More of the story of how a proposed electrical substation came to Elmwood Township surfaced this week in a letter to neighbors of the project and an email from the township Zoning Administrator to supervisor Derith Smith.

Wolverine Power Cooperative in a letter to neighbors said that planning for the substation began "several years ago" and evolved into 10 possible locations, including a preferred site in Garfield Township.

"The close proximity to many residences would have made it difficult to adequately screen the transmission station with trees," the letter reads. While seeking a permit from the Garfield Zoning Board of Appeals this summer, a purchase agreement with the property owner expired.

The cooperative moved its targets north to three sites between Barney and Lincoln roads, "and Wolverine was only able to successfully negotiate a land purchase agreement at the proposed site in Elmwood Township," the letter states. The site includes 9 acres owned by township trustee Terry Lautner.

The Enterprise located the owner of one of the other sites, Gary King, who said he believed price kept Wolverine from buying 20 acres south of M-72 that would have been ideal for the substation.

"We were going back and forth," said King, whose family homesteaded the farmland. He resides in Eaton Rapids. The acreage would have allowed the substation to be built in a low spot, helping to screen it from neighbors and M-72. "That would lay right in the valley," he said.

The property fronts on M-72 and Barney Road, he said.

Meanwhile, zoning administrator Don Witkowski sent a scathing email to supervisor Smith, who he accused of "trying yet again to make me look like the bad guy, and yourself like the knight in shining armor." Witkowski accused Smith of leading a newspaper reporter to believe the zoning administrator had acted beyond his authority, and that Smith had no prior knowledge that an interpretation of the Zoning Ordinance had been given to Wolverine allowing the substation to be built as an "essential service."

A neighbor of the substation, Mason Argue, said that he had also been informed by Smith that she had no knowledge of the project until being besieged with complaints after utility trucks were moved onto the site.

Witkowski provided an email from township attorney Jim Young and copied to Smith suggesting that Witkowski write to Wolverine that "it is my interpretation of the zoning ordinance that the proposed substation is an Essential Service."

Smith, however, said Tuesday night that she had gone back to check her emails, and did not find that she had received attorney Young's transmission. And after reading the email as resent by Witkowski, she said it lacked crucial information such the site's location and that Lautner owned the property.

If she had that information earlier, Smith said, she would have pressed for more public involvement in the process.