Woman complains of livestock slaughter next door to Sumpter home

A woman who moved into her Sumpter Township residence at 43350 Willow Rd. last July for a peaceful home for her and her family has found the horror of live animals being slaughtered right next door.
She spoke to the Sumpter Township Board of Trustees at its regular meeting Jan. 10 because she said state officials have told her she has to go higher up the ladder to get action. Her small children were with her at the meeting.
She said she’s been working with the ordinance department and the police, but the slaughters continue.
She said a lamb escaped and would not leave her front door. She said she called ordinance, but that department was closed, so she had to call police. The people next door got hit with a citation for animal at large, she said.
She said she has been furnishing videotapes and descriptions of the slaughter, the body parts, and the blood. She said they pump out the septic tank onto the ground and that substance contains not only blood, but human waste from the workers.
The building next door is the closed Summers Brothers commercial property that is being rented out. The mother said she learned her home was once part of the Summers’ land.
The mother said they have five-gallon buckets they dump the animals’ contents into and blood and whatever else and that was put in the dumpster in July and the smell was atrocious.
“I taped a goat being dragged by a leg across the yard to the slaughterhouse,” the mother said, adding the township tells her they need more information, more tapes, more neighbors to complain.
She said it’s simple to her. They should be red-tagged, she said.
She said she and her husband spoke to the owner and she’s elderly and can’t afford to do the things needed to be compliant as a slaughterhouse.
She said the ordinance department had the time to do what it had to do. She spoke to the Health Department, PETA, the Agriculture Department, and others, and that was in October.
Public Safety Director/Police Chief Eric Luke told the board they’ve been working on it and have been in contact with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE), USDA, and others on how to get it back to court. He said there’s a religious aspect to it. “I won’t go into that,” he said, adding the problem can’t be solved overnight and it’s not a two-or-three-month deal.
“I feel bad for her,” Director Luke said, noting there will be something presented to the prosecutor soon.
Township attorney Rob Young said they’ve had every agency out to look at this and, while some people exaggerate a problem, this is not an exaggeration. He said he dropped a transcript off that day to the ordinance officer.
“We could red-tag the property,” the mother said.
Young said her pictures showed it definitely was a slaughterhouse and, “I understand your frustration.”
Young said constitutional issues were involved. He said he can’t talk of the legal plan publicly now, but they are moving forward. He said he doesn’t work on this case every day and, “She’s the one who had to live with it.”
In other business at the Jan. 10 meeting, the board:
• Approved a six-month medical leave for Fire Fighter Don LaPorte as of Jan. 5, since he is unable to do that activity because of doctor’s orders. When asked if Trustee LaPorte would be able to attend board meetings, Trustee Peggy Morgan was told LaPorte is already up and walking around;
• Approved the annual MedMutual Life/AD&D policy renewal package effective Jan. 1, with changes as discussed;
• Approved the Delta Dental renewal benefits package effective Feb. 1 as proposed by Burnham & Flower;
• Approved the annual Small Group renewal benefits package effective Feb. 1 proposed by Burham & Flower at a total premium cost of $468,611.88;
• Approved Township Manager Anthony Burdick’s attendance of the Michigan Township Association’s conference April 17-20 at Grand Traverse at a cost not to exceed $1,850;
• Approved modification to the MERS 457 plan agreements, allowing the township to choose to participate in contributions to employee accounts, as approved by the township board;
• Set the public hearing for the Parks and Recreation Master Plan for 6 p.m., Jan. 24. Township Manager Burdick said a number of grants require an updated Master Plan by Feb. 1. Action on this master plan at that meeting will make the township eligible for grants this year;
• Approved moving employee status for Ashley Harris of the treasurer’s department from part time to full time as of Jan. 9;
• Heard Trustee Morgan ask about the email she got from the treasurer saying the person who the board approved to buy the township property on Sumpter Road had withdrawn his offer. She was told this was true;
• Heard Burdick propose the board drop workshop meetings and install a consent agenda that would put items that need no discussion to be approved with one motion. He said regular board meeting packets could be posted to the website for the public to review ahead of the meeting and be made available in printed form at the clerk’s office. “When do the residents chime in?” asked Trustee Morgan. “The workshop was designed for the residents. We work for the taxpayers. For us to eliminate them is wrong,” Trustee Morgan said. Mary Ban said people aren’t going to be bothered to pick up a bit of paper. Many have no internet. “People will be living in ignorance,” she said; and
• Heard Burdick reply to a question by Ban on the museum, saying Van Buren Township is scheduling an open public meeting on the museum, but it is not published yet. Ban said the township said the same thing before and then had a meeting with no officials to answer questions and having people write comments on sticky notes. She said the museum has been closed almost three years and now they want a party center back there.