By Shelby Stewart
Staff Writer
Ortonville- During the Monday night meeting, the board approved an ordinance pertaining to the Ortonville Wildlife Preservation Park with a 4-3 vote. President Tonja Brice and trustees Larry Hayden and Pat George voted against the ordinance.
The ordinance outlines regulations for the park, including:
1) No off-road vehicles or motorbikes may be operated anywhere on the property
2) No bike or footpath trail shall be developed or established anywhere on or in the park
3) No hunting of any type shall be allowed in the park
4) Use of the park shall be primarily activities designed to preserve, support and protect the habitat of the property and the wildlife existing on the property.
5) The entire wildlife preservation park shall be open to the public for hiking and general use. The public is put on notice that much of the park is covered with bogs and wetlands and therefore any use of the park is at the user’s risk
6) There shall be no trees cut down or any structures built in the park at any time
7) there shall be no dumping of any material in the park at any time
8) Dogs shall not be allowed in the park that are not properly leashed and under the control of the owner of the dog
9) Excrement deposited by a dog in the park shall be collected in a disposable container and disposed of by the owner of the dog at the appropriate offsite location.
“This ordinance does not stop us from doing any studies to further or enhance or whatever to that piece of property,” said president pro tem Dan Eschmann. “What it does do is protects the property today and it allows, and gives notice to, the public that there is some place they can go and hike in a natural state.”

Some members of the board were concerned that the ordinance was repetitive, as many of the rules apply to all of the parks in the village.
“It’s a special place, it’s a unique piece of property, and we really do want to make sure whatever we do in terms of an ordinance with this park really is a good fit for that piece of property and for what we really want,” said Hayden. “My feeling is that we have not done enough homework to say this is really the right ordinance. As I said, there’s already a lot of redundancies with our existing ordinance and I think if we did further review, and a little further investigation we could really draft a much better ordinance that would do a much better job at preserving the natural features in the park and also meeting our communities needs.”
The board also asked that Village Manager Dale Stuart look into the liabilities of leaving the park in the natural state. The ordinance will go into effect 30 days after publication.