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Editor’s Note: OMP resident Todd Anson challenges OMP residents, Township trustees, Protect the Peninsula (PTP) and the Wineries of Old Mission Peninsula (WOMP) to come together and write an “inspiring last chapter” to the winery lawsuit. Read on for his thoughts. -jb
Old Mission Peninsula is just one large-scale subdivision or state-mandated increased housing-density statute away from a full-on OMP density crisis, as I have seen recently implemented throughout California. In my personal experience, our quaint, fully built-out, “beachy” island former hometown for 35 years — Coronado, California, with about 2,800 single family homes — has been sent reeling by a state mandate to add 1,000 more residences. Unlike OMP, there is no place for 1000 new homes to go! State law doesn’t care. OMP should.
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The pressures around housing in Traverse City and on the OMP are immense. We all see it. I suspect many PTPers are “housing affordability” advocates, but don’t want more housing density on the Peninsula. Do they want more projects like the 41-home “Peninsula Shores” (formerly known as “The 81 on East Bay“)? Or the 33-home “Walnut Grove?”
We need to be smart, but “outsmarting” markets is tough. It is much easier to predict where they will take us next. That is directly to luxury housing. The housing shortage is a pressing societal concern. I share it. Markets have a mysterious way of imposing the market’s “will” on us. They play a “long game,” but always win.
We all agree that the OMP is an amazing place to call home, despite the dark cloud of litigation looming overhead, more menacing than the Canadian wildfire smoke. There is nothing new here about our tensions between growth and preservation. I believe in both. It has and always will be a delicate “Kabuki Dance.” What intrigues me as these forces boil over on the OMP is that tensions around the “Holy Grail” of “open space” uses — agricultural use — has created a $50M liability for us all.
I have to ask, “How can this be?” I see opportunity here. Our goal should be to dispatch this in a manner that elevates our community despite our present predicament. If we work our way through this Gordian Knot, imagine what else we might be capable of accomplishing together?
Privately, I’ve shared my view that we should challenge ourselves, our Trustees, PTP and the wineries, to “write an inspiring last chapter” to this mess in the way that collectively we overcome perhaps our most monumental challenge yet. Our goal should be to emerge stronger and more cohesive because of the work ahead. I challenge us all to come together and write an “inspiring last chapter.”
Doing so requires an olive branch and respecting the aggrieved wineries, not vilifying them, such that they come to the table, rather than remaining in isolation, in their litigation bunker. Doing so takes foresight. It takes discipline. It takes dialogue. We cannot expect the wineries to be open to dialogue while we hurl denigrating, revisionist history slights their way. The wineries are well aware that they are potentially just one appellate ruling away from losing some, or much, of their leverage. As are we.
I continue to be dismayed by the tenor and tone directed at the wineries by our public figures. The wineries hold nearly all of the cards. At last count, $50 million of them, plus interest. For some significantly involved here, the Township is secretly “doubling down” against the wineries on its “litigation is the answer” strategy. I agree with them. How can this be true? It is far too risky. The appeal should never be our “primary” strategy. It is not, and never should be, anything more than a “default strategy” for leaders who lack the skill to work this out. “A good working relationship between the landowner and the land trust or government program is very important to the success of the land preservation effort.” These are not my words. They’re the words of PTP’s trial expert, Dr. Thomas Daniels.
For there to be hope of resolving this dispute we must engage the wineries in active, open discourse. I know the residents are anxious to remove this dark cloud. I believe that PTP is eager to listen. Our Trustees are a different matter. Yes, they obviously “want this to go away.” But that requires some accountability on their parts. Accountability is noticeably missing when preoccupation with blaming the wineries is all we publicly hear. They are politicians. When our supervisor’s husband continuously, publicly hurls rocks at the wineries, why would the wineries listen to the supervisor when she extends an olive branch to initiate dialogue? Does this make the job we need Supervisor Sanders to perform for us any easier? A little discipline might go a long way.
I believe our strategy should be to use some imagination and common sense. We need to align our interests, in a global sense. The interests of the Trustees, PTP and our neighbors, with work and some swallowed pride, need to be brought into alignment with the wineries on all but the money damages issue. Those have their own litigation entanglements to work through. That means a new ordinance must be forged, including some painful “giveups” by PTP before the money and insurance matters get settled.
With the wineries in alignment, we need to back the insurers into a corner so that the insurers are the sole remaining holdouts. Driving a wedge into the insurers by unifying our interests in resolving this mess (i.e., those of the wineries/Trustees/PTP/residents acting in concert) as to all but the money issue worked out. In so doing, we isolate the insurers’ primary driving interest — avoiding or limiting their exposure. Insurers face a legal exposure (“bad faith insurance claims”) when they refuse to pay. They instantly become the “heavy” when they hold up resolution based for the wrong reasons.
“Aligning” means blocking out the damages issue and working through an amended ordinance which fully recognizes the legal overstep and values, as much as possible, that the wineries bring to our Peninsula. The damages issue needs a collaboration among the Township, the wineries, and PTP vis-a-vis the insurers, for it to be addressed.
Life is short. Quality of life matters, and what a community overcomes together contributes to it. Let’s not let litigation manage us. Let’s manage the litigation.
-Todd Anson, Old Mission Peninsula resident
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Brilliant synopsis of the current conundrum, both locally and nationally. Thank you for putting this concept to ink, I’m sure many of us think or wish something similar had happened along the way. Now is the perfect time, all parties should be highly motivated- since other methods have left a mess without a great outcome for anyone.
Thank you, Amy & Patricia.
I have a strong sense our politicians are so anti-winery that they are doubling down with our money. They seem to lack the imagination & courage resolution requires to rise above this & drop their partisanship. None realize the leader that gets this done wins politically in the end. That takes uncharacteristic wisdom & strength which none is exhibiting. Either that or none have a strategy to bring their ideas to the top. Even scarier.
“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself don’t become a monster.” Nietzsche.
PTP & the Trustees need to recognize they played an illegal game. Yes, the damages may be vulnerable as “gross revenue” & not “net income,” potentially inflating them by 12X, but the wineries have still been damaged by the illegal conduct. I believe the Trustees are grossly overplaying our hand. I do not see a pathway to a complete reversal of damages. At best it is a shot at meaningfully reducing them.
I have some familiarity with how litigation of this magnitude takes ownership of you. I have personally been in the position of the wineries, having held with a single business partner a judgment that exceeded $44MM. Both sides can be full of themselves & risk losing it all. We found common ground & took a negotiated settlement amount. Our “fight” devoured 23 years. We prevailed and everyone involved lost important pieces of themselves. Litigation controls you. You do not control it & a community such as ours is particularly ill-equipped to make sound decisions.
Utilizing our best & brightest to drive a settlement before this is an “all or nothing” outcome decided by the court is what I would like to see. That’s the smart play. Both the wineries & the Township need to de-risk their positions.
Working through a revised ordinance is the place to start. The parties must talk to accomplish this. The Township needs to extend an invitation to the wineries to develop & propose an ordinance suitable to the wineries. That’s how this should start.
Todd, I am completely aligned with you and thank you for stepping up and in. Do you think the politicians have a lot more to lose if they give in at this point. Their reckless abandonment of logic and accountability is far reaching, on almost every level. Valkyrie.
They are politicians, our politicians. Residents of the township recently had the opportunity to vote for their leadership amidst the backdrop of wineries lawsuit. I believe that the outcome of that election established a mandate for the township leaders with regard to the wineries lawsuit….didn’t it?
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The election was held before the judgement.
Let’s get real. Most of the current board except Mr. Milliken were on the board and at any time could have extended an olive branch. They can still do it as Todd so articulately and wisely points out.
Dan,
Thank you for your response.
First, we moved here in early 2020 before any awareness of this pressure. Second, it is fair to say that none of us voted for a planning chokehold so tight that it would backfire by creating an unprecedented liability for us & our neighbors.
I voted for sound judgment as to important matters, none of which rise to the magnitude of $50M. These Trustees sought responsibility knowing we had an enormous problem to be solved. You imply that they are all “OK” with this $50M outcome. We simply don’t know due to their lack of transparency. I voted with my fingers crossed for wisdom. Any government can cross legal lines & change behavior. I voted for candidates who might inspire us with their fresh ideas & leadership through a difficult time applying common sense & the Rule of Reason. There is nothing “wise” about letting lawyers control our future. This is a tragic default strategy playing out before us. I expect & believe we deserve better.