THE PROPOSED VILLAGE MASTER PLAN: A Means To Ruin!
1. An Unacceptable Proposal:
The Village Council has taken the first step toward implementing a master plan for the Village. Governmental master plans are not inherently bad. Just like anything else, they can be twisted by unscrupulous officials to serve their own ends rather than that of the community. In other words, they become a means to an evil end.
2. Types Of Plans:
There are various types of “master plans”. There are business plans, planned community developments, and governmental master plans. The most obvious difference is that the business plans and planned community developments use the money of the principles to offer a product that will attract customers. Governmental master plans impose a product on their customers using money taken from the customers through taxes, fines, fees, and surcharges.
Business plans serve to focus on the direction that a business intends to go as expressed by those involved. The business plan sets out goals, methods, and time frames.
A planned development uses a plan to set out a vision for a site, neighborhood, or district including land use, infrastructure, zoning, building projects, and design guidelines. The expectations with which people buy into these developments are met over the long term because of these master development plans.
Then there is the governmental master plan. According to the Michigan Chapter of the American Planning Association (the “MCAPA”):
“A Master Plan is a document and policy guide designed to help communities create a vision of what they want to look like in the future. Master Plans help guide communities in their decisions on land use development and preservation.”
To develop a plan the MCAPA says that:
“In order to write a master plan, a community must first create a Planning Commission who will be the writers and primary caretakers of the Plan. The planning process begins with a study of existing conditions, including demographics, housing, transportation, economic trends, or other analyses. The public is then engaged to give input how they want the community to grow over the next 20 or more years. The Planning Commission then creates and maintains the Future Land Use Map from this Planning process, which will guide the Commission in its decisions on zoning and development going forward.”
3. How’d We Get Here:
At the end of 2025, the Council formed a planning commission tasked with creating a master plan for the Village. Over the ensuing months, the Village Calendar online made no mention of meetings of the planning commission other than an organizational meeting in October 2025 and public participation rules being adopted in December 2025. There were no public hearings scheduled by the Council or the Planning Commission. Council members, except for Lewis and Denise Pyle, appear to have had no say in the development of the proposed master plan.
4. Words:
The master plan proffered to the Council has language that is unsettling. Given the lack of trust that Lewis and Pyle have earned in office and Lewis’ ideological connections with members of the planning commission, these concerns cannot be dismissed.
The following are words, found in this master plan, that deserve scrutiny for they are part of the vocabulary of individuals, politicians, and movements trying to upend free societies:
- “accessible housing” page 4
- “equitable access to housing” page 10
- “supporting diverse housing options” page 10
- “promoting inclusive and accessible community planning practices” page 10
- “supporting housing diversity” and “sustainable development” page 13
These words are important. There is currently a push by a segment of society to replace capitalism in America with socialism or communism. One of their tools is to change zoning laws to upend the character of neighborhoods even allowing homeless encampments in residential neighborhoods. The people advocating these are often failures individually, they have anger issues, and have personality disorders or mental illness. To them, the collective, socialism and communism, embodies their ideas of a solution.
Does this necessarily apply to any of the people involved in developing this proposed master plan? No. But the language cannot be ignored.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines socialism as:
“The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism in which the means of production are collectively owned but a completely classless society has not yet been achieved.”
and:
“A theory or system of social reform which contemplates a complete reconstruction of society, with a more just and equitable distribution of property and labor. In popular usage, the term is often employed to indicate any lawless, revolutionary social scheme.”
Of course we don’t have to guess who decides what is equitable!
5. Solar Farms, Wind Turbines, Battery Storage, and Data Centers:
About half of the Village is in agriculture. The land on the northwest and northeast sides of the Village is enrolled in the Michigan Farmland and Open Space Preservation Act, Michigan Public Act 116. This Act is aimed at preserving farmland and open space by providing tax incentives to landowners who agree to keep their land in agricultural use for a minimum of ten years.
Michigan farmland enrolled in the Farmland and Open Space Preservation Act can now be developed into solar farms due to recent changes allowing for commercial solar panel installations on this land. To most of our community and township residents who expressed their opposition to this kind of “sustainable development” four years ago, this should be a grave concern.
You may recall the “informational meeting” held at C-S Highschool in 2022. The one where a Consumer’s Energy representative was trying to sell the idea of a solar farm in the Township and Village. The one preceded by this Facebook post:
Hank Sowles · O͏c͏t͏o͏b͏e͏r͏ ͏1͏9͏,͏ ͏2͏0͏2͏2͏ ·
Anthony Bates (Chair of the Climax Township Board of Appeals) and (Owner of New Earth Solar) and (running for county commissioner) will be presenting a proposition for a Solar Farm in Climax Township, on a parcel of farm land that is also in the village. At the meeting scheduled for Nov. 1, 2022,
at the township hall,
his company along with Consumers Energy will be proposing the installation of a massive solar farm. Interested parties should plan to attend. His wife, Cheryl, Is a township board trustee and the liaison for the planning commission. Conflict of interest maybe?— with Bruce Rolfe. “
Lewis and Pyle cannot be trusted to be faithful to honor the wishes and interests of the community. There must be an ironclad statement in the master plan reflecting the community’s desire to exclude solar farms. That likely extends to wind turbines, battery storage facilities, and data centers.
We all remember that Lewis has some relationship and affinity for the interests of Anthony Murat Bates which Lewis considers superior to his obligations to the Village. He demonstrated this by abandoning $15,000 of ordinance enforcement contempt fines that Bates owed to the Village. Does it also indicate that he aligns with the idea that solar farms in the Village are a good idea? If you look back at the words used in the proposed master plan the answer is obvious.
The agricultural land on the southwest side of the Village does not appear to be enrolled in any program that would save it from development into a solar farm, a wind turbine installation, battery storage facility, or data center. So, the same concerns are even more obvious.
6. Zoning:
Lewis and his Planning Commission have already told you that your zoning is in jeopardy. That is, in jeopardy of being conformed to their idea of equitable, diverse, and inclusive land use. Not land use based upon the interests of property owners who have, in some cases, lived here for generations.
On page 25 of their proposed master plan, they state:
“… the Planning Commission intends to initiate a comprehensive review and resulting update of the existing Zoning Ordinance contemporaneous with the final approval of this Master Plan by the Planning Commission and the Village Council …”
On that same page they propose to do this by:
- “Consolidating/eliminating unnecessary zoning districts
- Updating the use and development regulations applicable to each zoning district
- Updating the standards required of special exception uses (and updating that terminology to “special land uses”)
- Including provisions to assure the efficient consideration of various zoning approvals administered by the Planning Commission, Zoning Boad of Appeals, or Zoning Administrator, in accordance with standards specified in the Zoning ordinance and applicable legal requirements
- Improving the organization of the Zoning Ordinance content to facilitate more efficient use by the general public and Village decision-makers
- Align the content of the Zoning Ordinance with the provisions of the Planning Commission Ordinance (Chapter 35 of Code of Ordinances) pertaining to the specified powers and duties of the Planning Commission
- Updating the Zoning Ordinance as necessary to be aligned with current statutory law and any relevant court decisions”
It is way past time for responsible members of the Council get a spine and put a stop to this nonsense by the Lewis majority on the Council.
History and the rush by Lewis and Pyle to have this master plan adopted by the Council before new Council members are seated in December reveals that they are up to no good. The lack of public hearings to get the public’s input into a master plan, Lewis’ penchant for doing the public’s business behind the backs of some Council members and the public, and his egregious breaches of the public trust over the last twenty-three months of his tenure in office dictates that responsible Council members will take a step back and refuse to adopt this master plan as tendered.
END
