Ilsa Minor | Daily Press The Delta County Board of Commissioners listen as Commissioner Bob Barron, right, pushes one more time for the commission to review the application for annexation that would have moved 19,000 acres of Escanaba Township to neighboring Cornell Township. Tuesday’s vote was intended to be a clarification and finalization of the board’s intent not to move forward with a review of the plan, but Barron, who was instrumental in its development, pushed for the board to reverse course.

ESCANABA — Despite an eleventh-hour push by one county commissioner to move forward with the plan, the Delta County Board of Commissioners officially rejected a proposed annexation of more than 19,000 acres of Escanaba Township into neighboring Cornell Township during its meeting Tuesday.

“At our last meeting we received it, but we did not receive it for review. I believe the step that we take now is we accept it for review, and that’s going to take some time,” Commissioner Bob Barron, who was instrumental in the annexation proposal from its inception, told the remainder of the commission during the meeting.

The reason the plan was placed on Tuesday’s agenda was the way the commission had addressed the plan at the June 20 meeting. Instead of voting to reject the application for annexation outright or to accept the document for further review and a later vote on the issue, the commission voted to accept the application but not to review it. The move could have been the end of the issue, as the commission cannot approve something it doesn’t discuss, but some worried the vote was not enough to stop the proposal.

“The reason this was actually put on the agenda was to finalize it, be done with it and be over with it,” said Commissioner John Malnar.

Barron, who was the only one to oppose the vote at the June 20 meeting, made an early motion Tuesday to review the application. While that motion failed for lack of a second, there was some concern over whether or not declining to move forward with the review process would put the county in legal jeopardy.

“I need to understand that we are not representing or putting the entity, Delta County, in harm’s way by taking — is there a process that was circumvented or required by law?” said Commission Chair Dave Moyle.

Commissioner Bob Petersen, who said he had spoken with County Prosecutor Lauren Wickman about the issue, assured Moyle that there was no legal obligation for the board.

“She said that our obligations — there are no obligations to us to review this, and that it’s up to the board to do what they want to do, but as far as … keeping this on for review at a later date, we are under no obligation to do that,” said Petersen.

Much of the discussion Tuesday revolved around personal property rights and the actions of Escanaba Township around solar regulations.

Despite the recent anti-solar sentiment that has colored county and Escanaba Township meetings, the township’s relationship with solar has not always been negative. Escanaba Township’s master plan, last updated in 2019, references solar as a “goal” or “opportunity” six separate times, includes evaluating evolving solar technologies as a strategy, explicitly states solar is a permitted use in the township’s zoning, and suggests the township become a SolSmart community under the U.S. Department of Energy’s “SolSmart” solar program.

In 2017, a group of landowners, including Barron, were approached by Orion Energy, which sought to lease the land of farmers for the creation of a utility-scale solar facility. That facility would have been legal under the township’s stand-along solar ordinance, however, in 2019, Then-Township Attorney Terry Burkhart advised the township that the ordinance should be an amendment to the zoning ordinance and not a standalone document. Rather than retooling the existing ordinance, the township board and planning commission — which underwent significant changes to membership while developing the zoning amendment — went back to the drawing board.

In November of 2022, a 13-page amendment to the zoning ordinance was passed by the township board. The amendment uses an overlay district to restrict utility-scale solar development to less than 400 acres of land bordering Brampton Township, east of the Escanaba River, the vast majority of which is contained in a single parcel. None of the solar farm proposals from Orion included land east of the Escanaba River, and the amendment effectively barred the landowners from using their land to produce solar power.

“Originally I thought it would be OK to follow Commissioner Barron’s lead. Less government, more freedoms, individual property rights. Whether you’re for or against annexation or commercial solar, which is the crux of why this is happening, the key is to look for the right balance,” said Commissioner Steve Viau, who has spoken in favor of solar development but opposed the annexation proposal.

Annexing land from Escanaba Township would have allowed solar development in the originally proposed area, because Cornell Township relies on the county for zoning. Any solar developments within Cornell’s borders would be governed by the county’s solar regulations, which are significantly less restrictive than the rules in Escanaba Township.

“This didn’t happen because somebody just felt the whim to do this, it’s because of the situation in Escanaba Township and the severe restriction of people’s property rights and the township’s not wanting to work with those people. That’s why it’s here,” Barron told the commissioners Tuesday.

The application for annexation, in essence, was a petition that must be signed by 20% of freeholders, those landowners who are also residents, in each of the affected townships. Not long after the names of the signing freeholders were published in the Daily Press, the public began questioning the names. Many of those who signed claimed they were lied to by those collecting signatures and residents began visiting the Escanaba Township Hall to sign documents asking for their names to be removed.

Barron told the commission Tuesday the push for signatures to be removed was the result of intimidation from anti-solar and anti-annexation advocates.

“We’ve got a 130 people that say they want their names removed. They’ve gone door to door intimidating these people,” said Barron.

Despite Barron’s objections and multiple comments from commissioners in support of property rights, the board voted 4-1 to finalize the decision not to alter the boundaries of Escanaba Township, with only Barron dissenting.