and what it represents — truly the most explosive questions on the world stage since September 11.

“We decided to do a movie about a conversation that would never happen,” explains Blasius. “Gather (more than 40) experts who you’d never get in a room together and interview them.” That’s just what “American Zeitgeist” is — an interview documentary that includes conversations with experts across the political spectrum: Richard Clarke, the country’s first “terrorism czar” who served on the National Security Councils of both Clinton and the current Bush; Noam Chomsky, the famous linguist and critic of American foreign policy; Christopher Hitchens, the controversial and outspoken proponent of the Iraq invasion; Tariq Ali, the Pakistani native who publishes The New Left Review; Steve Coll; Peter Bergen; Samantha Power; the list of experts who agreed to appear in “American Zeitgeist” goes on and on, and it is impressive.

Clarke was the first big-name political figure to accept, and when McGann and Blasius arrived at his house in Washington D.C., Clarke’s book “Against all Enemies” was number one on the bestseller list. “He was intense,” Blasius recalls. “There were cicada insects buzzing around outside, and he only gave us a certain amount of time.”

But “American Zeitgeist” is not just about the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In fact, only two or three minutes of the movie are directly devoted to those events. The timeline begins with the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, which the United States answered by supporting and training Muslim fundamentalists to resist the occupier — and that, as we now know, planted the seeds for what became the Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network.

Instead, the movie’s thesis is the story of how America’s foreign policy has had inverse consequences: funding bin Laden and the mujahadeen against Moscow; forgetting about Afghanistan once the Cold War ended; growing addicted to Saudi Arabian oil (15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis); and, quite possibly, the invasion of Iraq and the attempt to bring democracy to the Arab Middle East. “This movie talks about what we’re doing now, and the potential consequences of those actions,” says Blasius.

“American Zeitgeist” does not take a political stance or judge whether the invasion of Iraq was right or wrong, for absolutism is not the goal here. Nobody — not crowds who’ve scene the premiers, nor political pundits — have pigeonholed the movie as being “liberal” or “conservative,” pro- or anti-U.S. foreign policy. When I met Aaron Blasius at Art’s Tavern late this fall to discuss the film, he surprised me when he told me that the most common question he’s been asked is not what he thinks of Bush, but what he thinks of filmmaker Michael Moore, of Fahrenheit 911 fame. “Moore had the opportunity to inform people and to be true to the art of documentary,” Blasius responded. “But I think he took the easier way out and decided to entertain instead. He took Afghanistan, which is a big, complicated subject, and used a clip from ‘Bonanza.’”

The route McGann and Blasius took was to present experts with a myriad of different viewpoints, some that are extreme, and others that merely cast the room in a different shade of blue: the use of leftist Tariq Ali and rightist Christopher Hitchens as polar opposites, for example, to reflect that there are valid points on both sides of the argument.

Aaron Blasius won’t tell you what to believe about this turbulent period in American history. “My hope for the movie is that it will challenge people, either to re-think their positions or learn more about the issues and ask legitimate questions. Go out and read these people’s books. It matters what people on the other side of the world think of us.”

Posted by editor at 09:58 PM | Comments (0)

September 15, 2006

Is Leelanau’s farmland in danger?

Upcoming ballot proposal would protect land from development
By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

“Cape Cod of the Midwest!”

While certainly a compliment to our home’s beautiful land and sparkling waters, this attribution to Leelanau County has become something of a dubious honor in the eyes of many locals, who fear that as this county’s popularity increases around the United States, the torrid pace of growth and development on our shorelines, in our forests and on our farmland will continue.

A citizens group called Save Leelanau Farmland! has introduced a measure that would preserve much of Leelanau’s farmland by creating a way that farmers can sell the right to develop their property to the county in exchange for public money and state and federal matching funds. The farmland preservation initiative will appear on the November 7 election ballot as a half-mill proposal that, if approved, would cost the local property owner a median amount of $2.35 per month or $28 per year.

Jeff and Juanita Send, who own a 160-acre cherry farm just south of Suttons Bay, believe that’s a tiny price to pay to keep Leelanau’s pastures and rolling hills locked up in agriculture at a time when downstate developers are offering millions of dollars to build homes on real estate with mouth-watering views.

“We have to act now,” says Jeff, a tone of haste in his voice, as he walks along a row of fledgling cherry trees — his future harvest. “Time goes by fast. If we don’t pass this initiative, within a few years from now the land all around us will be condominiums, and we will have lost what this land was all about … forever.”

Jeff Send admits that the temptation for a farmer to sell to a developer is growing, especially since small farmers are having trouble competing with the subsidy-fattened, super corporate farms elsewhere in the country, not to mention food being imported at rock bottom prices from elsewhere in the world. Furthermore, many local farmers are finding a lack of interest from their kids in continuing the family tradition. As the caretakers of some of the most bountiful, and beautiful land in our midst reach retirement age, what are they to do?

“Do the right thing for Leelanau” is the slogan voiced by Save Leelanau Farmland! as well as organizations backing this initiative like the Michigan Land Use Institute and the Leelanau Conservancy. And do it now, for the average age of a Leelanau County farmer is 55 years, according to Julie Hay, the Land Use Institute’s Leelanau County Smart Growth Coordinator. Her three main pillars for supporting the Farmland Preservation proposal are: quality of life and scenic beauty; the local economy; and urgency.

“We’re trying to make it evident to people that this is about preserving our quality of life, and our economy,” Julie explains. “1,200 jobs in the county are tied to agriculture, and $130 million a year are tied jointly to tourism and agriculture. People come on vacation and they enjoy seeing the farms, the cherry blossoms in the spring, and tasting wine at the vineyards.”

Agratourism

Don Coe is the proprietor of Black Star Farms, a luxurious winery near Suttons Bay and a beacon of agricultural tourism. He is also one of Michigan’s five state agricultural commissioners. Don shares Julie Hay’s view that farmland preservation is Leelanau County’s necessary path forward.

“It all starts with the farmland itself. The farmland is the primary raw material for the agriculture business. But in order to have viable agriculture, farmland has to be available at an affordable price, and today farmland is competing with sprawl. In fact, sprawl has just about doubled the value of farmland. That premium between affordable land for farming and the actual price of the land for building homes is putting pressure on sustainable agriculture in Leelanau County.

“What Farmland Preservation does is put the tool in the hands of the farmer so that he can handle the premium of the land. What the farmer does is agree to sell off the premium, the increased value of the land. He’s selling his assets. What community gains in purchasing that asset is a guarantee that the land will stay as agriculture or open land.”

Young farmers, recent graduates of agriculture schools, have been approaching Don Coe in hopes of entering the business and continuing Leelanau County’s relationship with the land. But they have been unable to find farmland at affordable prices. Paradoxically, Don laments, a farmer with 160 acres right across the street from Black Star Farms is closing up shop and succumbing to a developer. The proprietor is an elderly lady who needs cash to fund her retirement, and her own children who wish to keep the farm cannot match the developer’s price for the land. “We’re a rural, agricultural tourist destination, and soon there will be 80 houses on the property just across the street. This will hurt Black Star Farms.”

Don Coe and Jeff Send both believe that the November 7 vote is a way for Leelanau County residents to show how important they value local agriculture. “I’d feel personally a bit betrayed if we find that the community won’t support the only mechanism to deal with affordable farmland,” admits Don. “If we don’t get some kind of control over farmland, we will lose what draws people like myself into agriculture.”

Taxes, opposition

Naturally, any measure that would raise taxes meets a storm of opposition in rural Midwestern America. Farmland Preservation has met fierce resistance in Leelanau County, where the Board of Commissioners killed an initial drive in 2003 to put the millage proposal before voters. In a somewhat surprising move, the Board voted 5-2 last April in favor of placing Farmland Preservation on the upcoming November ballot, which appears to give the movement some momentum.

But a one-issue group called Leelanau Taxpayers United, led by chairman Tom Triebes, seeks to stop the millage and the taxes it would incur. Tom admits that farming is changing all across America, and echoing the spirit of the true blue free market economy, he believes that farmers will have to adapt to stay alive.

“For example, when I began coming to this area there was only one winery in the county, and now we have plenty of wineries. We’re seeing farmers change as revenues are not high enough compared to costs. They have to produce more high-value products.” As an example he cites a farmer living near him who now grows lettuce and mushrooms.

Tom Triebes, who owns farmland near Maple City, though he doesn’t grow any agricultural products on it, admits that many farmers are having a tough time making ends meet, and that, he says, is the main reason to keep their costs and taxes low. He believes in the mantra that this is a “free country” and shudders to think of farmers who would feel deprived of the freedom to do what they like with their farms once the time comes to shut the barn doors (even though farmers would not be forced to sell away their development rights if the initiative passes).

“The landowner has rights to land and this is a free country. If we become a country where the government dictates everything that you can and cannot do, I wouldn’t like that.

“My development rights have gone up by a factor of 10 over the last 20 years. That’s better than owning stocks in the stock market. Most farmers don’t want to sell their development rights because it’s such a good investment owning land in Leelanau.”

Furthermore, he questions the popularity of the Farmland Preservation initiative. Tom points out that only eight farmers in Leelanau County are currently on the list to sell their development rights.

That, says Julie Hay of the Michigan Land Use Institute, is a misnomer. Only eight are in place because there’s not yet a program to pay farmers for their development rights. In fact, a 2002 survey reveals that 60 percent of the county’s 4,000 farmers would be interested in the movement, and equally as telling, more than 75 percent said that something must be done to save Leelanau farmland.

But what should be done? And who should do it?

“I am all for farmland preservation,” says Tom Triebes, “but it belongs in the private sector. “The Leelanau Conservancy is doing a fine job of acquiring and protecting wetlands. Why don’t they seek to acquire farmland to prevent it from being developed, instead of taxing the rest of us? There are billionaires pushing this thing. They could pay for the whole initiative out of their pockets.

“This would be just another tax that makes it more expensive for people of lesser means to live in Leelanau. Are young people with children going to be able to afford to live here if we keep taxing them? I don’t want to see Leelanau become just another place where just wealthy people retire.

More than anything, Tom Triebes resents the fact that farmers who sell away their development rights would give up those rights forever.

“The catch here is the ‘forever’ guarantee. If the founding fathers had implemented farmland preservation, where would we be now? You can’t predict conditions that will be imposed on the next generation and generations down the line.”

Pay now or pay later

Don Coe of Black Star Farms has an answer for those voters who are afraid of higher taxes: vote yes for Farmland Preservation. Taxes are much higher in developed and populated areas than they are in rural areas because of the need for things like roads and rescue services. If the farmland in Leelanau County turns into resorts, condominiums and golf courses, by all means, taxes will rise — and much more than $28 per year.

“No one likes taxes. But if you don’t like taxes, then this is exactly what you should vote for. Farmland Preservation is not an anti-growth movement. It intends to seek a balance between the inevitable growth and inevitable taxes, by creating a vehicle to keep farming active.”

Posted by editor at 11:38 PM | Comments (0)

Local activist group makes waves

By Pat Stinson
Sun contributor

Fueled by coffee and a strong desire for change, four area women challenged themselves last summer to stop complaining about the direction our country is headed and start taking action.

“I was inspired by a 90-year-old,” says Celeste Crouch, a Glen Arbor resident and one of the “magic four” who met regularly for coffee and political discourse.

“She asked me, ‘Are you doing anything politically, writing any letters?’ I told her, ‘I’m so down, I’m not doing anything.’”

“Well, I’m just an activist at heart,” Celeste’s friend replied.

“This little group we had, the four of us, we decided to take our discontentment and turn it into positive energy,” Celeste explains. “We created a forum and a way for (women) to get involved and make a difference.”

They formed a non-partisan, progressive, political action group in the summer of 2005 called, Leelanau Independent Women for Democratic Action, (LIWDA). The word “democratic” in the name refers to a system of government that represents the people; it does not describe party affiliation. The group’s brochure states that they “seek to advance democratic values of political, economic, social, cultural and gender justice and equality.”

Word of the group spread quickly among Leelanau County women. One year later, the activist organization boasts 63 members cutting across party lines, from college-aged women to 90-year-olds. Most live in Empire and Glen Arbor, though some reside in Leland, Lake Leelanau, Suttons Bay and Northport. Members include retired teachers, an editor, a public relations person, a fundraiser and individuals involved in politics. Another 40 like-minded individuals who are not members stay connected to the group via email.

“The notion of getting involved has met a need,” Celeste says.

Gender lines have become blurred, too, with the first male to join the organization.

“He really likes our philosophy and asked to join,” Celeste continues. “We’re open to all.”

The group picks and chooses the issues it feels are most important, especially those affecting individuals and their environment — quality-of-life issues needing some type of action.

The group also endorses candidates whose values they share.

“A democracy can only be healthy if people are attentive and watch what our elected officials are doing,” she says. “Apathy and cynicism create a vacuum, and other big interests can move in … We think it’s time to clean house in the state and nationally, and get people elected who are not wanting to be answering to the corporate lobbies.”

A workshop was planned for September 12 at The Leelanau School, hosted by Interfaith Partnership for Political Action (IPPA) of Ann Arbor, to address the “moral imperatives underlying specific political policy positions.” IPPA isn’t a religious group, but its principles are informed by religious and other belief systems found in the U.S. The group’s goal is to “shift focus” of political policies based solely on economic gain to those that recognize “the equal worth of all persons and respect for human life.”
As an example of the above, Celeste cites a bill introduced in the Michigan Senate that would have made smoking illegal in the state’s bars and restaurants. The bill was killed in committee. Business was against it because the bars and restaurants could lose income. IPPA, on the other hand, would look at the health implication for individuals working at those bars and restaurants, Celeste said.

“Looking at the ethics behind the issues is really critical,” she explains. “We’re excited about getting values back into political discussions for a number of reasons. What’s good for the economy may not be good for individuals.”

On a county level, LIWDA endorses Farmland Preservation and continues to work on strategies to promote the proposal. The group also endorses the county’s recycling proposal and raises support for a recycling program at The Homestead Resort.

Celeste added that a lot of the credit for the resort’s new recycling program goes to Bob Ihme, Jr., of Glen Arbor Outdoor, who convinced many of The Homestead’s condominium associations to adopt the program.

LIWDA’s other local activities include monitoring solid waste management council meetings and other county meetings which involve quality-of-life issues. They’ve also written letters to newspaper editors and a forum piece for The Traverse City Record-Eagle, stating their position on clean elections and campaign finance reform. They’ve held open house receptions for political candidates and worked the polls on primary election day.

So far, the group has endorsed and held fundraisers for three political candidates: Governor Jennifer Granholm, Mike Huckleberry for 4th U.S. Congressional district, and Dan Scripps for House District 101.

Celeste says that Governor Granholm made a statement that “really subscribes” to her group’s beliefs. Paraphrasing the governor, Celeste remembers these words: “It’s not every man for himself, but all hands on deck. Together, we can do this.”

“If a candidate’s values match ours,” Celeste continues, “we really just jump on board and do whatever we can. They (Huckleberry and Scripps) are very much for education and making sure there’s equal funding for schools in the state.”

In addition, she says, Huckleberry is an environmental attorney who believes in legislation that protects the environment. He is also critical of corporations sending work overseas, which takes jobs from Michigan workers.

“Respecting the individual and the environment will help with our economic success,” Celeste says.

About half of LIWDA members participate in one of three action committees: National Issues and Candidates, State and Local Issues and Candidates, and Communications. Members hoping to raise awareness about their organization marched this summer in parades held in Empire, Glen Arbor and Cedar.

“The important point is that people can choose the kinds of things they’re interested in working on. We offer a variety of ways to get involved. Our members are working people, stay-at-home moms, retirees and people who live in our area part-time. People can find a place to fit in and really know they are making a difference and working on something important.”

Celeste likes this quote by Margaret Mead: “A small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

LIWDA meets the second Tuesday of the month. Three action groups meet monthly. Call (231) 334-6535 for more information. The group is currently working toward a website presence.

Posted by editor at 09:54 PM | Comments (0)

August 24, 2006

Will the Lake Street boat ramp move to Glen Haven?

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

High summer means a bottleneck of car and pedestrian traffic in downtown Glen Arbor, and nowhere is the problem more acute than at the north end of Lake Street, where the public boat ramp, Le Bear Resort and sunset watchers all compete for breathing space.

For years now the Glen Arbor Township Board has pushed for an alternative boat ramp at a different Lake Michigan access point in order to relieve congestion. That quest has been kicked into high gear in the last three years since the building of the enormous luxury resort, which, officials admit, has increased the pressure on traffic.

All eyes are now on nearby Glen Haven, where a onetime vibrant fishing village and Coast Guard station have given way to a preserved historic district in the heart of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, the local chapter of the National Park Service.

Before there was Glen Arbor, there was Glen Haven, once a maritime hub: for early settlers like D.H. Day arriving from Chicago; for fishing expeditions; and for brave shipwreck rescues in the Manitou Passage, as evidenced by the wood pilings offshore that once supported a giant dock. And yet, the Park opposes moving the public boat ramp to this unique historic town shaped today by its Coast Guard museum, throwback General Store and, of course, its popular, quiet beach.

“We think that putting modern boats into the water would be a detriment to the historic scene,” explains Tom Ulrich, Assistant Superintendent at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. “The further you go toward Sleeping Bear Point (to the west), the quieter it gets. Physically, Glen Haven is the worst location for a boat ramp because of the historic village and the historic pilings.”

The boat ramp that serves Glen Arbor and the surrounding area is used more than a thousand times every summer season, Township officials estimate, and we’re not talking about rowboats and little put-puts. Quaint Glen Haven would host today’s big, muscle boats that take tourists on charter fishing trips to the Manitou Islands if the move happens. The Park claims this would be detrimental to the endangered Piping Plover birds, which now nest near the beach, and the Pitcher’s Thistle plant, which also calls Glen Haven its home.

“Any time you put boats at focused points like that, you create the potential for damage to the natural environment.”

But for Township officials like Terry Gretzema, who heads the Future Boat Launch Ramp Committee, this isn’t an issue of mere convenience, but safety. The boat ramp on Lake Street is the only launch site with docks that allow people in and out of their boat without getting wet anywhere between Leland and Frankfort — more than 50 miles of lake frontage along some notoriously hazardous waters.

The Glen Arbor Township has the support of the Leelanau County Sheriff, the Coast Guard and other townships to move the dock to Glen Haven. The wider access road on M-209 and the open beach area without private businesses to contend with would make future rescue operations in the Manitou Passage quicker and easier.

“These are long runs, and these are treacherous waters,” says Gretzema. The Township has the undisputed rights to three access points in or around Glen Arbor: Lake Street, Manitou Street, and Bay Lane, but none are more than 60 feet wide, and the prevailing winds and waves hammer all three of those spots, whereas Glen Haven is protected by nearby Sleeping Bear Point, Gretzema adds. “We’re restricted as to what we can do as a Township.

“The settlers, and the Native Americans before us knew where to put the boat dock, and it was in Glen Haven.”

Ironically, the Park once considered building an entire marina somewhere in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, but an Environmental Impact Statement in 1984 ruled that the impact on the resources the Park is here to protect would have been too great. To be fair, points out Assistant Superintendent Tom Ulrich, the 1984 study was for a marina and not just a boat launch.

The National Lakeshore’s 1979 General Management Plan highlights the need to provide people with recreational access to the lake and to the land. And that battle between recreation and preservation has taken center stage in almost every ideological debate within the Park, and with the local community, since the 70’s. This boat ramp issue is just another chapter in that ongoing saga.

The other question here is who actually owns the beach at Glen Haven, or better put, whether the Leelanau County Road Commission’s legal road right-of-way on M-209 runs all the way to the water, since the pavement actually stops short of Lake Michigan. The Glen Arbor Township believes it does, and the Road Commission will likely hear the Township’s request for a Glen Haven boat dock at their September 5 meeting. But the Township’s pitches to the Park have so far fallen on deaf ears because, Ulrich says, the National Lakeshore does not believe the right-of-way extends to the water. And the Park’s Midwest region Lands Office in Omaha, Nebraska has been exceedingly slow at investigating the Township’s legal request — not atypical of the National Park.

“We’ve been bugging them to act,” Ulrich says about Omaha. “But they are understaffed.”

To Terry Gretzema and the Township Board the situation is clear: local government does have the right to build a dock at the end of M-209; and the pilings off the beach and the settler village’s history as a maritime community and Coast Guard station prove that Glen Haven is the best spot around for a new boat launch. Gretzema also told the Glen Arbor Sun that the Park ought to lend the Township a hand and help facilitate certain recreational activities because when the National Lakeshore was established in the 70’s it ate up most of the Glen Arbor Township’s public land.

Glen Arbor’s zoning laws favor private homes and private business, like Le Bear Resort (the building of which the Township approved, before Gretzema joined the board), and that often puts the Township between a rock and a hard place. But Gretzema doesn’t blame Le Bear for the current congestion on Lake Street. The developers “were within their rights to build” the resort, he says. “I don’t think Le Bear caused it. This has been a problem for years and years.” And the Township’s efforts to move the boat ramp to Glen Haven are much older than Le Bear Resort.

One day in mid-August Gretzema noticed 20 boats and trailers along Lake Street, making it tough for any large vehicles from getting to the boat ramp without causing a fender bender. Meanwhile, in nearby Glen Haven, beachgoers and visitors to the maritime museum were enjoying a peaceful afternoon without the sounds of motorboats or jet skis filling their ears — a scene that would certainly change if the Glen Arbor Township rebuilds a boat dock in the historic district.

Something’s gotta give.

What do you think? Please visit our website, www.glenarborsun.com to post a comment, or mail us a letter to the editor at P.O. Box 615, Glen Arbor.

Posted by editor at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)

Is the Rescue found?

From staff reports

State police divers searching for the body of a man who drowned in Big Glen Lake last summer may have instead solved one of the area’s great mysteries — the location of Ralph Dorsey’s passenger steamboat, Rescue, which he sank intentionally in 1914.

Divers located a 32 x 10-foot boat in 124 feet of water in the middle of the lake on August 17 and will reportedly return to it on the weekend of August 26. There are still no signs of the drown man’s body.

The Rescue was the subject of a community-led search in May of 2003 that was as technological as it was folkloric. Local resident Chuck Olsen brought a team of professional scientists from the University of Michigan and their hi-tech underwater robot, the M-ROVER, which combed the depths of Glen Lake in vain for two days, while historians, fishermen and old-timers gathered in two flotillas of boats and debated why Dorsey sank his boat, and where. Local students from Glen Lake and The Leelanau School produced a documentary of the unsuccessful search.

Now they may have more to talk about. To read the Glen Arbor Sun’s coverage of Captain Ralph Dorsey and the 2003 search for the Rescue, please visit us on the web at www.glenarborsun.com/archives/2003/06/dorseys_sunken.html.

Posted by editor at 09:35 PM | Comments (0)

July 13, 2006

Glen Arbor firefighters climb high with new ladder truck

By Jane Greiner
Sun contributor

Firefighters at the Glen Arbor Township Fire Department are proud of their new state-of the-art ladder truck, a Pierce Quint, number Q331. They were eager to bring it out and set it up for photographs and a demonstration of the incredibly long ladder. Firefighter, EMT Andrew Anthony stabilized the 70,000-pound truck with big side struts then climbed up to the console and ran the ladder. Firefighter, EMT Rachel Schaap, who had come in on a day off to help demonstrate the new truck, donned firefighting gear and climbed the ladder all the way to the top. Asked how it felt to climb up that high on the narrow, seemingly fragile extended ladder, she simply replied, “It’s fun!”

The ladder is the most visible feature of the new truck. It is 105 feet long when fully extended, which Firefighter Anthony compared to a 10-story building. Of course there are no buildings that high in this area, but a long ladder is needed, he explained, because the big truck would usually need to be set up on the road. Homes in this area are often set back 40 feet from the road, so the first 40 feet of ladder are needed just to reach the building, in addition to another 10 feet or so to account for the angle of the ladder. So “those two factors alone can use up half the effective length of the ladder.”

In fact, every facet of the new truck was carefully thought out, planned for, and written into the specifications for the purchase order. Deputy Chief John Dodson, NREMTP (Nationally Registered Emergency Medical Technician Paramedic) who was involved in every step of the process, says the final specifications for the engine ran to 118 pages. “It was completely custom built for us in Appleton, Wisconsin,” he said. “Everything including the horn button is custom built, including all the fundamentals.” The specs were developed by a committee, which worked two and a half years to determine exactly what was needed.

“We tried different trucks of different lengths to figure out what works and what didn’t. Some trucks were too long, some ladders were too short,” he added.

Before the Glen Arbor Fire Department bought the truck, a demo model of the same size was driven around to places like Tamarack Cove (behind Fisher Road), Arbor Pines and all around The Homestead resort to test that it could negotiate the tight turns and restricted spaces. “A lot of people didn’t think this truck could go down there,” Dodson said.

The new truck is called a “Quint,” which stands for its five functions: hose, water tank, ground ladder, aerial ladder and pump.

The hose is used to deliver water or foam to the fire and can be run directly off the truck at ground level or off the end of the ladder.

The water tank holds 300 gallons, “which doesn’t seem like a lot,” Dodson said, “but the foam system makes the water ten times more effective.” Water only cools the fire. Foam works better because it is “carbon attractive” which means it actually penetrates better and suffocates the fire more efficiently than water.

The pump can move 2,000 gallons of water per minute. The pump is primarily for water and foam delivery, but it can also be used to pump water in from a fire hydrant or lake to supply water directly to the Quint hoses or can be connected in tandem to other trucks.

In addition to the huge aerial ladder, the truck also boasts “special ground ladders that will go 35 feet, and this is the only truck in the fleet that can carry those extra long ladders,” Dodson said.

“People may wonder why we bring a ladder truck to a car accident,” he remarked. Each truck at an accident is there because of the systems it has available. This new truck has so many support systems all on the one vehicle; it will replace three of the older trucks at an accident and will “dramatically increase efficiency.” It has a generator for electricity, an air compressor and air hydraulics for rescue equipment like the jaws-of-life, hydraulics for various tools, plus the hose and foam system for fire suppression. It is actually more efficient, and will save money, to bring the one big multi-function truck rather than three smaller vehicles, each with its own crew.

Even the color of the new truck was given careful consideration. Some years back a belief held that lime green was more visible than the traditional red vehicles. Ironically, Dodson said, it hasn’t proven to make a difference. Plus, the lime green cost more than the red paint. Fire Departments are very traditional, he added, and now many are going back to the old fire engine red. In fact, some people wanted to use the old red and black color scheme, like the Chicago fire department, where the black trim traditionally stands for fallen firefighters. But the decision was made for Glen Arbor to go with the red and white combination.

The new truck is the second in a series of four new trucks the department is acquiring to replace older equipment. The new fleet will consist of two water tankers, for hauling water, this new aerial ladder, which is also a rescue truck, and a pumper. The old rescue truck will go to the Empire Fire Department where they expect to keep it in service for another year or two while going through the process of obtaining a new replacement.

A pumper was the first of the new trucks and funded by an anonymous donation.

The ladder truck, second of the four, cost $726,000 and was publicly funded through the local millage. The remaining two will also be publicly funded.

Q331 is not yet officially on the road. There are a few bits of hardware still to be mounted, plus training is still going on for the crew. So far 21 people, including nine from the Empire Fire Department, have had 16 hours of preliminary training. They have 16 more hours to go for a total of 32 hours.

Training includes safe driving, proper placement and set up of the apparatus, operation of the ladder, operation of the water and foam pump systems, and special review of aerial work and rescue operations.

Dodson noted that all this training is in addition to the 60 hours fire fighters have already undergone to be certified to drive fire apparatus. Training for the new truck should be complete and the fire engine ready to be put into service by August 1.

The Glen Arbor Township Fire Department supplies residents with 24 hour a day, 7 days a week advanced life support and firefighting services with a combination staff of paid and volunteer members.

Public Invited

The Department is making efforts to provide opportunities for the public to see the new equipment. On July 8 the firefighters held a “Fire Fighter for a Day” event in which youngsters were invited to come down and get acquainted with the fire fighters and the equipment.

On July 29 an Open House will be held at the fire station from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Everyone is welcome. There will be displays and demonstrations of equipment such as fire extinguishers, air pumps, and medical equipment with staff on hand to answer questions. Tours of the building will be given. In addition, all the trucks and vehicles will be on display and balloons and treats available for the kids. This is an opportunity to go see all the fire equipment including the new ladder truck. Perhaps some brave soul will even be allowed to climb the ladder.

For further information call the Glen Arbor Fire Department 334-3279

Posted by editor at 08:40 PM | Comments (0)

June 29, 2006

Bears in Glen Haven!

By Jane Greiner
Sun contributor

There is hard evidence that a bear recently walked across the beach not far from the Cannery in Glen Haven. Two visitors came upon the tracks and thinking they were perhaps cougar prints, the man made plaster casts of the imprints. He took them to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Visitor Center and brought them to the attention of Ranger Ken Hyde, the National Park’s biologist.

Hyde went back to the cannery with the visitors, found more paw prints, and identified them as bear prints, not those of cougars. He then traced back the bear’s trail.

Hyde said the bear had “come all the way down to the water and then gone back over the the fore dune. He had come clear to the water, about 50 yards north or up from the Cannery, and that’s where the visitors found (the first tracks).”

“We tracked it up into the terrace between the woods and the fore dune, and he had walked all around back there,” Hyde said. This was about 100 yards east of Glen Haven.

The ranger managed to find enough good prints to make two good plaster casts — a front and a back foot. His casts clearly show the five toes with claws and the different shape of the round front paw and the elongated, human-like, back foot.

Hyde is from the state of Washington where he was familiar with both black and grizzly bears and believes that the prints he saw were definitely those of a bear.

“So we let the campground know that people should take care of their food, putting it away. Keep food in the trunk, including coolers.”

What should people do to protect themselves from bears? “Make some noise while you are hiking,” Hyde advised, and if you come across one “don’t run away from a bear. Make lots of noise so he figures out you are a human. He may not be able to tell what you are, especially if you are downwind from him.”

“We haven’t had any cub sighting — that’s when we’d start to get a little more worried,” he added.

“Birdfeeders, food coolers and garbage are the three things that draw them in. Try to watch those because when you get the bears acclimated, that’s when you start to get problems.”

In closing, Hyde said, “But thank the public for reporting those wildlife sightings.”

He said they have had several calls on the piebald deer, some on unusual snakes and turtles crossing the roads. “We are always interested, sometimes a call allows us to go help the animal off the road.”

Posted by editor at 07:33 PM | Comments (0)

National Lakeshore is our ‘Land of Lakes’

By Jane Greiner
Sun contributor

It is amazing that there are 21 lakes within the boundaries of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. You can live here for years and not know about some of these small lakes hidden in the woods. Others you drive by regularly without ever stopping to count their numbers.

I talked to Steve Yancho, chief of natural resources at the park, and he came up with a complete list of lakes plus numerous other water features within the lakeshore.

Lakes Near the Northern Boundary

Bass Lake is one of two Bass Lakes in the park. It is an easily accessible, sandy bottom lake visible on the east side of M-22 about six miles north of Glen Arbor. There are several access points plus a short two-track off the main road where you can park along the sandy shore and swim, fish or kayak. No motorized boats are allowed. There are still two small cabins at one end of Bass Lake, but most of the lake is wild. The surrounding land is open, the shore is firm, the bottom is sandy, and there aren’t too many mosquitoes. All these features make Bass Lake one of the prettiest places for a lazy day picnic. There are no restrooms here but some are available at nearby School Lake.

School Lake is the biggest in the park and has a nice wild feel to it with almost no houses in sight. It has a good boat ramp, though no motorized boats are allowed on the lake, and good rest room facilities. There isn’t much of a beach, but the bottom is sandy enough for wading and swimming. Access is off Bohemian Road, a short distance south of M-22. School Lake and Bass Lake are actually connected by a shallow channel, which makes it possible for canoes and kayaks to get from one lake to the other.

Narada Lake, a picturesque lake full of trees and stumps, is visible from M-22 about five miles north of Glen Arbor. There is a narrow trail through a tunnel of trees to a little canoe launch area. The lake is currently closed to visitors in order to protect nesting loons. There are many fallen trees on the west shore of the lake where there used to be an access road. This section was practically clear-cut by beavers several years ago. You can walk there and see the huge pointed stumps and conical log ends that are left by the beaver. For someone who has never seen the power of a beaver, this is worth a stop. You can even see tree trunks with rows of big tooth marks left by beaver where they gnawed the bark off the trees the way we eat corn on the cob. Because Narada is so full of stumps and appears to have no open shoreline, it is mainly of interest to nature lovers, fishermen and artists.

Shell Lake is a nice nature lake near the northern end of the park. There are two different two-tracks off of Elliott Road; the first one is pretty rough and stretches quite a ways but finally reaches a little sandy beach area where you can swim or launch a kayak. The other, better track traverses an open field to a small, somewhat mucky boat launch area adequate for canoes or kayaks. Shell is especially good for fishing. There is also a beaver lodge at one end of the lake which you can see from a boat. There are no restrooms and no motorized boats are allowed.

The best thing about Hidden Lake is its name. It is indeed quite hidden and takes some effort to get to. It is a very small, shallow, somewhat inaccessible lake in the same end of the park as Shell Lake. You can park where Good Harbor Drive is closed off and walk about a mile west along the trail, much of the way under the power line. When you get close, turn left on another old road and the lake will appear immediately to your right. You can see it from the trail and, if motivated, find your way through the tangle of trees and underbrush to get down to the squishy shore. The lake is too small to boat or fish and too shallow to swim.

Glen Arbor and Empire Area Lakes

Tucker Lake is a lake I “discovered” after driving past it numerous times. It is very close to Glen Arbor and somehow I always passed by without noticing the boat ramp sign near the corner of 675 and Westman Road. It is a very small lake. About a third of it is weed-choked, but there are several fishing spots in the open areas. It is surrounded by swamp and woods. Perhaps because it feels so isolated, it’s a fun place to fish. The ramp is pretty good for such a small lake, but the mosquitoes can be nasty. No motorized boats are allowed.

The Mill Pond is easily overlooked as you drive along M-109 going south out of Glen Arbor toward the Dune Climb. It is on the right side of the road, just past the entrance to the Little Glen Lake picnic area on the opposite side of the road. The Mill Pond is a nice nature lake, a little bigger than it appears at first. There is a beaver lodge on the lake that you can see from the road, but don’t try to walk in there. You can sink to your hip in the marshy area surrounding it. Last summer there were both herons and egrets that seem stayed there most of the summer. This lake can be enjoyed from the road.

North Bar is probably the most popular inland lake in the park for swimming. It’s all sandy and shallow which makes it good for little kids and for early-season swimming. It has a big sandy beach, not surprising since it is just across a low sand dune from Lake Michigan. Many bathers wander over to the big lake as well. North Bar has an excellent boat launch. You can carry in a canoe or kayak or check with the Park Visitor Center for access to the ramp. No motorized boats are allowed. There are restrooms at the parking area. You can access North Bar by going north out of Empire on LaCore Street and then on Voice and Bar Lake roads.

Taylor Lake is a small nature lake about a mile south of Empire on M-22. It is surrounded by marsh and woods and separated from the road by about half a mile. There are no paths or trails to it that I know of, though I was able to walk in there using a compass and topographical map. It took some effort because, although part of the way was fairly open field, the remainder was through tangled woods. When I finally got there, the lake was pretty to look at but nearly inaccessible due to the soft shoreline. I could barely get close enough to take a picture. Being in the woods and surrounded by the marsh, it also felt like a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

Platte Plains Area Lakes

Otter Lake is one of the nicest fishing lakes in the park. There is a rickety dock there and a mushy boat launch suitable only for canoes or kayaks. No motorized boats are allowed on the lake. The lake is quiet, with pretty surroundings, and only a few cottages. There are plenty of shallows and a few coves and some deep water. I have seen eagles on this lake on several occasions. There is a wonderful 4.6-mile hike around this lake called the Otter Creek Loop. Some friends saw a pair of otter cross the road next to the lake as they were hiking this trail a few years ago. There are no restrooms at Otter Lake, but there is one on down the road at Bass Lake. You get to Otter Lake by turning down Trails End off M-22 about five miles south of Empire.

Bass Lake, the southern one, is probably the best-known all-purpose lake in the park for hiking, canoeing or fishing. There is a big parking lot and a restroom, and a sturdy dock where kids can fish or swim. The dock has a park bench where you can sit and dream. The boat ramp is excellent and handicap accessible. You do have to carry your canoe or kayak to it from the parking area though, and no motorized boats are allowed. There are a couple of good hiking trails around the lake or off in the other direction. On the trail around the lake are places where you can get to the water to fish from shore. Bass Lake is a great starter lake for teaching kids about fishing, hiking or boating. Bass is the last stop on Trail’s End Road.

Deer Lake is a much smaller lake connected to Bass by a shallow channel. You used to be able to paddle to Deer Lake from Bass. However, a fisherman told me that beaver have built a lodge between the two lakes and so choked the channel that you would have to portage around it. The beaver activity seems to have raised the water level of Deer Lake as well, killing many shoreline trees.

Deer Lake strikes me as more of a nature lake with a wilder feel to it. A friend of mine once saw otter playing in Deer Lake. Deer Lake seems shallower and weedier than Bass Lake, and somehow slightly forbidding. I kayaked in there briefly to explore and fish and then headed back over to Bass Lake where I felt more comfortable.

It is possible to drive in beside Deer Lake if you have a four-wheel drive vehicle that you don’t mind getting scratched up. There is a horrible, deep-rutted two-track off Trails End shortly before you get to Bass Lake that takes you back there. Be sure to stop beside the lake and take a look at all the trees cut down by beaver. You can see the typical pointed stumps and the tree trunks lying beside them. If you do drive or walk in on the road, I recommend you turn around at this point. The park has posted warnings about a hawk that is nesting further in, which literally dives on anyone approaching its nesting area. This is not something you want to experience.

Lakes Near the Southern Boundary

Mud Lake is a beautiful lake to look at despite its plain-sounding name. You can see it from Lake Michigan Road near the fish weir. There are no houses on it and it feels secluded and quiet even though it is actually close to the road. The shore is nice and sandy and you could carry in a canoe or kayak, but there is no actual boat ramp. Although the shore is shady, the trees are big and old with very little underbrush, so the shore feels relatively free of bugs. Mud Lake is very shallow and has a muddy bottom. When you dip a canoe paddle in, it just disappears in muck and silt, and stirs up a rotting vegetation odor. Mud Lake is probably best enjoyed from the shore.

Loon Lake is a big, sandy bottom lake, with a great boat ramp. This is one of the few lakes where motorboats are allowed. There is no beach there but I have waded near the boat ramp, and the bottom seems firm. There are only a few houses along one shore of it, to the left of the public access. Countless people have crossed the northern tip of the lake as they floated down the Platte River. That end of the lake is extremely shallow. I have seen many people get out of their canoes or inner tubes and drag them through ankle-deep water until they cross the sand bar and get back in them. Loon is a good fishing lake with a very nice boat ramp, dock, accessible picnic shelter and restrooms.

Round Lake is another one of those lakes that are easy to miss. It is the southernmost lake inside the park, and lies just off M-22 on your way to Crystal Lake. In fact, Round Lake was probably part of Crystal Lake before the lake level was lowered. Round Lake is small and sandy, and appears shallow. There is a little drive right up to the edge of the lake where you can easily put in a canoe or kayak. Despite its diminutive size, it’s a pristine lake, and a pleasant place to wade, fish or kayak.

Bow Lakes

There are two Bow Lakes and a Bow Lake Valley Pond, all in a separate section of the park located southwest of Big Glen Lake and bordered on the south by Baatz Road. The lakes themselves are privately held. There are no public access roads or ramps. I attempted to visit the lakes but they are nearly inaccessible because of rugged terrain and lack of public trails.

The three lakes are fairly closely grouped and the lower two have some ecologically fragile aspects to them, so if you go there, please tread lightly.

1. Bow Lake
2. Bow Lake
3. Bow Lake Valley Pond

Manitou Island Lakes

Michigan State fishing regulations apply to all the lakes in the park, including those on the islands, according to Steve Yancho. But lakes on the islands do have a few special restrictions. There is no live bait allowed on North Manitou Lake in order to protect it from invasive species. Also there are “special trophy bass regulations” there, meaning to be legal a bass caught there must be 16 feet long.

4. Lake Manitou, the biggest island lake, is located on North Manitou Island. Only artificial lures are permitted.
5. Tamarack Lake is a very small lake on North Manitou Island.
6. Florence Lake is a medium-sized lake and the only one on South Manitou Island. Artificial lures only.

Other Waters

That’s the list of 21 inland lakes inside the boundaries of the park. Yancho pointed out that there are, of course, several lakes on which the park has frontage including Big and Little Glen Lakes (on which Yancho says the park is the largest landholder), Long Lake (near Crystal) and Rush Lake (also near Crystal) — not to mention the 67 miles of frontage on Lake Michigan, about half of which is shoreline on the mainland and the other half on the Manitou islands.

Then there are rivers and streams, which include Platte River, Crystal River, Otter Creek and Shalda Creek.

Finally, Yancho noted, there are countless “ridge/swale” wetlands below Boekeloo Road and over by Peterson Road in the southern end of the park. In years past, Yancho said, when water levels were high, people could take canoes in there and go from pond to pond. Now water levels are low and many of those waters may not be navigable. Looking at a topographical map of the area, I counted over 60 of these small bodies of water in that area.

A friend looked at the entire list of lakes and remarked, “Just think what a fabulous deal it is to get all that for just $20 a year. In other places people pay that much just to go to one lake for a single day.”

I have to agree with her. Each year when I purchase my annual pass to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, I am happy to pay the price, knowing what a great gift it is to have access to all the well-known park features and its 21 inland lakes.

Posted by editor at 05:42 PM | Comments (0)

June 15, 2006

Invisible in our midst: Hispanics and migrant workers in northern Michigan

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

They live amongst us. They drive on the same country roads. They enjoy the same sunsets. And they still play an integral role in harvesting the crops that we not merely eat, but identify with spring, summer and fall in northern Michigan.

The Hispanic and Latino workers indispensable to our asparagus, cherry and apple industries may no longer number in the tens of thousands like they did in the mid-twentieth century — before the introduction of mechanical cherry tree shakers and before recent talk of a wall along the U.S. border to Mexico and National Guardsmen peering south across the Rio Grande — but the thousands that are here are still members of our community.

Photo by Gary Howe

Some are documented migrant workers who travel back and forth between the Midwest and Texas as the crop seasons fluctuate in order to keep working. Some are Latino-Americans who have grown up here, speak flawless English and look as Caucasian as every descendent of Irish, German or Polish immigrants. And some crossed a river or a desert in the dark of night to get here, to improve their fortunes, and often to escape unspeakable horror back home.

Northwestern Michigan College held a Symposium on Immigration on May 23 that featured health workers, educators, human rights advocates, local farmers, a priest, a border patrol officer, an attorney and, most importantly, an immigrant, on a panel that discussed the national immigration debate and its ramifications for northern Michigan. Unlike many issues that we read about in the national news but seem far away, the immigration debate playing out in Washington, the anger rising in the southwestern United States, and the xenophobia spreading across the land are all hitting home in a big way. With that in mind, the Glen Arbor Sun will run a series of articles this summer offering local perspectives on the national debate and feature several local Hispanics/Latinos who find themselves caught in the middle of this drama.

[For an in depth look at the migrant worker’s experience in the mid-twentieth century in and around Empire, please read this article we printed three years ago on our website at www.glenarborsun.com/archives/2003/09/largely_forgott.html]

Unease over the direction the debate on immigration is taking and the victims being left in its path manifested itself in many ways during the NMC Symposium. From an economic standpoint, Leelanau County farmers Don Coe and Don Gregory both worry that not just legislative changes but also the racism directed at Hispanics will make it very difficult for them to hire the workers they need to complete the harvest.

“We house 50-60 people in the summer who work harvesting cherries,” said Suttons Bay farmer Don Gregory. “About a third or half of them leave after cherry season because they have kids in school, and education is important to them. They return to Texas or Florida.

“Come apple time, we will need in excess of 100 apple pickers. We run ads in the paper for seasonal work, but we don’t get any help. That’s why we need migrant labor. If we needed more pickers, they would help us find more pickers.

“But what once was an atmosphere of joy has turned on its head. Over the last three years our migrants have been operating in an environment of fear, whether they are year-round or part-time workers, documented or undocumented. Some of our families won’t come to Traverse City to go shopping anymore. They shop in Suttons Bay instead.

“I don’t know if we’ll have enough employees this year to get the job done because some families aren’t traveling from Texas.”

Don Coe, the proprietor of Black Star Farms vineyard near Suttons Bay, echoed that sentiment at the Symposium.

The migrant workers are largely gone now, he said, “driven out by the paranoia of extremists and prejudice policies — prejudice is driving the debate today.”

Coe also took issue with the discourse used in the national debate. “(Migrant workers) aren’t ‘illegal aliens.’ When I grew up ‘aliens’ were people who came from Mars and would shoot us with Ray Guns.

“The workers I have employed aren’t ignorant peasants either, and they are not underpaid.” Coe stated that migrant workers at Black Star Farms are paid livable wages of $10-12 per hour. “These were workers with brawn, willing to do jobs we couldn’t get others to do.

Gregory and Coe both talked warmly about workers who they have befriended “like family” over the years, even to the point of attending their employees’ quinceañeros — the all-important fifteenth birthday parties — in Texas.

Honoring their native cultures shouldn’t be viewed as a slight of this country, Coe insisted. “They’re not disloyal just because they may march with a Mexican flag during a celebration. We are not expected to parade with other flags when we live abroad.”

Tomaso Nuño, an immigrant from Mexico who spoke at the NMC Symposium, summed it up: “We appreciate this country very much for all it has offered us, but we will never forget our home countries.”

Furthermore, Coe said, the Latinos being sacrificed in the political debate represent the future of local farming. Of 53,000 farms in Michigan, 11,000 of those are actually owned by Latinos. “That’s the fastest growing population, replacing the Stans, the Bills and the Olies. Why? Because sons of white farmers aren’t going into farming.”

Naturally, many of those showing up in every corner of the United States looking for work are not legally allowed to be here. Empire attorney Lea Ann Sterling estimated that as many as 6,000 of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country live in northwest Michigan. And that is at the heart of the argument for those who favor mass deportation and tighter security at the U.S. border to Mexico. If you want to reap the benefits of our country, they say, obey our laws.

But undocumented workers represent only some of the hard-working Hispanics in our midst. And yet all are paying the price for the finger pointing that has shot to the surface in this debate.

“A couple years ago when the economy here was doing well no one noticed (Hispanic workers),” the Teleman Corporation’s April Sanches said at the NMC Symposium. “But when things go bad, the economy slows down, and Americans run out of jobs, they notice who they claim are taking their jobs.”

Racism has reared its ugly head, and not just on AM Radio. Adam Allington of Interlochen Public Radio reported a case of Traverse City police pulling over a local Hispanic earlier this spring for driving with a Dream Catcher in their rear window — in other words “driving while Mexican,” concerned citizens claim.

To help local Hispanics with mounting legal hurdles and to protect them against racist tactics, attorney Lea Ann Sterling recently hired fluent Spanish speaker Wendy Bailey to her Empire staff. The biggest demand Sterling faces is local Hispanics coming to her seeking assistance in gaining legal residency or citizenship for themselves or their spouses. But for Mexicans and Central Americans, unlike Europeans for example, entering the United States legally is no cakewalk, and often almost impossible. U.S. embassies in Mexico City and Guatemala City make potential immigrants pay upwards of $100 for a phone card just to call and apply for a visa, and then wait in line for days if not months. For many, going illegally across the Rio Grande becomes the only way to get to El Norte. Once they are here and apply for residency, Sterling says, they would have to return to their home countries for at least a year to wait out the process — and chances are their applications will be rejected.

There used to be an Amnesty program that let undocumented immigrants stay in the United States if they paid a $1,000 fine. But that federal program was not renewed after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Many would argue that not American Muslims, but Hispanics, have suffered the most from the 9-11 fallout and the guise of the war on terror. “I can’t do much for them unless they filed before April 30, 2001,” Sterling says.

When undocumented workers are caught here, they are often denied their rights. According to Lea Ann Sterling, Miranda rights are often not followed, even here in northern Michigan. And Father Wayne Dziekan of St. Michaels/St. Gertrude’s Church says that undocumented workers who are arrested and deported often never receive pay for the work they did.

The respect for human beings is at stake here, as is northern Michigan’s good reputation as a community that respects and protects its own.

But for a local farmer like Don Gregory, it all comes down to dollars and cents, and product output. “When we make a decision to put apple trees in the ground, that’s a 25-30 year investment. Should we even plant those trees if we won’t have the workers to pick them?”

Posted by editor at 08:28 PM | Comments (0)

May 25, 2006

What makes Empire unique?

By Helen Westie
Sun contributor

What makes Empire a unique and interesting community? When confronted with this question, the town’s residents have always been vociferous in expressing their ideas. The two unique summer celebrations come to mind immediately: the Asparagus Festival the weekend before Memorial Day in May and the Anchor Day the third weekend in July.

Earlier this spring the townspeople also joined hands in a unanimous display of civic activism when they overwhelmingly shot down a push by a developer from Grand Rapids to rezone a cherished agricultural/residential area of land accessible from both M-72 and M-22 known as Leelanau Orchards. Rezoning the 338 acres would have allowed up to 980 homes to be built on land where current zoning allows for only 170 and all but double the village itself.

The move requested by developer Joseph Moch would have radically altered Empire’s zoning standards, and more importantly, changed the town’s character forever — before the ink even dried on Empire’s new Master Plan, one local farmer pointed out. According to Julie Hay of the Michigan Land Use Institute, which sponsored one of two public meetings earlier this spring for locals to voice their concerns, Moch’s development would have included a private equestrian farm, which would have been inaccessible to the local public.

“People spoke so passionately,” Hay recalls. “Empire residents want to keep their town open and promote agriculture and smart growth within the village.” Those who commented at the public meetings were united in their opposition to the plan. One woman asked why she had to drive all the way to Cedar for her CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Farm when there is fertile agricultural land right here, and potentially on the land in question. Ashlea Walter, who runs the Pinkie Finger Press and is the heart and soul behind the Empire Asparagus Festival spoke of the need for inclusionary zoning so that people can afford to live here. And others asked if the village and its infrastructure could even support development of this scale.

The residents of Empire love and protect their town with a passion. They fairly rhapsodize about the beauties of it. Epithets often used are: “In God’s pocket” or “Our jewel of the North.”

Dave Taghon summed it up when he said, “I often wonder if our forefathers who worked in the Empire Lumber Company mill along Lake Michigan ever took the time to pause, look about, and realize what a beautiful spot it was here in Empire.”

Ditto S. Kay Rose. “Living in Empire is almost like living in a time-warp from a generation past. It’s a place where neighbors still know each other. It is also one of the most beautiful spots on earth. My husband Tom and I like to travel in the United States and we’ve seen the Northwest, the Northeast, the Southwest and the Southeast but the first thing we do when we get home is drive to Empire Beach to gaze at Lake Michigan. There is nothing better than an Empire sunset. Next, I take a trip up the Empire Bluffs for the view. As I look out and see South Manitou Island, South Bar Lake, the Sleeping Bear Dunes, I always have the same thoughts. This peaceful, serene beauty is as good as anything I have ever seen, and I realize how lucky we are to live here.”

Jeanette Lackey: “Empire is a welcoming, quaint little village nestled in the hills. The beach is a real treasure with its awesome, sandy shores and gorgeous sunsets. We are thankful that Lake Michigan Beach and South Bar Beach are for public use. We enjoy the closeness to nature. One spring a fox tiptoed through our snowy backyard sporting a big, white snowflake on his black nose. What a memorable moment.”

“We always take care of our own,” was a common opinion. There are fundraisers and collections when people are down on their luck or if they are confronted with unexpected medical bills. When a problem arises someone jumps in to solve it. One such problem was the preponderance of cats last winter because so many unwanted cats were dumped at Steve Miller’s house knowing he was an ailurophile (one devoted to cats). And then, because they were not sprayed or neutered Empire was in danger of being over-run with a cat population. But through the efforts of Jo Lynn Davis and Steve, collections were taken to have the cats neutered and sprayed and the babies put up for adoption. The businesses of Empire made generous contributions so that all cats could be sprayed or neutered.

People remember a man some years ago who was 98 years old but could still live in his house because friends and the Commission on Aging cleaned his house and brought food for him. In his senility, however, he became light-fingered and would take items from store shelves. He used store aisles for a bathroom need. This kind of behavior would prompt some communities to have him “put away.” But not in Empire. Clerks were told to “follow him” and he was reminded that he must pay for the items and was directed to a bathroom. On his death many pilfered items were returned. For example, a metal outdoor chandelier was returned to the town hall.

Empire has had its share of eccentric characters. People fondly remember “The Professor” who knew everyone in town and many are the stories about him. In a deep, thunderous voice he would yell down from his balcony to children playing below. “This God is talking! Pick up those toys” or there would be other directions from God. Children would go home and tell their parents that God talked to them. The professor taught at Central Michigan University and spent his summers in Empire. He really loved Empire and after his retirement he spent more time here. One summer because of a hospital stay he arrived later and said, “I do not ever in my lifetime want to be away from Empire in May again.” He missed the trilliums and the “Cherry white with snow.”

Will the professor’s moth-eaten, infamous pelican make it to one more Anchor Day parade? Stay tuned for July …

His vocabulary could be poetic but sometimes it could be quite raucous. When his garage was being built some man (it could have been a zoning officer) came by and told him that the garage had to be aligned with the house and not on a diagonal as he was doing it. The professor told him, emphatically using the vernacular of his college students, where he could go. Well, the garage is on a diagonal as planned to this day.

In 1994 when he was interred in Maple Grove Cemetery most of the Empire population attended. There were tears and laughter as Professor stories were told.

To this day Empire remains a community in the truest sense. This kind of town holds a unique annual party to celebrate its proudest spring crop; these kinds of citizens rally to stop development that would be bad for the community; and most important of all, these kind of people care for their own.

Sun editor Jacob Wheeler contributed to this article.

Posted by editor at 08:32 PM | Comments (0)

September 15, 2005

Letter to the Editor

The feelings of puzzlement and disgust I felt as a result of reading Mr. Arens’ letter to the August 11 edition of the Glen Arbor Sun, are so similar to the feelings I have towards much that’s current in American “culture”, I have decided to answer it that I might personally find a way to more peacefully live in my own country. This is important and necessary spiritual work all of us might well undertake, for every authentic religious tradition posits the ascendancy of love and compassion over anger, and as a nation torn in two, each half angry at the other, we must find a path to more affection and concern for each other. This is also important for our inner health, as we all wish to be more peaceful and loving, and know from personal experience that inner states of anger and negativity are painful and always lead to agitation and unhappiness. In our civilization we may finally have come to an age in which there is an identity between finding this spiritual path and surviving as a species. What will happen to us if our nuclear and biological weapons, monolithic telecommunications systems which shape our thoughts and perceptions, and our attachment to a level of wealth unsupportable by the finite resources of our planetary home, are in the service of beings who are unable to alter their mental domination by attachment to wealth, and anger toward others?

In his letter, perhaps Mr. Arens was attempting to express the sentiment that if one felt something precious was lost when the Woodland Indians were slaughtered by invading Europeans, that it is necessary, for the sake of moral balance and emotional honesty, to equally lament the dispossession of wealthy landowners in Cuba when Fidel Castro put a long overdue end to Batista’s ruthless military regime in 1959. Unlikely this was his rational intention, for a brief review of twentieth century Cuban history would make any such assertion impossible to defend.

Batista rose to power in a military coup, which ended a liberal and broadly representative democratic government in 1933, replacing it with a brutal military dictatorship, lasting with brief interruptions for more than two decades before if fell to Castro’s populist revolution. During his first decade in power, Batista developed a significant long-term association with the American Mafia, whose influence helped corrupt the fabric of Cuba’s moral and economic life. Much of Batista’s economic base derived from the profits of Mafia operations in Cuba, whose power and violence in the US had its counterpart in Cuba, where Batista, essentially a mobster himself, had gunned down or simply disappeared thousands who spoke or acted against the brutality of his regime. This pattern of violence broadened and escalated over the last decade of his rule so that by the time he was forced into exile, it was directed against 80 percent of the Cuban people and cut across nearly all of its social classes. (J.A. Sierra, Fulgencio Batista: a Biography of Cuba’s US-friendly Dictator)

When the Castro government took control of Cuban affairs, economic policies turned sharply in favor of the poor, and some who had profited by the economic and political climate of Batista’s rule, whether they had directly participated in its creation or not, were dispossessed and later exiled. The poverty of the campesinos was particularly desperate, because their options had been institutionally curtailed in order to ensure the presence of their cheap labor on the plantations. Thus landowners were hard hit in the post Batista era, and Mr. Arens’ grandfather was apparently one so affected. While lingering resentment is understandable, reflection on the realities of the terrified and impoverished majority of Cubans under Batista, should nurture a more balanced understanding of the situation. Thus from the standpoint of historical facts it is impossible to equate the slaughter of the American Indian who was minding his own business in his own country, with the interruption of the wealth of a landowner in Cuba as a result of a revolution, which took place for reasons most of us can understand. Even the CIA, which had sided with Batista throughout much of this escalating repression, towards the end sympathized with Castro’s revolution. (Lyman B. Kirkpatrick Jr., The Real CIA, chapter 7, 1968).

Since whatever underlies Mr. Arens’ position cannot therefore lie in the realm of reason, we must search for its origin in the arena of emotions, which would include feelings of attachment, anger, and related emotions. Attachment would include the elements of ‘my land’, ‘my wealth’, ‘my family’, while the possibility of being deprived of things that are ‘mine’, gives rise to the related emotions of resentment, anger and hatred towards those who would harm or take away ‘my things’. It is critical to appreciate that the disturbing emotions naturally function to exaggerate and distort the perception of their objects, and impute to them qualities they lack from their side. Objects of attachment therefore, appear to us as if they really possess