Fireworks Container Sign is OK and Meijer Sign is Illegal

In March 2017, Cheboygan County’s Community Development Department Director Steve Schnell issued a press release. No, he was not working toward the creation of new businesses, homes, jobs, or any type of economic growth. He was attempting to limit your rights to free speech on your own property. 

This Sign is OK in Indian River
One Part-Time Out of Town Employee

This Sign is Illegal in Cheboygan
250 Full and Part-Time Local Employees

He stated ”The recent Supreme Court case of Reed v Town of Gilbert clarified the extent to which signs must be content neutral. A content neutral sign regulation is one that does not regulate the content of a sign to determine compliance with the ordinance. In other words, a sign can say basically (sic) anything that the owner would like to express on that sign without any local laws regulating whether it is or is not legal. A regulation can only determine where that sign can be placed, how big the sign is, how many signs can be on each property, and similar non-content regulations.”

Mr Schnell’s treatise seemed ignorant of the fact the 2015 Supreme Court case Reed v Town of Gilbert was a court decision based on the content, or message conveyed, on signs placed on public property. Clyde Reed was the pastor of Good News Community Church; described as a small, cash-strapped entity that held services in elementary schools and other buildings in Gilbert, Arizona. Pastor Clyde’s church would place 15 to 20 temporary signs on street corners on a Saturday advertising the location of the Sunday worship services and remove them on Sunday. The Town of Gilbert, an Arizona boomtown that grew by more than 200,000 people from 1980 to 2010, was legitimately attempting to limit the clutter created by hundreds of temporary signs placed on the streets. The Town of Gilbert discriminated against the Good News Community Church by regulating event-based signs differently than commercial businesses.

Unlike Cheboygan County’s Community Development Department, Gilbert had zoning jurisdiction over their public streets and roads. MDOT and the Cheboygan County Road Commission control our public road right of ways outside of incorporated Villages and the City of Cheboygan. The Supreme Court decision clarified Cheboygan County could not discriminate against signs based on the content or the message printed on the sign.

A prior Supreme Court sign decision, City of Ladue et al v Gilleo, back in 1994 when Mr Schnell was studying for his 2-year Masters degree in community planning, had defended the free speech rights of Margaret Gilleo.  Ms Gilleo had placed on her front lawn a 24- by 36 inch sign printed with the words, "Say No to War in the Persian Gulf, Call Congress Now." This case defended the right to express free speech with a written message on your own property. The City of Ladue, Missouri, like Mr Schnell, wanted to regulate the “clutter” of temporary signs on private property.

Mr Schnell like some HOA zealot wants to regulate your protected free speech on private property. In 2016, he spent your tax dollars to randomly survey properties for the number and size of campaign signs along M-33, M-27, M-68, and Riggsville Rd. He claims the zoning enforcement officer took no note if you were a Trump or Hillary supporter. Over 90% of parcels with political signs had up to five signs. From this unscientific survey, his department proposed allowing up to 32 sq/ft of signage per parcel. One hundred twenty feet or 200 acres, he would allow you 32 sq/ft of free speech. His first proposal allowed you to post a “Vote for Bob” sign for 30 days and he eventually acquiesced to allow a General Election cycle of 60 days if you remove the offensive sign from your front lawn 2 days after the polls close. His proposed “content neutral” sign ordinance ignored the 1984 Attorney General’s Opinion #6258 that stated “Political campaign signs are a form of speech protected by US Const, Am I and Const 1963, Article 1, Sec. 5. The posting of political campaign signs on private property may not be limited by a municipality to a specified number of days preceding an election.”

Mr Schnell had promised, “The County Planning Commission is reviewing the sign regulations and removing content-based regulations to provide signage that promotes everyone’s freedom of speech.” After more than a year of work, the County Planning Commission had a public tasting and found this an unpalatable sign ordinance amendment. Our thanks to them; they have temporarily halted Mr Schnell’s attempt to limit your First Amendment right to free speech. 

County Taxpayers Fund Tear Down of City of Cheboygan

It seems a person only needs to say the word “government” nowadays to incite outrage among many. I wonder why. With the ongoing fight between Inverness Township and the City of Cheboygan thwarting a needed water service to the proposed Meijer site, we should all have proof that our local townships, 19 in number with 95 elected officials, serve their own interests. Do not interpret that as serving their township ratepayers. Interpret it as what it is. Ninety-five elected officials preserving part-time jobs that often pay as much as average full-time Cheboygan jobs. There is often little or no measurable benefit to anyone beyond his or her own board table. As Inverness Supervisor Mike Neuman publicly stated to frustrated residents waiting for Meijer, “we are just part-time elected officials”. Our 19 townships are stuck back in an 1846 Twilight Zone of horse and buggies. Will the State of Michigan eventually grow a pair and stand up to the powerful lobbying group, the Michigan Townships Association, and say we do not need hundreds of these small ineffective government units wasting Michigan tax dollars while providing little or no services.  

County government, just as old, has undergone some change from those earlier days. Cheboygan has at least reduced the number on the board from nineteen supervisors to seven district Commissioners. Cheboygan County has a well-documented failed Development Department and anti-growth Planning Ordinance, but still exists in most part to extend the outreach of state government and serve state interests. Counties are partners with the state in public health, mental health, courts, vital records, land and property records, disaster preparedness, solid waste management, highway and road administration and maintenance (the Road Commission in Cheboygan), property tax administration, law enforcement, elections administration, and incarceration of convicts.

If Inverness Township is a worst-case example of a township unable or unwilling to facilitate or accommodate business growth, Cheboygan County and its administrative staff is working hard to chase new enterprises down the road. The subsidized Cheboygan County Marina competes with private enterprise. That Marina, our only county owned recreational parkland, serves a handful of county residents who own a yacht. It has operated for years on a break-even basis by repeatedly ignoring capital infusion needed for maintenance and repair. 

The County Commissioners, and they admit the yacht harbor business in the Straits area is already over served, now choose to throw more money into this watery grave. They are fast approaching the point of no return by committing to spend over $800,000 in tax dollars on replacing fuel tanks and a new fuel dock. Did they say replace? The proposed replacement fuel tanks are more than 60% larger than the existing tanks. Government never thinks smaller when our tax dollars are a never-ending source of easy money.

With several more longtime City of Cheboygan main street businesses closing, a committed group of “Bring It Cheboygan” volunteers is employing desperate measures including decorating more than 20 empty storefronts attempting to slow the slide. In this do or die scenario, the County plans to spend more tax dollars tearing down the historic Gold Front building.  

The Gold Front Ballroom has a storied past. It was not hard to find a picture of the celebration at the Gold Front in 1944 when the US Coast Guard first stationed the USS Mackinaw at Cheboygan.  The building fell on hard times and went to a County tax sale. Cheboygan County sold it years ago in an ill-conceived land-contract sale. That sale failed this year and with more years of neglect, the County is hurriedly seeking the easy way out. They are seeking a $200,000 grant with a $42,000 match of local tax-dollars to demolish the Gold Front. 

There was apparently no investigation of possible grants to preserve this historical building. Bring It Cheboygan and those involved volunteers are trying to slow the downhill slide of Main Street while Cheboygan County is using our taxes to push the sled down the hill faster.