NO! DATA CENTER - Yard Sign (11 x 8.5 in) (Website).jpg

NEWSLETTERS

Every month, we send out a newsletter that focus on 3 things:

Any Updates
How you can help
Township Meetings

Included is also Dorr Township Board's contact info.

Hello All 👋

This month is packed with information and updates. In this month's newsletter, you will find the following:

My Commissioner Goals Update - Including an overview of the first AD HOC Meeting.
Public Hearing - Private Roads & Moratoria (moratorium) Ordinances
Meeting Agenda(s) & Packets
Survey Results - Presentation Video, Overview, and Detailed Results
Board Member Contact Info

ANNOUNCEMENT

Below is an update on what I have done towards my goals for this position since being appointed:

AI Data Center & Other Technology Ordinances

We had our first AD HOC Committee meeting last night. During the meeting, we assigned positions which includes a liaison for the public to send info to - Ellie Monarch is taking on this role. Ellie is the one who conducted the survey earlier this year. More to come once Ellie has everything set up after the IOWA trip. Sheila (our Board Treasurer), suggested an AD HOC Resident take minutes to help the public feel the committee is being transparent - Louise Honderd is taking on that role. I will provide the voice recorder that will record the meeting to help Louise with note taking. I am the Vice-Chair and Rebecca is the Chair of this committee.

The meeting will be workshop style with public comment at the beginning and the end.

The Township agreed to pay for AD HOC residents to go on the IOWA trip now that it is a formal township committee - Nick Perrin, Chris Potter, and Ellie Monarch will be joining us! Yay!! 🎉

AD HOC Committee homework this month is to go through the various sample ordinances and decide on which one will be our skeleton ordinance that we will modify and add to.

The Master Plan Coming Up For Review in 2027

I won't have any updates until the Planning Commission starts working on this.

Tighten Up Ordinances

Lori Costello, at PCI is going to bring us info regarding more flexibility with AG ordinances so that we don't have to require a rezone in certain circumstances, opening us up for more housing, etc. See last month's newsletter for more details on this.

At next week's Planning Commission meeting, we will hold a public hearing for adding moratoria to our ordinances. Moratoria is plural for moratorium. I cannot take the credit for adding this to the agenda as it was a suggestion Lori Costello made at the last Planning Commission meeting. I motioned to approve it.

We currently have a Police Moratorium for Data Centers. However, that doesn't hold up like an ordinance moratorium does. The ordinance moratorium will give us added protection for both the township and it's residents. The ordinance moratorium will also allow the Planning Commission to vote in a moratorium in the future and it hold the same weight as an ordinance moratorium. This will allow faster protection for the public moving forward if this passes.

County Roads Traffic

No updates yet.

Training

As a Planning Commissioner, I was able to take a FREE MTA training a couple of week's ago called: Data Center Zoning Ordinance. MTA came out with a starting point version for ordinances that townships can use and modify accordingly. In the training it walked through section by section. It was very informative. While it's middle of the road in ordinances, it did have a lot of great language for protecting the township and public. It can easily be modified to increase protections for residents.

I attended the PCI training event that was on August 31st. Courtny Cardosa also attended due to her work as the Civic Second and being on the ballot for Trustee this November. It was incredibly informative and she took down a TON of notes. I have attached her recap to this email. Dr. Sara Mills also presented a similar training that was recorded in Cass County. You can view that here: https://www.youtube.com/live/BKHNHF7Er6w?is=YTzKlgljoYl_aBLS

The MTA training passed and I am enrolled in several webinars. Some of these webinars are also credits for:

Red Book Ready which is a credentialed program that goes through the entire book: Authorities & Responsibilities of Michigan Townships
Township Governance Academy (TGA)

All of these things help give me the knowledge to help the residents of Dorr township. It is rigorous but worth it!

Since gaining access Wednesday, I have already completed 3 different Red Book Ready trainings:

Navigating Data Center Impacts (1 hour)
Anatomy of a Township (1.5 hours)
Intro to Planning & Zoning (3 hours)

My goal is to take 1-2 training sessions per day Monday-Friday. Some webinars are broken out into more than one session. For example, Intro to Planning & Zoning has 3 sessions. Webinars with more than 1 training session may take a couple days for me to get through.

PUBLIC HEARING

During the Planning Commission meeting, there is a Public Hearing regarding the following:

Amend Section 4.16 as it pertains to regulating Private Roads.
Add Section 4.53, Temporary Moratoria, to the Dorr Township Zoning Ordinance to regulate the process for enacting moratoria within the Township. (See Tighten Up Ordinances in my update above.)

Township Agenda Items

The Planning Commission packet is attached. The Township Board Packet currently isn't available but should be found on their website around the Monday prior to the Township Meeting. You can click the link below, scroll down to the bottom of the page and select the agenda for September to view the packet once it's ready. I have asked the Township if they could reorder the packets to start at the newest instead of scrolling all the way to the bottom. Sheila agrees it would be more user friendly and has reached out to the website developers.