Eagle Township residents call for recall and pause on development plans

EAGLE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WILX) - A recall, a planning commission, and a pause. Those are the requests of Eagle Township residents, to prevent a large factory from coming to their community.

Just north of Grand Ledge, the Lansing Economic Area Partnership has been working to attract a large factory to roughly 1,200 acres of farmland in Eagle Township. A majority of residents are against the development and are doing everything in their power to stop it.

“We want a chance for our representation to actually represent us,” said Troy Stroud, Eagle Resident.

Eagle Township residents said they have concerns about a much-rumored factory that is being proposed for their largely rural community. They said it’s moved too far, too fast, and without a lot of details. That’s why township officials are now asking Clinton County to halt development-related efforts until December.

“Right now we utilize the Clinton County planning commission to take care of all of our work and that’s what we’re going to draw back,” said Dennis Strahle, Eagle Township Trustee.

Strahle supports pausing the development while the township looks into creating its own planning commission.

“So we are hoping that they will honor this resolution, but we know that the county has put efforts and money towards developing,” he said.

Residents hope that an Eagle Township planning commission would maintain agricultural preservation and prevent major developments that could lead to the loss of family farms that have been passed down for generations.

“People are scared they’re going to lose their family farms, that they’ve lived on for four or five generations,” said Stroud.

Stroud lives in Eagle Township and worked with two other residents to file a recall for township supervisor Patti Schafer. He said a non-disclosure agreement Schafer signed, left them feeling unrepresented.

“This was really done without our knowledge,” Stroud said. “We feel like we’ve been stripped of our representation of our elected official because they are representing the firms that are doing this now because they can’t tell us what’s happening.”

The first hearing for the recall of Patti Schafer will be Thursday morning, at the Clinton County Court House.

Schafer declined to comment on the recall petition against her.

Eagle township residents say they will attend the Clinton County Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday morning, to give their opinion on the recall and the recently passed resolution.

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