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(Editor’s Note: Donna Hornberger, who was chair of the Planning Commission in 2020, sets the record straight on meetings with the Wineries of Old Mission Peninsula prior to when they filed a lawsuit against the Township. -jb)
In 2020, when COVID hit, I was Chair of the Peninsula Township Planning Commission. It was a challenging time for anyone involved in a position of public service (as it was for everyone else). Zoom was not as prevalent as it is today, and whether or not to have public meetings using Zoom or its equivalent was in its infancy.
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At that time, the Planning Commission had realized that it needed to update the Zoning Ordinance as it related to wineries, and formed a committee of a few Planning Commission members and representatives of Peninsula Township wineries.
Someone recently asked about those meetings, and I looked at my calendar and my emails from that period. I was a part of the winery committee, and my memory is that the meetings were cordial and that we were making headway.
However, the day before one of the meetings was to be held, I received an email from our then-Planner telling me that one of the winery representatives had contacted the Township Supervisor and told him that they wanted to cancel the meeting due to their concern “about the health of their businesses given COVID-19 and there are many things up in the air in terms of business operations.”
The Planner indicated that “It sounds like they want to put things on hold for a few months.” No further meetings were held, despite the fact that we had been making headway. The next thing that happened was that the Wineries of Old Mission Peninsula (WOMP) filed a lawsuit in the fall of 2020.
I was positive that the winery owners would contact the Township when they were prepared to re-start our meetings. If you remember that time, we began having official Planning Commission meetings remotely, with the help of the Land Information Access Association (LIAA). Finding a way to have these committee meetings remotely would have been the same sort of mechanism if the wineries had told us they wanted to work together again.
All of the information that I cite above is in my 2020 calendar and in my cache of emails. I deal in facts, and it is a fact that the wineries themselves asked for a cessation of meetings relating to modifying the Township ordinance as it relates to wineries.
-Donna Hornberger
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Curious. Donna you mentioned that there was some progress in the talks. What were those progress items? Thanks, Curt Peterson
“We were making headway” is about the most I am able to say. Meetings were cordial and collaborative.
Thanks, Donna. Good information.