EDITOR:

Say no to the annexation scam.

Tearing a township in half without the approval of both townships is not a move any elected official should have the right to do. An elected official would financially benefit by hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Half of the township forced into Cornell includes four members on the township boards. It would eliminate an elected clerk, a zoning administrator, and two other positions. One of them is me.

I have a “No Industrial Solar” sign on my property as many did, or do, since 2019. I have been vocal with concerns for the township’s welfare and safety from “Not So Green Energy”, which Commissioner Barron is hellbent on regardless of the destruction of the township. He is the annexation filer and orchestrator of this scam.

This annexation will lead to industrial solar. Their own experts say this can affect the aquifer contaminating the wells, rivers, and possibly the Great Lakes one day with solar farms in our area. Some things they don’t want you to know are property value, wildlife, and ground temperature, all goes down, but noise level can go up to 45dB.

Escanaba Township is not against all solar. Residents can have residential solar, and it has an area blocked out for large-scale solar near Brampton.

Many residents may not know or are not aware of some of the downsides of industrial size solar farms in this area. The layers of flat rock shift when drilling hundreds of thousands of holes through the rock to anchor the huge panels down.

The annexation is a hateful, orchestrated scam to get rich. In the past, Commissioner Barron, as a resident of Escanaba Township, has caused his township hardship time after time, and he seems to have gained a hardened heart against it.

John Miron said he collected most of the signatures at the May 8 township meeting. Saying that now the township will know what they feel like. However, their neighbors did not increase their taxes, millage rate, or insurance like the annexation would do to the majority of property owners. The annexation will destroy the township, forcing the remainder into Wells Township or the City of Gladstone.

The majority that has always lived in this area or moved into Escanaba Township did so because of the fields, wildlife, quietness, and country living. The residents that signed a piece of paper without knowing it will destroy their township was ungodly, to say the least, and was deceiving. Telling people their signature would help the farmers do what they want, but nothing about 19,232 acres of their township forced into Cornell.

We don’t mind smelling that sweet smell of honey in the spring, but living in this great part of Delta County never included glass fields, and hope it never will.

Please, pray that the county commissioners drop the annexation for the good of both townships and Delta County.

Barbie Clairmont

Escanaba Township