Timelines of Befuddlement
A few questions have come in this week on the status of the Celery Pond file. As of last Friday when I did the FOIA request with Kalamazoo MDEQ, the file was closed.
It had been re-opened by Barney Pero and a representative from MacGregor King on August 28th, and this plan was approved by the Council on October 2nd. But, much to every one’s surprise, the file was closed four days later, completing one cycle for resubmitting a plan which has to be done in a 6 month period after the plan is withdrawn for the first time.
Most importantly in this turn around, is the fact that many more letters of protest were written and entered into the file. And, several hundred signatures of people wanting to keep the wetland as a wetland, with no marina/channel cut development, were also documented.
When the file is re-opened, this will be for the final time that a re-submission will be allowed. The three developers have up to 6 months to re-activate the proposal, and then 90 days from that date are given for the MDEQ to decide. As it is not likely that a second public hearing will be held during this process, this new information is important to have been placed into the file.
Also represented is the plan of the Celery Pond Avocates to create a non-profit group which will seek to acquire, protect and preserve the wetland. We are currently in that step-by-step process, hoping that the MDEQ’s original plan to deny the first permit application will be the same for any future action of reactivating the project.
The proposed new mitigation site was also visited on October 3rd by the author, with permission of the property owner, who is not Barney Pero. Pero has promised the council that he would buy the property if approvals are given by MDEQ.
According to Pero, there is also a tributary of Black River on the property, but no such tributary is shown either on site survey maps or was seen on the visit. There was a ditch with supposed city drain on the property. Is this considered a tributary? Not in wetland terminology. Mitigation wants access to a river or stream with close proximity to the original wetland. This site, between 64th and 66th Streets between Phoenix and 8th Avenue, is over 5 miles away and surely not in close proximity.
We can only think that when another resubmission of the plan re-opens the file that it will have the same logistics as this Pero plan with 40 less slips and this mitigation site. Keep you eye on City activity of workshops and council meetings to watch for further action.
Kevin Anderson expressed that he was “befuddled” by the re-submission done by Pero, yet Anderson seems to have had no such issue on proceeding along his proposed timeline to take-on the Dunkley Re-development area. In one minute he was saying to close the file to MacGregor, and in another minute, he was taking the recommendation of Fahs-Paull to vote on the re-submission on October 2nd. The Council did approve Pero’s ideas, which of course included the channel cut, as you know.
So while the file was then open, it closed 4 days later with a MacGregor email to close the file. This email has been said to have been written on September 20th but never made it into MDEQ’s email box. Don’t be befuddled. That email to close the file for the three developers, though 2 weeks late to reach Kameron Jordan’s email, was the tool to shut the file on October 6th.
This is all in line with the city’s timeline. They plan to proceed. But then, so do we, and more will be following as the whole scenario proceeds.
The dredging of the details is something to behold, as the city’s credibility is more and more challenged by the public. Timelines that are projected as such, when one minute the channel cut is there, then the next minute, it is not there but it really is understood to be there, is all a bit of a befuddlement or bepuddlement. Stay tuned and bring your galoshes and your spectacles.
