Opinion: Appeal or Settle – Is That the Question?

Editor’s Note: OMP resident Rudy Rudolph says he supports the Township Board’s decision to appeal the federal court ruling in the winery lawsuit, emphasizing that the Board was legally bound to follow established ordinances and Special Use Permits created through a public process. Read on for his thoughts, and if you have something to say, write it up and send it to me, [email protected]. -jb

First, let me say thank you, Township Board, for deciding to appeal the ruling by U.S. Federal District Court Judge Maloney, regarding the Winery Lawsuit. Having served as a Board Member for roughly two and a half years while this lawsuit proceeded, I fully believe this was the only rational step open to the Township.

Much has been said about the Town Board being unable to come to a settlement with Wineries of Old Mission Peninsula (WOMP). What many residents, or apparently the court, for that matter, don’t know or appreciate is that the Board, as elected representatives of the citizens of Old Mission Peninsula, is constrained to follow the published ordinances of the Township. And it is further constrained to abide by the Special Use Permit (SUP) that had been negotiated with each winery as it sought to conduct industrial operations on Township agriculturally-zoned land. In my opinion and experience, the Board takes this responsibility very seriously, but in doing so, it faces two significant problems because of these constraints.

With regard to over-riding the ordinances, the Board legally cannot, nor should it, make unilateral agreements that do not conform to the published ordinances. The reason is that these ordinances were not magically or suddenly promulgated by the Town Board. There is a long, involved process according to State Law, starting from a review of the Township Master Plan, in generating these ordinances. This process involves public hearings, input and discussion at many points.

This means, the residents of the Township have the ultimate say in how the ordinances are generated. To make changes to these ordinances requires an equally lengthy but totally open process requiring public input and discussion. This is exactly the public process the community went through in the early 1970s, leading to the compromise ordinances the wineries originally thrived under but ultimately complained about.

I have not seen evidence that the wineries ever attempted, prior to their recent suit, to participate in the public process in order to convince the public that ordinance changes in their favor would also be favorable to the public good. Of course, bringing forward a lawsuit completely circumvents any open discussion of the public value or concern of the changes the wineries sought.

With regard to the separate SUPs that each winery operates under, these were negotiated with each winery in a completely public process involving the Township Planning Commission and multiple public hearings, which allowed every opportunity for neighboring residents to express their support or concern. The result, in each case, was a use permit, conforming to the ordinances in place at the time, that was a compromise between the needs of each business to successfully operate and the needs of the surrounding citizens to be protected from unnecessary deterioration of their quality of life. The point being that each winery operates under its own SUP. 

There are, of course, procedures in place that allow amendments to Special Use Permits, but these require petitions to the Planning Commission which has to then hold public hearings giving the public multiple opportunities to express support or concern with the requested amendment. In any case, the amendment would still need to conform to the published ordinances in place at the time. Perhaps individual wineries tried to petition for amendments to their SUP prior to banding together to bring suit against the citizens of Peninsula Township, but I have not seen evidence of this. 

What is lost to many of the Board’s critics, however, is the fact that each winery is a separate entity, operating under its own SUP, and the Board is therefore required to view and treat them as separate entities. Again, in my opinion, by bringing suit against the citizens of Old Mission Peninsula as a consortium, the wineries attempt to circumvent any public discussion of their individual demands.

With regard to the claim that the Board has not seriously tried to negotiate a settlement with the wineries, I can only say that, from my viewpoint, this is completely false. I know the compromises the Board offered the wineries, during the time I was a Trustee. In my opinion, given the above disclosed constraints the Board had to operate under, those proposals were not only serious, but also generous. 

It has long been the frustration of the Board that it has not been able to publicly disclose the compromises that it offered the wineries. In fact, disclosure of any court ordered mediation offer can be blocked by judicial decree, when at least one of the parties to the suit do not want it to be public knowledge. I can say that disclosure was not stopped by the Township Board, at least not while I was a Trustee.

The nearly $50 million settlement that the District Court has awarded to the wineries should be of concern to each of us as citizens of Old Mission Peninsula. This means we will all be liable for paying this out, one way or the other. If it is not covered by insurance, then we are all on the hook as taxpayers. If it is covered, or more likely partially covered, by insurance, we can expect that the Township will become either un-insurable or the insurance rates will rise drastically. In either case, the taxpayers of the Township are, as a result, damaged by a lawsuit brought on them by their neighbors, the wineries. 

I can say that the demand for damages in the lawsuit (originally over $200 million) was the only reason that I personally volunteered to serve as an interim Trustee. What was clear to me at that point, though not to many of my fellow citizens, was that the suit against the Township was, in fact, a suit against each of the taxpayers of the Township. 

What is really ironic, in a sense, is that I was initially sympathetic to many of the reasonable requests the wineries were making regarding modifications to their operating rules. Unfortunately, the demands in the suit that WOMP decided to bring against its neighbors were no longer, in my opinion, reasonable but, in fact, went to the extreme. It is too bad this has happened, but it is not rational to blame the Town Board.

Finally, I want to address the assertions that the Township Board is a dictatorial body acting outside the interests of the general public of the community. This claim seems to always come from the same individuals and this is, in fact, an absurd assertion, especially so soon after the election that put each of these dedicated people into their position. That election was an expression of the “will of the people” as it were. There was no secret how each of these folks felt about the issues facing the Township. The fact they are now sitting in these seats means the voting public, in general, agreed with their positions.

Again, I want to thank the Trustees of the Township for their service. I certainly know it is not easy to put yourself in the position of Township Board member, at the expense of your personal tranquility. It is always easy, it seems, to find fault with someone else when things don’t go our way, but not so easy to pick up the mantle of positive public service to your community. I think it is amazing, and to be celebrated, that we have such people willing to do this job for all of us.

-Rudy Rudolph, Old Mission Peninsula resident

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