While the Northport Sportsman’s Club agreement between Leelanau Township is still being revised, further discussion on the topic and what it will look like was addressed once again on Tuesday evening.
Marc McKellar of Kuhn Rogers in Traverse City spoke on behalf of the club at the township’s regular meeting to clarify the situation and to address any other concerns from the community and board. Township Supervisor Mike McMillan said he wanted to give the board a chance to review it once more before new members start next month.
“The sportsman’s club — that has gotten off the rails in the worst way, so I wanted to make sure we just didn’t burden the next administration with this problem, so we wanted to address it head on,” McMillan said. “So we’ll continue to move forward with the Sportsman’s Club…” The township and club originally entered into discussions to formalize a use agreement after either party could not find a signed copy of the 99-yearlong agreement. In that process, the township has requested for an indemnity clause to be included as well as for a shorter use agreement time period with renewable years.
The last version of the agreement to come back to the township listed language from a previous agreement that was a concern to some. Those concerns were primarily regarding improvements stated in the agreement such as constructing a 20 feet by 24 feet building on the township-owned property and a rustic camp facility. The concern of the length of the agreement and soil testing were other issues that have since been addressed.
The club’s current president, Tom Gremel, previously said that he and the club’s legal counsel were unaware that the language citing these improvements/ additions were inserted into the agreement and that none of them requested it. McKellar confirmed that the inclusion of the improvements was just copy and pasted from the 1993 original agreement, and was missed by both parties’ legal counsels before it was submitted to the township. It has since been removed from the draft, and there are no further improvements that are anticipated as part of the agreement.
“The language will just simply read to the extent that if there’s ever an improvement requested by the club, it has to come through whatever proper ordinance processes available,” McKellar said.
The renewal period for the agreement was also a point of discussion, with McKellar noting that the club is now considering a 10-year period with 10-year renewals that would have to go in front of the board.
“The key is just unpredictability for the organization and the township, and kind of a symbiotic relationship to allow us to continue to use the township to have something documented,” McKellar said. “We’re not particularly sure what happened in the past, but we need to just do the right thing going forward. So that’s the goal and the intention, and that is exclusively the position the club has.”
In regards to the soil testing, McKellar said it was meant to be “a baseline of a document to be reviewed internally by the organization, not publicly meant for testing…” Given the level of activity at the range by club users and the kinds of ammunition used today, McKellar said that lead is likely not an issue and would not have to be cleaned up.
Trustee Gina Harder posed the question during the meeting to clarify if soil testing would in fact be done in the future, to which McKellar responded and said “none.” He said it would be advisable for the township to speak to their attorney about the implications of their land ultimately having contamination on it and what that looks like.
“The problem is the testing invites problems… If the township wishes to go do testing, then the township can do any testing they’d like,” McKellar said. “... The implications though become your burden, and that’s what we’re getting at. It can’t become the organization’s (club) burden. If they do, the reality is there’s no organization left. There will be no more sportsman’s club.”
McKellar said that EGLE (the Michigan department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy) does not regulate contaminations on gun ranges, so the issue with testing would set “thresholds and benchmarks that you (the township) may then become a target for enforcement.”
“That is the flat reality of the matter... If it’s a problem, it’s your problem, so by doing that you’re just inviting potential enforcement,” McKellar said. “... It’s not to avoid doing testing, it’s to avoid, frankly, to be honest, triggering an obligation by the township for undertaking more efforts.”
Trustee Georgie Murray also commented about the testing issue, voicing her concern about McKellar’s explanation as to why testing has yet to be completed.
“It’s an interesting approach that we would say ‘we don’t want to look because we might find something,’ that seems just backwards to me,” Murray said at the meeting.
McKellar said proceeding forward, he did not think it was advisable to require the club to do testing, adding that he will continue to work with the township’s attorney to work through this issue and come to a conclusion that makes a singular recommendation that everyone agrees on. One of the recommendations McKellar suggested to have included in the revised agreement is to define what “best practices” the club will have to follow, which should help address concerns over regulation of the property.
“What I would strongly suggest is rather than testing necessarily would be a robust best practices guideline that is contractually bound against the sportsman’s club where they have to follow these best practices and prove upon request if they are doing that throughout the progress of their relationship,” he said. “If they’re in breach of that then that would be an ability for the township, part of that agreement, to terminate the relationship at that time or not to renew it if it’s renewal time.”
