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9/11/99 -- 1:58 AM

Zoning dispute divides families, friends on remote island

BOIS BLANC ISLAND, Mich. (AP) - Michael and Christine Stitt arrived on this remote Lake Huron island three years ago with an ox, goats, pigs and a few emus. They planned to earn a living as farmers and raise their children away from what they considered the moral rot of modern society.

But now their land is for sale and their dream is in tatters.

The township board says they violated zoning codes by keeping livestock in a residential area and refusing to obtain construction permits for their outbuildings.

The Stitts say they are being persecuted for their fundamentalist religious beliefs and for speaking out against what they consider immoral behavior.

``My children are being robbed of a good, old-fashioned home life,'' Mrs. Stitt said. ``I'm not being allowed to live as a free citizen. I feel like I'm in Kosovo or something.''

The fight has become deeply personal, dividing neighbors and even families on Bois Blanc, where about 3,000 people spend summers but only about 50 - mostly retirees - live year round.

``It's torn the whole island apart,'' said Penny Rickwalt, who has been here eight years.

Even the Stitts' announcement in court Friday that they planned to move away didn't quell the bitterness. After the hearing, a woman and her uncle on opposing sides in the feud yelled at each other as friends tried to calm them.

Township officials insist there's no vendetta against the Stitts - they're simply being asked to follow the same rules as everyone else.

``Their attitude is, `We aren't going to do what you tell us we have to do, and you can't make us,''' said Cheryl Stevenson, township treasurer.

While agreeing on little else, both sides say the Stitts were welcomed when they arrived in 1996 on the ferry from Cheboygan, five miles south on the tip of Michigan's Lower Peninsula.

The Stitts say they are members of a strain of Wesleyanism that forbids television and jewelry.

``We wanted to get away from the crime, the bad things that were happening downstate,'' Stitt said.

They believed God had called them to the island not just as residents, but as missionaries.

For a while, residents bought vegetables from their farm and took hay rides in their ox cart. They offered congratulations when the Stitts' sixth child was born.

But things soured quickly. Township officials say the Stitts began raising livestock in the section of their property that was zoned residential - defying the board to stop them - and erecting a barn and other outbuildings without permits.

Stitt says township authorities endorsed their plans before they moved to the island. He contends the Michigan Right to Farm Act empowered him to build structures needed to run his operation.

As tensions rose, a neighbor complained that the Stitts' ox kept trampling his property. The Stitts, in turn, reported the neighbor for growing marijuana.

They accused the sheriff's department of ignoring drunken driving, marijuana cultivation and other misdeeds.

In June, the township obtained a court order directing the Stitts to dismantle all buildings for which they had no permit and to get rid of their livestock.

The Stitts say their attorney signed the order on their behalf although they hadn't agreed to all the provisions. Township attorney Lyle Peck went back to Mackinac County Circuit Court on Friday, asking Judge Nicholas Lambros to declare the Stitts in contempt.

Lambros denied Peck's motion, noting that the order had given the Stitts until Oct. 7 to comply.

The Stitts claimed Lambros' ruling had vindicated them but said they were finished with Bois Blanc.

``It's time to move on,'' Stitt said, ``if we can just find another place to go.''

-- Deborah (infowars@yahoo.com), September 11, 1999

Answers

Good, glad they are gone. Now maybe we can get back to talking about Y2k and not some bunch of nuts.

-- no freaks (nofreaks@thisplace.com), September 11, 1999.

no freaks,

Why not use your regular handle? Only hypocrites & cowards hide when they are being petty & harsh.

Rent some charachter.

-- Deborah (infowars@yahoo.com), September 11, 1999.

Deborah you are wasting your breath trying to explain what a travesty of justice and freedom has taken place here to someone who uses the handle "no freaks". I can just see in my minds eye the words Obey and screw me please tatooed on his-her forehead. It is truly a sad commentary on the current American educational system and media (I guess that's really redundant) that an otherwise healthy and intelligent person has so little reguard for personal freedom and basic human rights that he not only willingly abdicates his own but actively works to justify the theft of freedom of others.

I'm not going to get into a rant on how the Government, from top to bottom, along with the judicial system are presently, and have been for a LOOOOONG time operating completely outside the scope and limitations placed upon it by our constitution. That is self evident to anyone with enough brain power to push the on button on their pc and be able to read these words. That is a given, not even debateable. But the really sickening aspect of this whole situation is the idiots who blindly parrot whatever pablum Peter Jennings and co. pour into the old enema bag, while thrusting their eager asses into the sky like a demented sphynx.

So for all you gov.org cigarette nazis, madds, hci's, socialist, trial lawyers, and other Hitler wannabes, here are some words of wisdom. If the gov. ever figures out how to make you shit money you can rest assured they'll chain you to a wall and give you used toilet paper to eat and ink to drink. After they cut out your vocal chords so your screams don't disturb their sleep.

-- Nikoli Krushev (doomsday@y2000.com), September 11, 1999.