March 19, 2022
Letters, Michigan

Taxation without representation

PUBLIC FORUM: Taxation without representation | Daily News | March 19, 2022 | www.thedailynews.cc

That term summarizes what is occurring in Montcalm County regarding township boards, citizens and the wind issue that came slithering in with wind representatives dangling green-backed sugar plums in our neighbors’ heads while most of the county was unaware.

I am a 30-year resident of Douglass Township. We receive two tax notices per year. Not one time since Apex Clean Energy started courting our officials did we ever receive notice what was about to transpire. We were never surveyed to see how we feel about living among industrial-sized turbines.

If it were not for the concerned citizens in our township making us aware, a wind ordinance for the developers would have quietly been passed by the elected officials who claim they are working for all the residents.

The five elected officials of our township have openly and blatantly disrespected the people they represent. They have arrogantly created an “us and them” situation by referring to the citizens opposing wind turbines as “those people.” I don’t know who exactly they are representing when month after month the room is filled with citizens speaking about safety, health and property value concerns.

Just look at the posturing at the last township board meeting where Trustee Tom Jeppesen sat laughing at residents when they applauded for a planner who addressed the board that unfairly ousted her. He laughed at the people who have put their life’s work into their homes and just want to protect the value, their safety, health and the beautiful views we enjoy as rural dwellers.

This township originally budgeted $22,000 for a lawyer and planner. The budget was amended in December to $53,000 and now has spent $77,000.

Our taxpayer money is being used to fight the citizens they represent who pay the taxes and who also must fundraise, to have money, to pay a lawyer, to fight for our rights, against the people who are representing us.

And then they wonder why they face recall of their positions and/or referendum of the wind-friendly ordinance they are gearing up to pass. Let me give you the short answer in the words of George Washington:

“The power under the Constitution will always be in the people. It is entrusted for certain defined purposes, and for a limited period, to representatives of their own choosing; and whenever it is executed contrary to their interest, or not agreeable to their wishes, their servants can, and undoubtedly will, be recalled.”