Lake County Handles Incompatible Offices Appropriately

[XLFD]

In an article from Northern Michigan's News Leader complete with a video from their newscast, they state: 

Lake County sheriff's deputy Chuck Vayda won a seat as a county commissioner in the most recent election but it's illegal for him to keep his job and take office.

The potential double duty for the deputy would put him in a position to decide the budget for his department in Lake County as a commissioner.

Sheriff Bob Hilts says the deputy was put on administrative leave as soon as he was sworn into office.

There have been previous rulings allowing for similar situations but nothing exactly like this.

The county turned to the Attorney General to decide what to do now. 

Analysis:  The report oversimplifies the problem of having a county deputy serve as a county commissioner as a budgetary conflict of interest issue, but that's more of a symptomatic result of the underlying incompatibility of the two offices of county deputy and county commissioner by the Incompatible Public Offices Act (IPOA).  The county commissioners not only influence or oversee the budget of the sheriff's department, but also the discretionary purchases, hiring, firing, procedures, policies, etc. of that department. 

The County of Lake government does have an out if they decide to use it, much like Ludington has an out for their own IPOA violation in having Mayor Cox serve as a sergeant on the Ludington Police Department's Reserves.  They can specifically allow it by official authorization of their governing body. 

Section 3(4)(c) of the IPOA says the IPOA does not "limit the authority of the governing body of a city, village, township, or county having a population of less than 25,000 to authorize a public officer or public employee to perform, with or without compensation, other additional services for the unit of local government."

In case you were wondering Lake County's population is under 12,000 and Ludington's population is just a few families more than 8000.  This allows the Lake County Board of Commissioners to authorize Commissioner Chuck Vayda to serve on the Lake County's Sheriff Office.  It also allows the Ludington City Council to authorize Mayor Ryan Cox to serve on the LPD. 

Lake County leaders, governing a county not much more populous than the City of Ludington, have at least decided to make sure the process is done right, by arranging a leave of absence for Deputy Vayda while they find out from the State's Attorney General's Office what they can do lawfully.

The City of Ludington could have followed the same process for Reserve Sergeant Cox (above), but then they would have to justify their own reserve police officer program which is illegitimate in nature to begin with.  Yet, their arrogance and lawlessness has allowed the mayor to serve on the police department for over a year without even the minimal authorization by the Ludington City Council, which could take the issue off the table for good. 

[Willy]

What is it that keeps the City of Ludington's officials from following the law? Are they arrogant? Do they think they are above the law? Do they think they have not violated the law? What the H_ll is wrong with these people? If this was just one incident I could understand but this is the same old story with those in charge. When looking at this situation there seems to be on common element and that would be Shay. Councilors and Mayors have come and gone and through it all we have Mr. Shay. A new mayor and new Councilors have all turned out to be do nothing representatives who hide from the public what they are doing and act like the common citizen is just plain dirt. It's hard to understand why they keep doing the same kind of misdeeds over and over.

[XLFD]

What is bothersome is that police brutality lawsuits like Malone v. York, Sailor, City of Ludington etc. come to light a couple years after they were filed and only because the Ludington City Council have to approve any such civil settlement.  The only time our councilors and mayor, who are the only ones with real oversight over the Ludington Police Department's actions, say anything (if they do) is after they have went into a closed session and decided to settle the lawsuit. 

They then have the temerity of saying that they would have won had it went to trial and that the officers had done nothing wrong.  Clearly in the three lawsuits recently settled launched by Joe McAdam, Shelley Burns, and even Travis Malone, the officers in their own words at deposition and their own police reports were not following procedures and strongly violated the rights of all three plaintiffs.  The councilors and mayor cannot be so blindly loyal to bad and/or corrupt behavior, and their disregard for all crimes committed by fellow officials should alarm every citizen of Ludington.