News
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Petition was submitted
on 07 Oct 2024Good afternoon, folks,
I am writing to both update and to ask for help.
The State of Michigan is in process validating our petition. Some of you may have been contacted already if they are unable to confirm your vineyard through their records. We are almost ready go to the next phase, but we have some additional housekeeping. Unfortunately, we cannot use ANY Anonymous signatures. Losing these signatures of support could be detrimental. There are approximately 20 outstanding. Losing these could put us below the required threshold of 25% of wine grape growers in Michigan. If you are one of the anonymous supporters, you can still support anonymously by emailing Jamie Guardiola at the Office of Legal Affairs at MDARD . She will accept this as confirmation if you can prove your link to grape growing.
If you wanted help us to continue to gather more support, please contact me and I can email you a copy of the petition to gather handwritten signatures.
Thank you!
Brian Lillie -
Petition was submitted
on 18 Sep 2024Good morning, everyone,
I have an action item for some of us that is necessary for the purpose of this petition. I have submitted our petition to MDARD. Unfortunately, due to the permissions of this site, some have signed the petition anonymously and these signatures are not viewable by anyone outside of Open Petition. These unviewable signatures will not be accepted until MDARD can vet that these are real humans and true to the purpose. There seems to be approximately 20 signatures on here that are needing to be vetted. If you are one of these people, I simply ask that you email- or even cut and paste this statement below to Jamie Guardiola at MDARD stating that
"To Whom It May Concern,
I wish to remain anonymous, but I am one of the 20 anonymous petitioners in favor of exploring this public act for the wine grape industry in Michigan. Thank you for accepting this as proof of interest.
Sincerely,
(Name Here)"
Please do so by this Friday 9/20/24.
Thank you very much for doing so.
Brian Lillie -
Ready for submitting - New information
on 14 Aug 20248.14.24
Good afternoon,
I wanted to update everyone on this petition with the latest findings that I have learned through conversations with the good people at MDARD.
I learned that the barrier for signatures is much less than what I initially thought. I was under the impression that we needed 51% of wine grape growers to sign. That is actually too many. This 51% actually is what is needed for the referendum to pass when that time comes. We actually need 25% of commercial wine grape growers to sign to move the petition forward to the state, which will trigger the referendum. As of a study from 2020 that explored farmers, acreage and varieties being grown in Michigan, the number that was determined for Michigan farmers was 257.
www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/Michigan/Publications/Michigan_Rotational_Surveys/mi_fruit20/Grapes%20hops.pdf
Using this number and the 25% formula, we need 64.25 signatures to move forward. We have 68 today. The petition moves forward to be vetted and, if so, confirmed by the state of Michigan.
In the spirit of transparency, I have added my email correspondence with MDARD to the "reason" section of this petition.
It will be if the utmost importance for all commercial wine grape growers in Michigan to continue their engagement and let their voice be heard. The signatures are highly valued and welcome, but for those in favor, the real work begins upon state approval. Whether you are in favor of or oppose a check off program, our wine grape growers need to have an in-depth and pragmatic conversation about it. The Michigan Wine Collaborative is willing to provide the zoom space to have these conversations. I propose 9/4 at 10am to be the date and time for wine grape growers to join us for this conversation.
Please feel free to reach out to me with questions or concerns. I will do my best to answer or find the answer to each topic.
Thank you for your interest in moving the Michigan Grape and Wine Industry forward.
Sincerely,
Brian Lillie
President, Michigan Wine Collaborative
