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Old Mission Peninsula residents crowded into the Township Hall today to offer comments on the five-year-long winery lawsuit and hear the path forward from the Peninsula Township Board. Following a closed session, the Board voted unanimously to appeal the July 7, 2025 ruling by Judge Paul K. Maloney which awarded nearly $50 million in damages to the Wineries of Old Mission Peninsula (WOMP).
Present at the meeting today were two of the attorneys representing the Township — Chris Patterson of Fahey Schultz Burzych Rhodes, General Counsel, and Beau Rajsic of McGraw Morris, Insurance Counsel.
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More than 20 residents made comments during the public comment time. Some agreed with Maloney’s 75-page Bench Opinion, in which he cited the Township Zoning Ordinance as unconstitutional, overreaching, and often vague in its regulations regarding the wineries. Others praised the Township Board for continuing to hold the line on local zoning rules.
After returning to open session, Township Supervisor Maura Sanders began by making a motion “to authorize our Township counsel to proceed with an appeal as necessary to preserve the Township’s rights and remedies.” The motion passed unanimously. The deadline to file an appeal is August 6, 2025.
“It’s my opinion that the timeline is very short,” said Trustee Dave Sanger. “If we’re going to make an appeal, we have to do that very quickly because that deadline is coming up August the 6th. So it seems to me that it’s just something we have to do.”
Sanders agreed, noting, “Regardless of what the Wineries of Old Mission Peninsula decide to do, we have to be prepared for whatever may happen from their side going forward. I think moving forward with an appeal is the right thing to do on behalf of everybody.”
Appealing Judge Maloney’s ruling does not negate the Township’s ability to negotiate with the wineries outside of court, nor does it hinder the opportunity for mediation, which may be ordered by the appellate court. In this case, that’s the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
“The Township is and always will be open to negotiating a settlement,” said Sanders, noting that since she took over as supervisor, “I have never been opposed to anybody from WOMP reaching out to me offering to engage in a settlement discussion. I speak on behalf of my colleagues up here [on the Board], and I speak on behalf of every taxpayer out here in Peninsula Township. Call me, knock on my door, I’m on the porch every single morning at 6:30 a.m. drinking coffee. Drive on up. They all know where I live. We’re moving forward with this appeal as necessary, but we are in no way, shape or form opposed to the continued negotiations with the Wineries of Old Mission Peninsula. The door is open.”
Township Clerk Becky Chown said there’s no decision the Board can make that’s going to please everyone, “but I am 100 percent unequivocally resoundingly in favor of this appeal, and I’m proud to go on record saying that,” she said.
“I really appreciate everyone caring so deeply about the health, safety and welfare of our citizens. God knows we do, but I think it is often overlooked that we are an 18-mile long peninsula with one main road on and off. Our unique geography comes with unique and significant constraints, and some of our zoning is a reflection of that. A majority of our residents have told us again and again and again that they don’t want commercial activity in the ag zones. So when the statement is made that all agriculture is commercial, I agree with that. What I don’t agree with is that all commercial is agriculture. So spend some time wrestling with that. I have wrestled with this, and I would invite each of you to do that, as well.”
Chown added that she wasn’t suprised at Maloney’s ruling last week and always believed that the Township would have to appeal to the Sixth Circuit.
“A powerful majority of our residents voted three times, most recently in 2022, to tax themselves [via the Purchase of Development Rights program] to protect one of the world’s most unique agricultural landscapes, a globally unique food-growing zone and an incomparably lovely, graceful place,” she said.
“Fortunately, zoning is a power derived from state government, not the federal government, and I am proud to have put my money where my mouth is. The zoning that WOMP is challenging has made them thrive — and they want more. They say they never wanted money, that this lawsuit was never about money, but money is all they were granted in the judge’s ruling, and now we will have an opportunity to see if they are going to put their money where their mouths are. Will they take the money they say they never wanted from the residents of Peninsula Township? It’s up to them. They’re not required to collect on the judgment. So will they? We’re going to find out. In the meantime, it is in the best interest of our residents to appeal this decision, even as we remain eager to come to the table to negotiate in good faith, as we have been from the very beginning.”
Township Attorney Chris Patterson said the wineries will not have the ability to collect damages for at least 30 days from the day of Maloney’s ruling — July 7. “There’s procedural processes that will at least limit that for a period of time,” he said. “But the procedural complexity is that we think the judge has invited a motion from the wineries on attorney’s fees, so we suspect there will be some motion practice that could even delay the ability to do that. So other than 30 days, I don’t have any finite idea on what long term that looks like.”
Dave Sanger noted that the defendents in the lawsuit are all the residents of the township. “I can’t get out of my mind the fact that we were sued. We are the defendants in this matter. We are the victims. We being all of us, the residents of this township, represented by the seven board members.”
He added that there are many other issues facing the Township that will need to be set aside during the appeal, including “the needs of our fire department for a new main station, replacing the station built after World War Two, where tonight, two of our employees are going to be sleeping on murphy beds in a day room, and they’ll be sleeping in the same beds tomorrow night as they work a 48-hour shift to protect ourselves and our welfare.
“We’ve made great progress in this government thinking about a charter township, we’ve tried to invest in the issues of roads and the issues of parks, and the real tragedy today is that we now have to take a timeout from those activities to face what is now a $50 million lawsuit, to face another trail down the legal trail in hopes of providing the beauty, the serenity, the sense of family that we have strived for in this township in my 25 years of service.”
Read Maloney’s full Bench Opinion here. Read all winery lawsuit news and opinions on Old Mission Gazette here.
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It is reassuring that our local citizen township board continues to do its job of representing everyone. The transparency of this board’s action is also exemplary. I have been deeply disappointed by the wineries and their selfishness in their lawsuit . They do not take the interests of our entire community into consideration if they pursue damages that are unnecessary and seem greedy. I have an idea the wineries are already bundles of money so why do they need more?
Our values for this slice of heaven have withstood the currents of time. Thank you, Board members, for your commitment to carry on!
Peninsula Township oversteps on so many issues it’s surprising we don’t have more litigation.
I guess the goal is to push businesses out and replace with residential housing that brings in a larger tax base.
Not one farmer spoke out in favor of filing an appeal. Not a one. Nada. In fact farmer after farmer got up and spoke in public comment advising the board to not file an appeal and to stop the madness.
Yes, the best thing to do in any battle/contest/lawsuit, is wait until you lose and THEN discuss how you’re willing to negotiate with the winning party (after you already burned them previously on negotiations), if they’re willing to reach out to you, and stop by YOUR front porch.
The tone deafness is deafening.