Editorial: Sumpter Planners put brakes on plan to enlarge FMAR

Friends of Michigan Animals Rescue have a lot of supporters throughout this region and so we’re sure the non-profit, no-kill animal shelter will be able to get past the blockade put up by the Sumpter Township Planning Commission.
Last Thursday, under the leadership of its young planning consultant, the commission set a list of requirements that needed to be satisfied before they could get any permits.
Pete LaFramboise, vice president of FMAR, told them of the grant that FMAR could lose if construction on the new dog kennels didn’t begin soon. He told them how the township’s building department had accepted hand-drawn plans in the past and supported this project. But the commission stood firm on the list. After LaFramboise left in frustration and anger, they voted to table the site plan.
LaFramboise had come to the meeting alone – one against a wall of NO. Usually, his wife Marcie, the founder of FMAR, would have been at his side, but she was grieving her mother, who had died a few days earlier.
It’s fine to have rules, but it would have been so nice if the planning consultant or planning commission members had said to this highly productive resident of their township: “Tell us what you want to do and we’ll help you figure out how to do it. After all, we all want a safe and beautiful township. And, we don’t want you to lose your grant.”