Below is my column in today's edition of the Grand Haven Tribune.
Before anything with the whistleblower, on Aug. 16 all City Council members were provided written attorney opinions and clear documentation of wrongdoing related to the BLP’s campaign to stop the charter amendment. This includes notification the full board received from the city attorney on Aug. 25 that they had crossed the line on election law. The City Council did not release this, but held it for consideration at a closed session on Sept. 5. At that meeting, City Council was prepared to make public the city attorney’s written opinion, but then things became more challenging.
At this closed session, the city attorney shared the news that a BLP whistleblower recently approached him with new and further allegations of misconduct by the BLP administration and board. The whistleblower claimed that the BLP attempted to delete records after a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, made false and misleading statements to employees regarding the charter amendment, attempted to avoid compliance with the Open Meetings Act, and pressured employees to sign the so-called “unanimous letter” along with pressuring them to contribute funds and distribute door signs in opposition to the charter amendment.
Based upon this new information, the city attorney suggested that council not yet release the likely violations of election law he had found, but to give time for a preliminary investigation of the new whistleblower allegations. The gravity of the allegations and the suspected involvement of both the BLP management and the board required careful attention to check their veracity.
It is important to be crystal clear that no deliberation nor voting can take place in a closed session of City Council because of the Open Meetings Act. Rather, the general and preliminary approach agreed to by the council members was to check out the whistleblower allegations and then to figure out how to handle both the original city attorney report and also the new whistleblower allegations.
On the following Sunday, Sept. 10, the alleged misconduct at Michigan State University (including the issues with how it was kept under wraps for months) hit the news. The following day, with that issue of an improper (and not impartial) investigation fresh on his mind, Mayor Pro-Tem Cummins met with the city manager to see if there was an update on the whistleblower allegations. The city attorney was brought into the discussion, and he shared an update on obtaining and reviewing records. Mayor Pro-Tem Cummins reached out to Councilmember Lowe, who noted that she shared his concerns about the need for this to be done efficiently and impartially and that the City Council needed to make that decision sooner rather than later. They began working with the city attorney on a resolution formally to move the investigation from the hands of the city to an independent party to be considered at the next meeting.
On Wednesday, a few days later, the city attorney informed Mayor Pro-Tem Cummins, Councilmember Lowe and the city manager that the sheer volume of emails provided by the whistleblower’s attorney would make a quick analysis of the material impracticable. The city attorney suggested instead a better approach would be for him to meet with the whistleblower and their attorney to get a better handle on the allegations.
After the meeting, he circled back to Mayor Pro Tem Cummins and Councilmember Lowe on their resolution, suggesting some edits given what he had learned from his investigation. With his edits included, the resolution was placed on the agenda for consideration at the next scheduled City Council meeting on Sept. 18. The city attorney also updated all of the councilmembers on what he had learned from his investigation.
The goal of the resolution considered by the City Council this past Monday was to deal in a timely and open manner with the serious whistleblower allegations, and to do so external to all the politics and personalities that had already muddled so much of the City Council-BLP relationship. Mayor Pro-Tem Cummins and Councilmember Lowe had no conversations with Mayor McNally nor with councilmembers Fritz and McLaughlin in advance as that would have constituted a violation of the Open Meetings Act. The next soonest opportunity to have a conversation with all members of the council was at their next meeting. On Thursday afternoon, when making the council aware of what he learned during his investigation, the city attorney did share a copy of the resolution with all of council prior to the meeting packet going out.
At the City Council meeting on Sept. 18, it became clear that both Mayor McNally and Councilmember Fritz were opposed to the resolution. However, they gave different explanations for their reasoning.
The big frustration for Mayor McNally (and somewhat for Councilmember Fritz) seemed to be that this resolution was different than what was first agreed to in the closed session and that there wasn’t another meeting to change course. What they seem to miss is that nothing was technically agreed to in the closed session (remember, that would have been a violation of the Open Meetings Act) and that Monday’s City Council meeting was precisely the new meeting, the first one where they could now discuss openly and make a decision, given the results of the city attorney’s investigation thus far, regarding the best path forward.
Councilmember Fritz also said he believed that the investigation should be conducted only by the Ottawa County prosecuting attorney or the Michigan Attorney General’s Office. This, however, would have been an escalation of the steps proposed in the resolution and could have pushed the investigation out for years. The resolution considered by the council did require the city attorney to also inform the attorney general of the whistleblower allegations and of possible campaign finance or election law violations. That way her office can decide whether and how to conduct their own investigation alongside the one the city launched. But the city’s external investigation will provide answers sooner that can hopefully clear up — in an impartial manner — many of these questions we now all have.
One last point on the process. BLP allies are claiming that the City Council, by approving this resolution, did not follow the legal advice of the city attorney. That is patently false. The city attorney worked on the drafting of the resolution itself. At no point during the meeting did the city attorney advise council against passing the resolution. Quite the opposite. At the meeting, the city attorney explained to City Council the difficulty with further internal investigations.
Don’t let the spin by the BLP and their allies distract from the truth.
BLP officials were angered that the full board was not briefed on the developments by the city attorney. They even suggested they should have been allowed first to do an investigation — of themselves. This is smoke and mirrors at best, or delay and obfuscation at worst. The full board had been informed weeks ago on Aug. 25 of the city attorney’s own written report. Within a day of the city attorney’s meeting with the whistleblower, the general manager and the chairperson of the Board were informed. Why would the City Council need to wait for a full meeting of the BLP Board before investigating a whistleblower complaint against the board? Does anyone think the BLP Board should investigate its own alleged wrongdoing?
If the BLP has nothing to hide, they should welcome an investigation. They should be grateful that those on the City Council who called for one didn’t wait, they didn’t hold it as an internal matter and have the city attorney investigate it further. They didn’t schedule more meetings of the City Council or with the BLP Board to talk about it — running the risk of this all spilling out closer to Election Day. They said this needs to be investigated promptly, impartially, and as soon as possible.
The BLP officials’ real anger behind all of this is that the continued misconduct of the BLP when it comes to FOIA requests, the Open Meetings Act, and their unethical (and perhaps illegal) use of ratepayer funds and electric utility employees to sway a ballot question is all finally coming to light. The fact that they are fuming and on the attack only indicates to me that the claims of the whistleblower are likely going to be substantiated.
So, I would like to express my gratitude to the City Council members who tried their hardest to do right by the residents of Grand Haven, the whistleblower and the BLP. They refused to allow these extremely serious allegations to be kept secret from all of us who truly believe the public’s business is public. They have been met with personal attacks, which is all the more unfortunate. But perhaps we can now get to the bottom of these concerning issues and determine the best way forward.
About the writer: The Rev. Dr. Jared C. Cramer, Tribune community columnist, serves as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven. The views in this column are his alone as a private citizen whose employer is a BLP ratepayer. They do not necessarily reflect the views of his church.
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