Election Day

My legs are sore from walking and knocking on doors. I've talked to a lot of township residents in the last few weeks and I'm once again impressed at the many paths that our residents take in their pursuit of happiness. That drive to live our lives with as much authenticity as we can possibly create, coupled with the capacity to not just tolerate, but to appreciate our neighbors and their unique paths is the key to the economic revival of our township, our region, our state, and our nation.

Sounds hyperbolic, I know.  It’s been that sort of week.  New York suffers under Sandy and suddenly climate change is back on the table and the federal government is competent and people appreciate it.  Here in Leland Township, events have been iconic in a more positive way.  Leland School’s boys soccer team won game after game in their post season until they had claimed the title of 2012 District and Regional Champions, or as it was explained to me “one of the four best teams in the state”.   Their last game was on Halloween in Big Rapids, which left three team members who are also in Mr. Wodek’s  civic class precious little time to complete the required six hours of volunteering on a political campaign.

That’s how I ended up with “bodyguards” on my last weekend of campaigning door to door.  I like going door to door with students, especially on foot. One day we walked from my house down M-204 to M-22.  The next day we walked east from my house into Lake Leelanau.  While we walked, I talked about the the history of the road and the homes, the people who live here now and the ones who are gone.  We met a mom who remembered when Austin’s dad was her oldest son’s soccer coach. We met a 92 year old man who missed keeping chickens in the village. We visited Bad Pony, one of our fledgling internet businesses and, next door, The Washington Building, where Doug Fierberg took time out to give us a tour of the national law firm that they run out of his Lake Leelanau office.  We saw a pileated wood pecker, Provemont Pond, a hidden barn, boots planted with cactus.  Carol Drow told us about her solar panels, "Been there since Jimmy Carter was president!" Simon Dyer turned off his leaf blower long enough to share his comparison between US elections and elections in his native Ireland. 

Sometime halfway through the first day, one of the guys said, “Wow! Everybody here is connected!”  Of course, that’s the point of my patter, the point of the walking tour, the point of going door to door, the point of civics class, the point of serving in local government.  We are all connected, by blood, or by history, or by economics, by sharing the same roads and parks and fire department and lakeshores.

My challenge as supervisor will be to foster that sense of community, and to see where it leads.  The loose ends can be woven in by encouraging our residents to shop locally, by making opportunities for young people to come back and establish their careers and families here, by making township government open and accessible to everyone, not just as a place to complain when things go wrong but as way to meet their neighbors and collaborate to solve problems and create whatever comes next.

I thank all who have helped me along so far, the folks who encouraged me and bankrolled me and advised me and opened their doors and took time to ask good questions and tell me about their lives.  I especially enjoyed the high school students who accompanied me along the way. I hope they have absorbed the idea that governing is not just about winning arguments or elections. 

   

I’m optimistic about the results of today’s voting.  The results for local races will be available at Leelanau.cc  after the polls close, absentee ballots are all fed into the machine, and the township clerk reports the totals to the county clerk’s office. Vote today, and thank our election workers when you do.

Leland Harbor: Four Days Til Wine Fest

And it's raining at Leland Harbor. The parking lot must be graded and paved in order to host the Leland Wine Fest on June 11, and they were still pouring curbs and gutters late last week.

This drama is as good as any reality TV series. At our last Town Board meeting we decided to extend the completion deadline to:

• Parking Lot Paved -- June 11
• Operational Gas Dock -- June 26
• Building Substantial Completion -- July 10

We could have refused to grant any extensions and collected penalties and fees from the contractor, but having the harbor open, even provisionally, is worth more to us.

The docks have been in use already, almost from the moment they hit the water. Even over Memorial Day, when they were just floating in the harbor, unattached to land, there was a sailboat that spent the holiday on their own little island out there. As Anna and I left on Sunday, we saw some power boaters pull into a slip, tie up, and walk over the "Dock Closed" sign on their way to shore.

Our mission Sunday was to photograph the north side of the building, which is now almost completely covered with the grey shakes that were chosen to mirror the look of the vintage buildings of Fishtown. I have to look past the construction equipment and imagine the front porch, but I can see the building eventually feeling like an extension of Fishtown.

Even before I was elected I heard a lot of opinions about the size and style of the harbor building. I talked to people who came late to the process complaining that the building would be too big and tall. I talked to the Harbor Commission members who had put the design together based on the input from public hearings and the constraints of the site and the funding process. I went from being skeptical of the design to being a big fan. But I was also struck by the way the the people who came in late to criticize the design were talking to only each other. I had always thought of a public hearing as a mechanism for the public to make their views known to the powers that be. Now I see the public hearing as a useful forum for the various stakeholders to hear each other and figure out how to compromise. The harbor building had to accommodate the boaters' needs, the classic Fishtown architecture advocates, the pedestrian traffic, the playground crowd, and myriad state and federal agencies. Nobody was getting everything that they wanted, but the Harbor Commission did try to come up with a design that was responsive to all concerns.

Right now it takes a lot of imagination to erase the construction equipment, the tool trailers, , the piles of dirt. You have to visualize the grey shakes darkening in a few seasons. The seagulls are already depositing their own patina on the red roof. One day the flag pole will be up again, the noisy machines will be gone, and we will be standing in the harbor with seagulls flying through a stiff west wind, watching a small boat entering safe harbor, and all will be well.

Leland Harbor Renovation- Installing the Fuel Tanks

Folks returning to Leland this spring will see some big changes. The old Courthouse has been torn down, and there are plans for new housing in it's place. The Leland Library is undergoing a complete interior renovation and should be looking nice and new by mid-May. but the real nail biter has been the long-planned Harbor Renovation. It has been a challenging project, requiring cooperation between Leland Township, Michigan DNR, Michigan DEQ, Michigan Office of Budget Management, the US Army Corps of Engineers, Leelanau County Road Commission, Leelanau County Construction Code Office, and, no doubt, some other agencies that I've forgotten.

Today it was a pleasure to see a big part of the project successfully put into place. The fuel tank in the pictures and video will hold both diesel fuel and gasoline, providing boaters with the only fuel stop between Frankfort and Northport. Behind it, rather lost in the mayhem, you see our pretty little playground. I was happy to see the fuel tank nestled deep into the ground. When the area is back filled and sodded, it will be a nice venue for "king of the Mountain."

It was a warm spring day, with beautiful blue water framing Whaleback. The construction guys are hoping for more weather like this to make up for the time they lost fighting blizzard conditions early in the project.

P.S. As I left the site, I saw an eagle soaring above, too high for a photo, its white head gleaming in the sun.

Sworn In

Today I took my oath of office down at the town hall, swearing to uphold the Constitution of the United States, th Constitution of the State of Michigan, and the laws of Leland Township and the county of Leelanau to the best of my ability.

And The Results......

It was at 10 pm last night, as I went on break, that one of my card players told me to call the county clerk's office and check on my election results. In the break room there was already a coworker looking up local election results. I had 719 votes, second place in a three way race for two seats, so I had won.

I left work soon after, as soon as a table closed down, and went home to get Anna. The presidential race was looking good for Obama. Grant Park was filling up with people; Liz was there among them. A group of my supporters were having an election party. Anna and I listened to McCain's concession speech on the way over.

I had been thinking about the 2000 election, the first presidential election that Shelagh and Liz were old enough to understand. Liz and I slept on the floor of the living room watching TV as the race was called, first for Bush, then for Gore, and then a tossup that would take weeks to eventually be decided with a sketchy Supreme Court decision.

I have spent the last eight years trying to keep my kids from becoming cynical, trying to to keep alive the faith that what we do, each of us, matters. It has not been all that easy to keep the faith myself when our very nation, up to and including our economy, our constitution and our very atmosphere, has been cynically offered for sale to the highest bidder. Still, with the help of friends, relatives, teachers, neighbors, the kids are alright. Somehow, while we were "Waiting for the World to Change" and I was despairing that we just couldn't wait much longer, they were forming and testing the new networks that elected this new president.

We aren't out of the woods, yet, not by a long shot. Before the 2000 Bush victory party was cut short, we saw them dancing to the strains of "Louie, Louie", the song that played in Animal House right before they trashed the joint. It has been a long, ugly frat party and there are some big ugly chickens that have yet to come home to roost. Obama acknowledged the work ahead last night:

I know you didn't do this just to win an election and I know you didn't do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime - two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century. Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us. There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after their children fall asleep and wonder how they'll make the mortgage, or pay their doctor's bills, or save enough for college. There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and alliances to repair.

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you - we as a people will get there.

There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can't solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it's been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years - block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers - in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.

Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House - a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, "We are not enemies, but friends...though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection." And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn - I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.

There's lots of work to be done. But I can breathe again. I sat last night watching Obama speak with Anna on my lap, even though she's way to big for laps. She, and Liz out there in the crowd somewhere, and Shelagh, watching election returns with her husband in a loud crowd at a bar in Ann Arbor , they were all proof that we've survived, that I've raised these kids through the dark times with their spirits intact.

Here is a Chicago news video with a short interview with Liz at Grant Park last night.

Election Day

Finally it's Election Day. At least it's Election Day for everyone who didn't vote by absentee ballot. It's another beautiful late fall day, sunny and warm. The chickens are roaming the yard, playing out their little chicken rivalries. Gas prices are unusually low, $2.26 at the BP station in Lake Leelanau. It's the sort of day that tempts us to think that the golden days might just go on forever, even though all logic tells us otherwise.

Richard has been fishing and has voted already this morning. One 14 inch walleye, not a keeper, and a short wait to vote. I keep thinking about my own campaign, thinking of more people that I could have talked to. I did more door-to-door canvassing, more advertising, and more standing in front of the post office than my opponents.

But I am running as a Democrat in an area where running as a Democrat has always been the kiss of death. It turned out that many of my supporters were the orphaned moderate Republicans. Many of the people I met going door-to-door told me that they were so fed up that they were voting straight Democrat this year. The guy I carpool with won't vote for me, nor will his wife, because "We always vote straight Republican." I ended up leaving party reference off of my pamphlets and ads because all it seemed to do was muddy the waters.

Leland Township will face challenges in the coming years, much as we wish the golden days to go on. Energy prices will make our area less attractive as a Traverse City bedroom community. We can expect Big Wind to come back again with tempting lease terms for our farmers; we will also be confronted with the idea of windmills out on Lake Michigan. Our lake shore septic puzzle isn't going to solve itself. Public school funding will continue to be a problem, exacerbated by those volatile energy prices. A combination of the economic slowdown and Michigan's pop-up tax are already affecting our real estate market in unexpected ways. The harbor renovation will fly or falter depending on state funding.

So many of theses issues will be resolved -- or not resolved--by the various levels of government working in combination. Playing chess with Anna yesterday reminded me of trying to figure out these local issues. The best land for wind towers is in the northern tip of Leelanau county, but there are no transmission lines, but the new Comprehensive Energy Plan provides for expediting the siting transmission lines. There are lots of possible scenarios and how they play out depends on who is elected at the various levels. It's hard to imagine a county board that won't require some type of septic inspections, even if it's only for antique lake shore systems. It's equally hard to imagine a state legislature that actually faces up to school funding and the pop up tax problem.

Liz has tickets to go hear Obama speak at Grant Park tonight. I think it will be a victory speech but I'm wary enough that I warned her to take a friend and stick with him. And to wear shoes she can walk in. I can't stop contemplating all possible scenarios.

So I'm off to vote, to do my small part in shaping our future. Wish me luck.

Susan Och for Leland Township Trustee

Thanks for making your way to my blog! Looking for information on my campaign for Leland Township Trustee? Here you go:

Why I'm running.

Economic Development in Leland Township

The Lake Shore Sewer and Septic Question

More on Township government

My Grand Vision Experience

Four Reasons to Save Energy

A Windy Week

The League of Women Voters Candidate Information Page

A Windy Week

Home wind generation is coming of age. This is a windspire from Mariah Power, who bill their design as a quiet, unobtrusive, and inexpensive option for home wind energy production. Mariah Power recently announced plans to build their next generation windspires in Manistee.
One of the themes of my campaign for Leland Township has been 21st Century Vision. I tell anyone who listens long enough that we have to make sure that our zoning ordinances allow for home-based wind and solar energy generation. Leland Township is drafting new zoning laws to follow up our new Master Plan; I want to do everything possible to see that our new zoning ordinances don't cost our residents money by denying their right to make their own power.

Knowing what we need to do and knowing how to do it are two different things. I jumped at the chance to sign up for a Home and Farm Wind Power workshop at the MSU Experiment Station this afternoon. This is a timely topic; I was one of 90 people to sign up. With another 30 on the waiting list, there are already plans to repeat the workshop later this winter.

I will be at an all day class later this week called How Do We Plan For Our Renewable Energy Future?, covering more of the planning and zoning aspects of wind, solar, biomass, and hydropower.

I'm also running ad ad in the Leelanau Enterprise this week, listing some of my supporters and issuing this challenge:

Adjusting to higher energy prices and an unpredictable world economy challenges us to reweave the threads of our local economy, planning for home-based businesses and alternative energy while preserving our natural beauty. Our community has the natural resources and talent to thrive in the 21st century –let’s do it together!

When I think about "reweaving" I think about the threads of money and energy leaving our region: money spent on fuel and energy, on pumping holding tanks, on food from far-flung places when our farmers raise such nice food right here. I always told my kids "You can't spend the same money twice." and that goes on a township level, too. We need to spend our paychecks enriching our local economy.

Dan Scripps Talks Broadband

Dan Scripps, our Democrat for State Rep, wrote his weekly Thursday economic issues column on the importance of broadband internet to the rural economies. He described the rural Electrification Project of the 1930's and spoke of how a similar effort to provide broadband service today could provide a boost to our area:

By making loans available to local electrification cooperative, which were often driven by farmers, the Rural Electrification Act helped farmers modernize their operations, provided the encouragement necessary for private electric companies to connect rural households (which ultimately lowered electric rates), and made it possible for businesses to remain and grow in rural America.

So what?

Well, as important as extending electricity to rural areas was to reviving the economy of the 1930s, access to broadband is at least as important to growing Michigan’s economy today. Indeed, as former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta and media expert Robert McChesney noted, broadband represents “a technology that, in terms of powering economies, could be the 21st century equivalent of electricity.” Moreover, while many assume that access to broadband is universal, 60% of American households do not have access to broadband either because it is unavailable or unaffordable, and our global position is getting worse: “since 2001, according to the International Telecommunications Union, the United States has fallen from fourth to 16th in the world in broadband penetration.”

I'm told by local real estate people that "Can I get broadband here?" is one of the first questions that prospective buyers ask about properties in Leelanau county. Recently Higher Grounds coffee company, after struggling to get broadband access in Leland Township's only zoned industrial district, relocated to Traverse City. Broadband is the key to attracting and keeping the right-sized businesses in our township, and to keeping our farms and businesses competitive.

The Lake Shore Septic or Sewer Question

My Grandma Mimi, as a child, with a bow in her hair, on a mule at Castle Rock in Colorado.
I had hoped to base my campaign for Leland Township Trustee on opportunities for economic development in our township, with a serious effort at expanding broadband internet in our township. Instead I have been talking about septic systems and sewers because that's what people want to talk about.

Last month's Leland Town Board meeting featured a spirited discussion of the role of septic systems, sewer systems and government. This is not a new topic. We had questions about sewers and septic systems at the Leland Township candidates night. There was more talk about septic system inspection at the county candidates night. I was surprised to hear some of the candidates for county board saying that inspection of septic systems was a township issue. The county health department regulates the building of septic systems. The county Board of Commissioners has been trying for over a decade, unsuccessfully, to draft regulations that would require some sort of septic system inspection. The regulations as they stand right now do not require any septic inspections, not even when property changes hands.

Of course, a person would be nuts to buy any property without having the septic system inspected. But many lake front properties change hands within families, passing from one generation to another. According to Michigan State University, the life expectancy of a septic system is 20 to 30 years; septic haulers estimate more like 40 years. Eventually the gravel in the drain field becomes clogged with small particles and the drain field will no longer accept water.

Replacing a drain field is a big expense and it may be impossible for a lake front property owner. Every time you add a bedroom or a bathroom the required drain field area goes up, and overall standards are stricter these days. The septic system that was installed fifty years ago to serve a two bedroom seasonal home is much smaller than what is required to serve the same home after multiple additions and upgrades. If, over the years, that two bedroom cabin has gained another bathroom, turned a few porches into bedrooms, and installed a furnace, you may well be trying to serve a four bedroom year-round residence with an antiquated system designed for a two bedroom summer home. According the the Leelanau County Health Department's codes, a three bedroom home on a site with sand loam, a typical lake front soil type, requires 1050 square feet of drain field. It must be no less than 10 feet from any building, and the lowest part of the drain field must be at least four feet above the maximum high water table. The whole system must be 50 feet from the lake, 50 feet from any well or spring, and 10 feet from the property line.

If a homeowner can't fit a modern septic system onto their lot, they may be able to use a mound system. The county health department defers to the Michigan DEQ on these regulations; DEQ requires that the mound, essentially a thick, above ground drain field fed by a pump instead of gravity, be located over 100 feet from the lake.

Property owners who find that they cannot build a new drain field usually opt for a holding tank. The health department will allow other alternatives, but they are considered experimental and the property owner is responsible for the cost of regularly monitoring the performance of these systems and for replacing them if they don't work.

If a holding tanks seems like a less dicey option, it is certainly not cheap. We have friends who are renting a lakeside holding tank house while their new home is being built. They have two elementary age boys, not a demographic known for excess bathing, they are actively conserving water, even to the point of only flushing every third or fourth use, but they are still paying $270 every three weeks to have their tank pumped.

Without a requirement to inspect septic systems, it is easy to just procrastinate. A homeowner can procrastinate, saying "Well, the system only floods the yard when our house guests stay too long." My son-in-law, Jordan Fehrenbach, worked for his father's septic pumping company, Bay Pumping, when he was in high school. Although it is recommended that we pump our septic tanks every few years, he said that many of the calls he answered were from people who had procrastinated until their systems didn't work right anymore. "People just don't know much about their septic systems. The subject doesn't come up in polite conversation, so there's not much opportunity to learn about it."

A township can be pressured to procrastinate, worrying that sending out a questionnaire about a possible new sewer district could be construed as "drumming up business" for the township. The people who think that government is already too big jump on sewer projects as an example of "big government getting bigger." They decry "a shotgun approach" and encourage us to wait until we know each septic system goes bad before deciding that there's a problem.

I heard Leelanau County Commissioner Melinda Lautner say these lines at the Leelanau County candidates night. Unfortunately, she is also one of the county commissioners standing in the way of any sort of septic inspection. If you don't have inspections, you may procrastinate until your well, or a neighbor's well, is contaminated. You may procrastinate until your family, or your neighbor's family, falls ill from hepatitis or blue baby syndrome or dysentery.

Or we could use a conservative, common sense approach. In Leelanau County, we have required permits for all septic systems installed since 1972. Since it is now 2008, we could expect that any property that does not have a permit on file probably has a septic system that is living on borrowed time. It is easy to drive around North Lake Leelanau and see plenty of homes that are on lots too shallow to site a septic system 50 feet away from the lake, or too low to site a system four feet above the maximum high water table. These people need a sewer or holding tanks, whether they want to think past the flush or not. Both sewer systems and holding tanks are expensive options, but they are both better options than sticking your head in the ground while your effluent seeps into the lake.

David Marshall, Democrat for Leelanau County Commissioner District 6, described the common sense approach this way: "You fix the bridge before it collapses." Most of my conversations with township residents express the same expectation that county and township government should be proactive and prudent in protecting our lakes and groundwater with appropriate inspections of septic systems and construction of sewers where necessary.

The talk at last month's meeting was of creating a new sewer district to serve Leland Township's lakefront properties, with its own assessment so that the lakefront property owners were paying for their service, not the township at large. There was a chicken-and-egg discussion about whether we could assess interest without knowing the cost, and whether we could estimate cost without knowing interest. I'm afraid the discussion ranged far towards the philosophical while ignoring the idea of aging septic systems as a simple math problem.

Congratulations if you've followed me this far! You've earned the right to know why I would preface this piece with a photo of my grandmother on a mule. Writing this piece reminded me of the stories that my Grandma Mimi used to tell of growing up in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Every summer all who could afford to would flee the city, taking the train west or north, to escape the waves of cholera and typhoid fever that plagued American cities in the early 1900's, largely due to poor sanitation. Mimi was riding that mule in Colorado, where her family spent summers. Lake Leelanau has hosted city refugees for over 100 years, with travelers at the turn of the last century taking the train to Perrins Landing the south end of the lake and the ferry up the lake from there. Here in Leland Township, where our century-old resort economy is benefiting us in so many ways, it is imperative that we protect our reputation for clean, safe water.

Note: 9/4/08 The ads that appear on this blog are chosen by web robots, or "web bots", programs that attempt to read each article, decipher its content, and then assign relevant ads to each piece. I earn a negligible amount of money from these ads, but I keep them because I find it interesting to see what an artificial intelligence thinks of my writing.

Today I see that I am advertising several "miracle cures" for septic system failure. That these ads appeared so quickly, and that there are so many of them, is further evidence that many people worry privately about their septic systems, even if they don't talk about them around the water cooler. Every reputable source of information about septic systems, from MSU to my son-in-law, tells me that those products that claim to fix an aging septic system are bunk, and may actually make your problems worse. Feel free to read the ads for your own amusement, but please don't think that I, or anyone else, is endorsing these products.

55 Votes

Preliminary election results, posted on the county website, show that I got 55 votes in yesterday's primary, out of a total of 878 votes cast for Leland Township Trustee. It sounds terrible, but I didn't really want any votes, since I was unopposed on the Democratic side of the ballot and thus could have gone on the the November General Election with zero votes. anyone votng on the Democratic side lost their opportunity to influence the important races on the Republican side.

I looked over the results, checking out the three millage requests (all passed) and the Leland Township Supervisor race (Larkin beat Lederle 430 to 230). But as I did my chores today, I kept wondering why did 55 people decide to cast a meaningless vote for me?

Maybe they didn't understand the system. Heck, I've worked with the public long enough that I know some people didn't understand the system. Maybe they don't like the system, and were voting Democratic to protest the county's "you have to be a Republican to win" tradition. I hope those people show up in November. Maybe I rode Dan Scripps' coattails, although I myself was getting tired of filling in bubbles and I passed on filling in bubbles for some unopposed people that would have gotten a courtesy vote on a more leisurely day in November.

Maybe it was a protest vote against the local Republican party of late, who actually staged a float in the 4th of July parade with a "Drill Here! Drill Now! Pay Less!" banner. We know that there is oil under the Great Lakes, but not too many of us are anxious to see drilling rigs out on Big Blue. Dave Camp, my congressman, seems to have gone over the edge, sending me screaming name calling emails about the "Pelosi premium" on gas prices and the dangers of "Hillarycare" health insurance. While most of the people I know are taking practical steps to save energy, the Republicans seem to envision us as hungry baby birds who must be fed more and more oil regardless of the consequences. If anyone gets in their way, they will find a woman to blame and call her names. I see that Victor Goldschmidt, who was serving the Leelanau Republican party by giving workshops on climate change denial, lost his bid for Leelanau Township Trustee.

All in all, I'm glad I chose to buck the "system" and run as a Democrat, even if the only result is a race in November when people are paying attention and have time to think.

Vote Tomorrow, But Not For Me.....

Tomorrow is the August Primary here in Michigan. I will be on the ballot, running for Leland Township Trustee as a Democrat, but I'm hoping that nobody votes for me tomorrow.

In this primary, you are not allowed to split your votes between the parties. If you were to vote for me, on the Democratic side of the ballot, you would not be able to vote for either of the sheriff candidates, for either of the Leland Township Supervisor candidates, or for any of the County Treasurer candidates, since the only people running in those races are Republicans. I don't need votes, since I'm unopposed in the primary, as is Dan Scripps, the Democratic candidate for State Representative. You should still get out and vote, as tomorrow's primary election will decide the sheriff, county treasurer and township supervisor races.

I spent a lot of time explaining the "Don't Vote For Me!" strategy to the out-of-state family members. It is odd to have important races like Sheriff decided at the primary level instead of in an all out battle between the two parties. In Leelanau County it had long been gospel that you had to run as a Republican in order to win in November. Dan Scripps came real close to disproving this two years ago, and this year there are Democrats across the county ready to challenge the winners of this primary.

But not for sheriff, township supervisor, or county treasurer. As busy as county residents are in August, those races will be decided tomorrow whether we are paying attention or not.

No Cowboys

A few years back Bingham Township was busy making headlines, and they weren't the sort of headlines anyone wants to see. Bingham Township's supervisor was the subject of a scathing editorial in the Traverse City Record-Eagle:

Once again, a township supervisor — this time Bingham Township's Robert Foster — seems to have gotten it into his head that he is a law unto himself. And taxpayers will probably pay to set him straight.

Foster has thumbed his nose at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, exposing the township to possible litigation and liability; claimed a beach grooming permit he didn't have; accused the township clerk of being the subject of a nonexistent mail fraud investigation; and allegedly pushed an elected official out of office (though his wife, Patricia, is credited with the actual physical contact), again exposing the township to litigation and liability.

Not bad for less than two years in office.

My friends in Bingham were so mortified and disgusted by the spectacle that I made it a point to thank my Leland Township supervisor, Harry Larkin, for doing whatever it was he did to keep us low profile and out of the headlines. Harry was philosophical about the compliment, saying, "I figure that my job is to call the meetings and make sure that everyone follows the law."

It was a simple statement, but it was the seed of my decision to run for township trustee. Government on all levels seems to be a deafening competition between personalities and interest groups, where if one side is right, the other must be wrong. It's easy to forget that we are a nation of laws, and that we share a lot of common interests, that most of us are pretty nice people who are neither always right or always wrong, and that we have a good deal to learn from each other.

Foster's antics only mirrored the national scene, elected officials who see themselves as above the law, and who see the basic procedures of government -- the Freedom of Information Act, the Open Meetings laws, everything from the Bill of Rights to beach grooming laws -- as annoyances, not disciplines.

When I thought about serving as an elected official as a matter of trying to be on the popular side of large number of issues, it seemed like the worst job in the world. But when I thought about serving on the town board as working for the common good, within the constraints of laws and procedures, well, this was a job I could do. I work in the casino, in an industry that uses procedures to ensure and demonstrate honesty. I have spent the last 15 years as a 4-H volunteer teaching chess- a game that teaches how to win without gloating and lose without whining and how to think ahead about the future consequences of each action.

I've been thinking lately about 1998 and 1999, when I spent one or two nights a week for most of those years meeting with about 50 other volunteers on the Leland School Facilities Group, trying to make a monumental decision about the future of our school. We were asked to look at three alternatives: consolidating with another school, moving our school to a more rural location with room to expand, or expanding and renovating on our small, landlocked village location. Like a lot of others, I joined the group with a lot of preconceived ideas. We researched and argued and got to know each others' points of view. In the end, we made a good decision because we took our time, respected the learning process, and didn't rush to conclusions.

I was concerned when I saw news stories last year describing a breakdown of civility at Leland Town Board meetings:

During board member comment at the end of the three-hour meeting, Keen said she is concerned the level of vitriol that is displayed at all township meetings is giving the township a bad image. She referred to a joint meeting held last month with the township planning commission and sewer commission about future growth in the township. Keen said public comments leveled at former commission chairman Stephen Clem by Lake Leelanau resident Steve Mikowski were part of the reason Clem resigned from the commission. She alleged Mikowski used profanity during his comments, saying it was unnecessary. Mikowski denied using profanity, adding he has never used such language at any meeting during his comments.

Keen said the public’s perception of township government is not good.

“I ask people I think would be good people to have on our committees and commissions if they would be willing to serve, and they say ‘No way would I put myself through that,’” she said.

Both Keen and Plamondon said the use of loud voices at township board meetings by Lederle and Larkin often wear them out. Plamondon, who sits between Larkin and Lederle at board meetings, said he would like to see a change in the seating arrangements.

“When I leave here after a meeting, I’m usually going home with a headache,” he said.
Keen said she is unsure if she wants to continue serving.

“It frightens me where we are going to go in the future. We’re only going to get people who have an agenda to serve on our committees and commissions because no one else will be willing to serve,” she said.

When the township emergency response team started their own facilities study group last year, they found their work undermined by the same township trustee who is now challenging Larkin for the supervisor position.

I'm supporting Harry Larkin as the sort of person who is there to serve, not to advance any particular agenda. I suspect that if we each took one of those "Issues surveys" that are all the rage now we'd end up on opposite sides of each question, but that's OK, since he's there to serve the township and its system of government, not to force everyone to agree with his views.

Candidates Night

The place was packed. I could afford to be relaxed about the whole event because I'm unopposed in the primary. The date, unfortunately, conflicted with the rehearsal dinner for my brother Chris's wedding, so I was eager to get it done and go down to the dinner at Old Settlers Park. Each candidate was given two minutes to state their reasons for running, qualifications for the office, and their view of the challenges facing our township.

Two minutes was enough time to say that I wanted to serve to support the amazing group of volunteers that make our township run, and that the new zoning ordinance should do more to support "right sized" businesses in our township and that we needed to expand broad band internet to the entire township, and that I was writing about these issues on this blog. Each of the candidates gave their own two minute introduction; the rest of the event was devoted to written questions from the audience.

I had come prepared to talk broadband internet, but the audience's infrastructure questions were all about septic tanks and sewers. That was OK -- as the daughter of a civil engineer who made a career out of designing municipal sewer projects, I was comfortable talking about "after the flush" issues. It's easy to cut to the chase on those issues by pointing out that clean water is a basic requirement for public health.

Many of the questions for the supervisor candidates were centered around challenger Nick Lederle's criticism of what he termed "the runaway growth of township government." One question asked Nick specifically which functions of township government he'd like to get rid of; he answered that the things we were doing already were pretty much OK.

Later, at the rehearsal dinner, my uncle Bryan was not at all surprised that the evening had revolved around questions of basic government and sewers. "Way back when," he intoned in his Retired Park Ranger style, "our first governments were formed when people started living closer together and decided that they couldn't go on just throwing the slops in the streets everyday so they decided to do something about. it." Thinking on it, I realized that there were probably folks way back when who decided that a law against throwing slops in the street was too much government and went to live in a town where they kept throwing the slops in the streets. But those folks aren't our ancestors because they didn't survive the plagues.

Leland Township Economic Development

Preparing for next Thursday's Leland Township Candidate Night, I asked my brother, Chris Wendel, to give me some ideas on attracting and building "right sized" businesses in our township. I believe that doing so will be critical as gas prices make living here and commuting to Traverse City less and less appealing. I am cutting and pasting from his email so I can get myself off to work:

Attracting entrepreneurial businesses and employment is many times dependent on zoning. For example, the perception in the Traverse City economic development community is that Leland Township was too slow in accommodating needed zoning changes for One Up Web. They intended on expanding in Lake Leelanau but the process became bogged down even with patient deadlines from their owner and they moved on to Grelickville.

The township at last look has only one manufacturing zoned area; at the former sawmill facility where Baa Baa ZuZu is located. Any company that had aspirations of opening a light manufacturing business in Leland Township would quickly realize that the land available for light manufacturing is very limited and move on.

The recent advent of the internet presents tremendous opportunities for attracting “knowledge based” employment. They fall under the following categories:

1. Professionals that can work remotely from Leland Township for companies or corporations located outside the region. They can live here year-round, place children in the local schools, and not take up space on our roads with their “telecommuting”.
2. Self-employed people who discover a niche and open or operate internet based businesses that sell products or services to a worldwide internet audience.
3. Retail business that use the internet to sell their products to a wider audience outside the region, or develop a unique product line that can be sold to broad internet audience.
4. Value added agricultural products that are sold online or to a wider audience. IE. Kejara’s Bridge in Lake Leelanau has gone away from its walk in restaurant concept and sells is hummus and other food products on the internet and to Whole Foods grocery stores downstate. Wineries and existing roadside markets are other examples.

Overall, here are some possible considerations:

1. Collaborations with the owner of a commercial building and the township to set up a small business incubation center. This could be a small space at a centralized location that offers inexpensive office space, business resources, high speed internet, and regular business consulting from my group (SBTDC) and SCORE to encourage small business growth. These could also be businesses that people start on the side while keeping their regular or seasonal employment. If the business grows than the transition can be made into full time self-employment. SBTDC and SCORE services are free but go unnoticed and underutilized in Leland Township and Leelanau County. I would be quite interested in working with the township on this.
2. Leelanau County now has an Economic Development Fund for small businesses that show the potential to grow and add employees. Having an awareness of and presence with the Leelanau County EDC is important.
3. Increase awareness in the township that the 20-35 age group is growing in Leelanau County and will continue to grow steadily in the next 5-10 years.
4. Making accessible, affordable internet a priority for the township and county.
5. Collaboration with the two township schools (St. Mary’s and Leland) and MSU Extension to further encourage youth entrepreneurship in the township.
6. Use and celebrate the examples of other area businesses that have thrived with selling products and services in innovative ways.( Cherry Republic quickly comes to mind, $7 million in sales last year, half of which comes from mail-order and internet sales, 15% of their internet sales come from people who have never been to Leelanau County. Baa baa ZuZu has grown over 30% in one year and sells to over 200 galleries nationally out of the back door of their warehouse type facility).
7. Consider starting a business development authority, staffed by volunteer retirees, business people, and local economic development personnel. This group would work to improve the business climate and publicize the business opportunities (once they improve) in Leland Township.
8. The distribution channels of CSAs should be acknowledged as well. Agriculture in its ever evolving forms will be critical to the controlled growth and future economic success of the township.
9. Have the wherewithal to work past the naysayers and contrarians that don’t want anything to happen in Leland and the surrounding areas. Theses are many times retired people who don’t want and just don’t get progress.


The key is to create an environment that is friendly to these entrepreneurial pursuits and encouraging the collaboration from all community groups including the Leland Public School, St. Mary’s School, 4-H, MSU Extension, NMC, SBTDC, SCORE, Leelanau County Chamber, Leland Chamber of Commerce, the Michigan Land Use Institute an others. There are plenty of resources out there that are underutilized. The solution for the township will not be a larger company locating in the township but smaller businesses that can develop thrive and increase their employee bases as they go along.

Chris is Assistant Director of the Small Business and Technology Development Center in Traverse City.

Leland Township Trustee

I think it was Al Gore's book, The Assault on Reason, that got me thinking about rejecting the default role of consumer and more fully embracing the role of citizen. This was the underlying subtext of my decision last week to file as a candidate for Leland Township Trustee.

But the more direct reason is that friends were asking me to run. I, in turn, kept asking other people to think about running, but in the end, at the deadline, there were two candidates filed for two trustee offices. I filed as a Democrat, so we will all be unopposed in the primary, but three wil vie for two seats in November. (An independent candidate has until July to file for the November election.)

When I was trying to recruit other people to run, I did some thinking about what makes a good candidate. I came up with a list of three themes:

• Stewardship: We think of land stewardship, but in the older sense, stewardship is a word that means "caring for the things that belong to the community." The community assets could be tax dollars or dark skies or a volunteer's hours. Stewardship is the opposite of using an elected office to enrich one self or one's cronies. Efficiency in government is a form of stewardship, making sure that tax dollars are not wasted. Respect for volunteer efforts is also a form of stewardship; you don't waste the many volunteer hours that went into developing a Master Plan by treating it as a nuisance or a joke.
• Good Government: We follow the law to ensure that decisions are made fairly, with all parties having meaningful input, and avoiding even the appearance of impropriety. Good government values transparency, avoids conflicts of interest, follows procedures, and operaties under the rule of law, especially in regards to the Open Meetings Act, the Freedom of Information Act, etc.
• 21st Century Vision This was a hard one to articulate last winter, but events have caught up to us. Far-off goals like vibrant villages, universal broadband access and a local food chain are suddenly very much on everyone's minds as we confront ever-rising fuel prices and wonder how to rework our lives for greenhouse gas reduction. Today's entrepreneurs would love to locate their businesses in our area, but they simply can not do so without up-to-date internet access. We have alternative energy entrepreneurs here already --if we help them with zoning and utility decisions that support their work, they will support us in crafting new, energy efficient ways of living. We have family farmers, some who have been here for generations and some brand new farmers. We value them, not just as scenery, but a source of food security and an economic driver of our community. Another economic driver is tourism. We cannot afford to take tourism for granted and mindlessly remake our community to look like everyplace else. The future of our community depends on forward thinking and flexible government and citizenry.

I'm not sure if these are values, personal attributes, or overarching themes. I just know we need more of this in government on all levels.