Michigan sports organizations will receive $25 million from taxpayers via the 2025 state budget.

Out of the $83 billion budget, roughly $1 billion will be for pork projects that were not vetted by committee hearings or other processes, but instead are selected by individual lawmakers. The projects could fund friends’ private businesses, failing companies, or a sports complex.

The largest budget in state history will give $10 million to the Frankenmuth Youth Sports Complex, $3 million to the Berston Field House in Flint, $3 million to the West Michigan Sports Complex and $2 million to a boxing group in Detroit.

The budget prioritized sports complexes over essential projects, said Rep. Gina Johnsen, R-Lake Odessa.

“Rather than focusing on statewide necessities like infrastructure, safety, education, and other essential services, Democrats are continuing their politically motivated trend of funding nonessential projects like these in clearly targeted areas of the state,” Johnsen told Michigan Capitol Confidential. “I’m disappointed to see the way tax dollars were prioritized for sports complexes ahead of things that really make a difference in the lives of families burdened by continued inflation.”

Other allocations include $1.5 million for Jimmy John’s Field in Utica, $1.5 million for a winter sports complex in Muskegon, $1 million for the Lansing Lugnuts’ baseball stadium, $1 million for a ski jump in Dickinson County and $1 million for a midnight golf program in Wayne County.

Some earmarks help the community while others subsidize stadiums, said John Mozena, president of the Center for Economic Accountability.

“There are the ones for things like the youth sports programs, like the Detroit Police Athletic League and the Downtown Boxing Gym in Detroit or the Berston Field House in Flint, where the point is to keep kids off the streets and help them learn life skills and connect them to positive role models,” Mozena told CapCon in an email.

These projects aren’t vetted, and they get special treatment, according to Mozena.

“You can certainly argue that it’s not the state government’s job to be funding things like that or that the legislative earmark process is the wrong way to decide which of those programs across the state should get that kind of special treatment, but in the broader scheme of a disastrous state budget they’re fairly benign,” Mozena wrote. “I’d rank them alongside things like funding parks and recreation departments.”

But taxpayers shouldn’t fund projects that benefit for-profit businesses, such as stadiums used by minor league baseball teams, Mozena said.

“The earmarks that really stand out for me are the stadium subsidies for minor league baseball stadiums in Lansing and Utica,” Mozena said. “Those teams are for-profit businesses and they, not Michigan’s taxpayers, should be paying for their stadiums.”

Lawmakers will return from vacation to Lansing this week.

Emails uncovered during a lawsuit may bolster the argument of property owners who are fighting a township’s ban on short-term rentals.

Officials of Ottawa County’s Park Township voted in late 2022 to enforce a long-dormant ban on short-term rentals. Property owners sued the township, saying the 1974 ban had never been enforced, as CapCon has previously reported.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs obtained through the discovery process a July 2018 email that had been sent to Ed DeVries, the township’s zoning administrator. It asked DeVries which areas of the township had a zoning category that allowed for “Vacation Homes/rental on a weekly basis.”

DeVries replied, “We do not currently regulate rentals, either long term or short term.”

The township website has an FAQ section that asks if any short-term rentals are allowed under a grandfather provision. “In the case of short-term rentals, this was never a permitted use in Park Township, so grandfathering isn’t applicable,” it reads.

But the township allowed short-term rentals for years, said Kyle Konwinski, an attorney for Park Township Neighbors, the nonprofit formed to oppose the ban.

Konwinski said the township is trying to ban short-term rentals by saying they were never legal under the zoning ordinance. “The township’s position is contrary to the plain terms of its own zoning ordinance, as demonstrated by the township’s 50 years of allowing short-term rentals in the township,” Konwinski said in a statement.

A Dec. 21, 2021, email from a Park Township code enforcement employee reads in part:

“The issues with the rentals, I will bring up to Howard Fink, the Township Manager. There (are) currently no ordinances on short term rentals in Park Township as the board has not addressed this issue.”

Three months later, a township press release said: “Short Term rentals are currently illegal in Park Township, and have been since the Zoning Ordinance was adopted on February 7, 1974.”

The township does not comment on current litigation.