I was at the Hayes Township Zoning Board of Appeals Special Meeting on 9 Nov 2010.
When I arrived, Lyle was sitting in the middle of the head table as is his usual custom when he is prepared to hold court. Of course the neighbors complained to Township Attorney Dreyer about this. I had been to the Township offices last week to get an assurance from John Scherrer, the Township Supervisor that Lyle would not be chairing the upcoming Zoning Board of Appeals Special Meeting. John assured me that Lyle would not even be at the meeting because he was out of town. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that John was mistaken (I give John the benefit of the doubt), and Lyle sitting up front and in the middle like he owned the place.
I was not the only one who noticed, and at least one person complained to Attorney Dreyer about it. Mr. Dreyer spoke to Lyle. Lyle called the meeting to order, led the Pledge of Allegiance and then stepped down as Chairman of the Zoning Board of Appeals as required under the newly adopted amendment to sections 1501-1503 of the Hayes Township Zoning Ordinance. Lyle explained that he would be neither voting nor deliberating and that his role was as a source of information for members of the ZBA if asked.
Richard Vedder was nominated and elected to be the Chair, which is the first time in at least 22 years that the Zoning Board of Appeals has elected its own Chair. Lyle inherited the position of ZBA Chair when he was elected to be Chair of the Planning Commission 15 years ago. Why the Planning Commission was allowed to decide the Chair of another board gave me pause, but hey - chalk it up to just another of the shady ways Hayes Township conducts business.
So now Lyle was supposed to sit down and shut up for a change, just like the rest of us out there watching the proceedings.
Mr. Vedder turned the meeting over to Mr. Dreyer who explained that only the lawyers would talk on behalf of their clients who had filed appeals to the ZBA, and the Mostetler Road/Deer Lake neighbors' lawyers would speak first followed by Doug Longenecker's now 2 lawyers.
Then the deliberations began, and Joe Hale and Shirley Becker orchestrated Lyle's opportunity to insert himself into the deliberations by asking him open-ended questions, and Lyle proceeded to try to poison the well.
When Joe Hale asked him on what the Planning Commission based their decision, Lyle said that they based their decision on the "fact" that Michigan Moto Mania is a "resort." I have already refuted this allegation which has been trotted out once again, this time by Lyle.
I question the veracity of Lyle's statement.
When the decision was taken by the Planning Commission on 17 May 2010, in those four pages of minutes taken and in the statements given by the Planning Commission to justify their decision, the word "resort" was not mentioned so much as once. They were still referring to Michigan Moto Mania as a "park". The resort concept had not yet crossed their minds in May.
By the time the first use of the word came onto vogue - I am having a difficult time pinning down whether it was the Cleaver or Ms. Hoerauf who first used it - it was late July and Lyle was in Africa, and had been for weeks. In any event, Genine Hopkins and the Cleaver were all over it and Michigan Moto Mania was never again referred to as anything but a "resort". Lyle just jumped on the bandwagon once he got back and was clued in on the new phraseology used for selling it. But the "resort" concept was not the basis they used back in May to justify their decision. It's all (not) there in the minutes of the meeting.
After Lyle did his best to be the ZBA Whip to get the votes, in an astounding turn of events that restored my faith in people, two of the new appointees proved that they were not going to be bullied or browbeaten by Lyle, voted to uphold the Zoning Ordinance and overturned the Special Use.
I will admit that although I did not know any of the new appointees, I honestly thought it was highly likely that they were plants and the ZBA had been stacked to vote in Moto Mania's favor. I was wrong. And I apologize to Tom Vaughn, Nancy Austin and even John Aldrich (even though he voted the way I thought all 3 of them would), for thinking and believing that. And I daresay that I am not the only one on either side of the issue who thought that.
The meeting adjourned very shortly thereafter and the stunned crowd remained subdued as they shuffled out of the Civic Center.
What comes next?
I will lay that out in future posts, and even though this is a turning point, I am not finished with the series I am currently writing. This blog is not going away any time soon. The Hayes Township governing boards still bear watching, especially while the same cast of characters who brought us this fiasco are still occupying seats on boards.
Stay tuned.
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