KEWEENAW COUNTY — AJ Kern, a resident of Bete Gris, is challenging incumbent Don Piche, who currently represents District 1 on the Keweenaw County Board of Commissioners.

Kern and her husband lived in Houghton when he accepted a position with Michigan Technological University, in the late 1980s. They purchased property in Bete Gris in 2019.

Kern has a seat on the county Planning Commission and is a liaison with the Zoning Board of Appeals. She is a graduate of Montana State University with a degree in political science, and also has a Master’s Degree in land use planning from the University of Wyoming. Since earning her degree, she has worked as county planner and zoning specialist for American Tower Corporation.

Kern is also a U.S. Army Reserve veteran. She attended Fort Huachuca, in Arizona, where she was trained as an intelligence analyst. She has also been a columnist, writing for the St. Cloud Times Writers Group.

With her education and having previously been a county planner, as well as a zoning specialist, Kern says she has a lot to offer Keweenaw County, particularly in regards to the zoning issues currently challenging the county.

“As a zoning specialist, you’re very familiar with zoning ordinances,” said Kern. “Zoning ordinances are basically law – they’re law. I think that’s pretty critical as a County Board member.”

Kern said that Keweenaw County is now on the national radar as a tourist destination, and it is ripe for development and yet, it is vulnerable to exploitation.

A significant challenge she sees is that the county is not adhering to the zoning ordinance, and the zoning commission not adhering to proper and lawful procedure, something she said she sees first hand as a Zoning Commission member. As a candidate, she says there needs to be transparency on all county levels.

As an example, she cites a period two years ago when she first joined the Commission. At the time, commission was working on zoning changes regarding short term rentals. To better enable her to understand the issues and past discussions of the commission, she said she asked for the minutes of previous meetings. For at least four previous meetings, she said, meeting minutes had not been recorded.

At a PC public hearing in June, Kern said that no one from the public commented in favor of the proposed changes.

The Planning Commission, she said, completely disregarded the public input, omitting them from the summary of the minutes.

“A lot of people came (the June zoning amendment meeting), because I told people about what was going on. There was public comment against those changes – they were all against, nobody was for it. And they ignored those people there, too.”

She added that she told the commission that since she had been a member, it had completed two sections on RVs and yurts.

“We did those appropriately, we have meeting minutes,” she said, “and that’s all we should recommend to the County Board.”

Kern said that by not creating meeting minutes, the commission violated the Open Meetings Act, which also violated the Zoning Enabling Act, along with the Zoning Ordinance and the by-laws. She made the argument, she said, and the other members agreed.

“We made a motion, we adopted it, at the next meeting, and it was final. After adopting the minutes, and making it final, (the commission chair) turned around and said, ‘I want to just move all those other amendments forward.”

Of those, she said, only two were conducted properly, the rest were in violation, lacking in public meeting minutes, nor had they included a summary of public comments made during those meetings, which are also violations of acts and laws.

“I’m very big on transparency and accountability,” she said. “I’m seeing this constant violation of state statutes, zoning ordinances, and our bylaws — constantly,” Kern said, constantly. “I am constantly at the table arguing with the men. Then, the County Board gives it the rubber stamp (of approval).

“Wording one zoning change, re-defining a family, to not exceed six people. If a family exceeds two parents and four children, that becomes a problem. When asked why the change was proposed, no one could answer, because there were no meeting minutes to review previous discussions.”

Kern said she is astounded that she has to repeatedly refer to the Zoning Ordinance or the state statutes to point out procedural violations.

“Some of them have been on the commission for years,” she said, “and it’s like they just want to do what they want to do. That good ol’ boy mindset is going to cause us more trouble, just like with the Fitz.”

She said Fitzgerald’s did everything they were supposed to do. They followed procedure, presented their plans to the Zoning Administrator and requested information on what they needed to do to move forward with their project.

As a member of the ZBA, Kern discovered that the administrator had not determined the property corners, nor where the property line was. Kern said an available GPS map readily showed that the enclosed smoker project was on the property line adjoining the county road. Now, she said, the county is set up for a lawsuit.

“Every time I tried to say I’ve been a planner, I’m trying to tell you you can’t measure from the middle of a road, you have to do this, you have to do that, and I always get arguments against, and I was going to be on the wrong end of the stick.”

Kern said in the beginning, she believed the other members wanted her on the commission because of her previous experience, but as it turns out, that is not how the county operates.

“They don’t want to follow the Zoning Ordinance, they want to things the way they’ve always done it,” said kern, “and they’re going to set themselves up for another lawsuit sometime down the road, and it might be something as simple as changing the definition of family.”

Kern said that in her view, that mindset is a major problem in the county.

“My point is, I speak up,” said Kern. “I speak up and I’m prepared. Don Piche isn’t prepared. He doesn’t know the Zoning Ordinance, he doesn’t know what state statutes are.”

On the County Board, she said, she believes there is too much pressure to go along and get along.