By Sue Moore
Zoning Practices Examined
Brady Township’s planning commission has been wrestling with a solution for keeping large animal farming away from residential areas, so that new livestock facilities cannot be built near what is zoned as Rural Residential. It’s an arcane business that takes hours of deliberation and thought. It’s all because the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) produced what is called the Right to Farm act and within that act is what is called GAAMPS or General Accepted Agriculture Management Practices.
The planning commission has tried in a way to be all things to all people while wrestling with the best way to proceed to their goal of returning to the way zoning was practiced before 1997 in the township. Lots of open meetings, with the most recent one on October 22, have been going on until the wee hours, resulting in a recommendation to change things up by choosing what they called option 2, to the township board. That option involved a lot of changes that were hard to understand and could be subject to future law suits according to Brady Township Supervisor Randy Smith.
A special meeting of the Brady Township Board, was called for Friday, October 30, to settle the matter by instructing the planning commission to go with option 1. They were instructed to forget about trying to be all things to all people by constructing a “home grown” solution as Mike Henderson, chair of the commission, liked to call it.
There has already been a public hearing on option 1, thus, it will cost a lot less to adopt, according to Smith. Essentially this option is pretty much what Schoolcraft Township has adopted with a lot less controversy. The next regular meeting of the township board is scheduled for Tuesday, December 1.
Closed Sessions
The Vicksburg Village Council has been going into closed session at its last three meetings for possible real-estate transactions. The buzz about what the village is considering swirls around outside the meeting room at the library, as reporters and citizens do some “group think” on what they might be considering. Should be interesting, so stay tuned.
Grossman Law, PC
Brett Grossman recently announced that Andrew Horne, who has been working as a law clerk in the office, passed his state of Michigan bar examination. He will now be full time at the firm. He was most recently charged with poring over the proposed zoning ordinance changes for the village of Vicksburg, another arcane part of practicing law, but Horne is really good at it, according to Grossman. We welcome Andrew and his wife Tiffany and their two daughters to the community.
VHS Chamber Singers
Dusty Morris has built a terrific choir organization at Vicksburg High School and Middle School. They entertain in many public venues to the delight of parents and the community. They have even traveled to Carnegie Hall in New York City to perform. On November 14, they won’t need to go quite that far, when they join with the Battle Creek Symphony in a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, as part of the chorus in the most famous of all the “master’s” compositions. Morris will take the Chamber Singers from his program for the 7:30 concert at W.K. Kellogg Auditorium. They will join with high school choirs from Battle Creek Lakeview, Pennfield, and Albion, the Kellogg Community College Choral Union, and the Battle Creek Community Chorus.