The Dorr Township Board Thursday night selected James Schaendorf as new trustee to succeed the recently resigned Chandler Stanton.
Schaendorf, heavily associated with Dorr’s annual Fourth of July celebration, was chosen over Terri Rios and Gordon Lieffers. However, Lieffers has indicated he has filed to run for the seat in Aug. 4 primary election for a two-year term beginning Nov. 20 and ending in November of 2028.
Schaendorf will serve at least until Nov. 20 of this year and he is eligible to run for filling out the term in 2028.
He succeeds Stanton, who resigned abruptly in February, and who stepped down from his seat on the Zoning Board of Appeals. The ZBA post will be filled by Harry Smit.
Township Supervisor Jeff Miling, Clerk Debbie Sewers, Treasurer Sheila Reitz and Trustees Dan Weber and Pat Champion all voted to seat Schaendorf. Trustee John Tuinstra supported Lieffers.
In a related development, James Riemersma was appointed to a seat on the Planning Commission, which became vacant this week with the resignation of Chairman Dan Beute.
In other business at the the meeting, the Township Board:
- Adopted a proposed ordinance requiring concrete curb and gutter for certain private roads.
- Approved an increase in pay for maintenance employee Jay Ellens, from $21.09 per hour to $23.09 per hour.
- Denied a request for rezoning a parcel from agricultural to mixed use industrial because the property was surrounded by residential parcels and Moline Christian School.
- Adopted an ordinance prohibiting data centers from locating inside the proposed sustainable business park if it is rezoned to a planned unit development (PUD).
- Was told that a survey is being conducted on the Dorr-Moline page on Facebook asking for residents’ opinions about Microsoft’s proposal to locate a data center on two parcels within the township.
- Learned from Treasurer Sheila Reitz that Dorr Township owes the State of Michigan $24,135 because of an overlooked past debt.
- Was unable to avoid yet more commentary about prospects for a data center by tech giant Microsoft.
Michele Holcomb said, “We’re sick and tired to it. We’ve been doing a lot more research than we wanted,” adding she believes Microsoft is out “to micromanage human beings.”
Laura Bird added, “We’re fighting with each other because of this evil thing.”
Another woman suggested adopting another noise ordinance and she insisted that Microsoft is counting on citizens not doing anything about the situation.
