ACHTUNG: This is not a “fair and balanced” story. It is an editorial by the editor.
I resolutely urge everyone in Dorr Township who wants to raise chickens to raise a ruckus at the Dorr Township Board meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29.
Those who want to raise the birds on their properties are being unfairly delayed or thwarted in their attempts to win that right on rural residentially zoned land. Their quest for justice is being delayed and denied by just one member of the Dorr Township Board — Trustee John Tuinstra.
Citizens should get together and appear before the board during public comment to have one representative speak on their behalf, asking the board to add the ordinance amendments item to the agenda and to have the submitted Planning Commission recommendations voted up or down, yay or nay, by the full board.
It is dead wrong to have just one board member hold up the entire process of adopting ordinance amendments that include allowing up to 10 chickens on residential property, with restrictions outlined. But Tuinstra is putting on a one-man show here.
The board last month seriously erred by not calling for a vote on the Planning Commission’s recommendations to approve ordinance changes. The Planning Commission had been meeting all year on tweaking ordinances to make them more compatible with state regulations. Commissioners had been meeting with Township Planner Tim Johnson and in good faith went over all provisions to do the job they were charged with doing.
But Tuinstra at the Aug. 29 meeting balked at moving forward, nit picking on definitions of items described in the ordinance revisions. Even worse, the remaining members of the board gave away their power to one renegade who stopped a process that should have been routine.
The result is that those who want to raise chickens in their yards will have to wait. Unless the Township Board calls for a vote on the issue Sept. 29.
I’ll bet my next paycheck that Tuinstra’s nit-picking objections will be overturned. I was told every time last month he made a motion, he didn’t even get a second.
So the board’s job now is to let the wheels of progress resume and adopt the ordinance changes recommended by the Planning Commission after many months of careful deliberation.
Justice delayed is justice denied. And please, don’t let one renegade who fancies himself as a maverick to call the shots on board decisions. Tuinstra is just one vote on the board, just like the other six.
Township Board members, do your duty.
