Public Official Chicanery and the $19 Million Secret MCHFA Meeting

[XLFD]

Missing Records, Illegal Memberships, Lacks of Quorum, etc.

 

In a previous discussion about an April meeting of the Mason County Hospital Finance Authority(MCHFA) we had discussed the violation of the Incompatible Public Offices Act and the possible violation of the Open Meetings Act by keeping the knowledge of that public meeting from the public at large.  With some follow-up FOIAs, we have uncovered that there is even more wrong with this meeting and any votes that occurred during this meeting.  The first FOIA reply from the County Administrator said thusly: 

 

"Thank you for your Freedom of Information Act request for the annual reports submitted by the MCHFA for the years since 2006, inclusive and any meeting's minutes of that organization since 2006, as prepared by the secretary of the MCHA.

As the Freedom of Information Act Coordinator for the County of Mason, I have searched our records and have attached a copy of the written documents that exist for the time period covered in your request..."  And it included the following, only:  MCHFA 2012 4-24 Meeting.pdf

 

Conspicuously absent was the annual reports that the MCHFA Articles of Incorporation insists on that are to be submitted to the County Commission as per Article 5, section 12 (to the left).

Also on this little snippet, you can see partially why a Mason County Commissioner serving on the MCHFA is unethical and illegal.  For example, section 9 allows the MCC to vote for annual compensation for MCHFA members, section 11 has the MCC able to remove (or fail to remove) members of the MCHFA, section 10 has the MCC choose successive members.  If they so choose, the MCC could just put MCC members on this board, if they decided to ignore the Incompatible Offices Act, the intentions of the Hospital Finance Act, and the spirit of the Articles of Incorporation.

I noticed another wrinkle or two in the field of law and ethics, and sent the Mason County Prosecutor and the MI Attorney General a complaint on June 1:

 

"Immediately after sending this E-mail to your offices, I am forwarding a prior message I sent over 4 months ago to the local prosecutor's office, and CC-ed to the MI AG office as well, which was over much the same problem, but for my city of Ludington. I hope you can finally make a decision on this, as having a member of the City's Board of Review also serving as a City Councilor is a statutory violation of the public trust MCL 211.28.

I speak of incompatible public offices, and in this case, I am referring to the County of Mason, rather than the City of Ludington. This is again a serious matter of public trust being violated. The Mason County Hospital Financing Authority (MCHFA) has recently came out advocating bonded indebtedness of about $20 million on expanding our local hospital. I attach a copy of their April 24, 2012 meeting in which four of the five members are present. Over the past two years, the Mason County Commission have voted to put their own members on the MCHFA, as seen in the latter part of this article: Commissions of Sins  Now Mr. Squires and Ms. Boes both serve on the County Commission which supervises the activities of the MCHFA, which in terms is subordinative to the County Commission by the MCHFA's articles of incorporation. They cannot therefore legally serve on the MCHFA. By MCL 15.184, the prosecutor of the county or the AG have the ability to rectify this matter.

Being that the April 24 meeting's vote effectively had only 2 of the 5 MCHFA's members legitimately voting, their was no quorum present for any of the votes they made, and so all decisions made should at the least be reconsidered with a legitimate quorum by legitimate members. Furthermore, the removal of Squires and Boes from their positions on the MCHFA should become effective as immediately as possible.

Please contact me if you have any further questions, but be advised I am just a citizen wondering why the public officials of my local public bodies are not following the law while shirking their public duties. A more complete list may soon be forthcoming."

I continue to await a response from our local prosecutor, who I am sure is very busy.  Of course, this very morning the hospital expansion project broke ground, and even though the Mason County Commissioners have oversight of the MCHFA and have two of their members on this board, the County had no part in selecting the engineers or constructors of this multimillion expansion, as I was sent back this on June 5 from the County: 

"As the Freedom of Information Act Coordinator for the County of Mason, I have searched the records and determine that they do not exist because no agencies of Mason County were involved in the selection of the construction company or engineering firm related to the hospital expansion.  Those decisions were made by Memorial Medical Center."

The hospital itself is a private corporation and so their method of selection of contractors need not be disclosed.  It must be nice to have public bonds issued to pay for a project and have very few safeguards to see whether these public dollars are spent wisely and ethically.  Being that these contractors/engineers were already chosen about a year ago when this project was being flown under the radar, I have doubts there was any such effort.

 

Lack of Public Notice for the 4-24-2012 MCHFA Meeting

 

A review of the Ludington Daily News in April had me not seeing any public notices therein for that April meeting, and then I received a FOIA response from the County FOIA Coordinator. 

 

"Thank you for your Freedom of Information Act request for the actual public notices displayed on the courthouse bulletin board for the Mason County Hospital Authority (special) meetings scheduled for April 24, 2012 and for May 31, 2012. Also any such public notice given to the Ludington Daily News or other area news outlets, if any.

Your request is granted in part with respect to the actual public notice displayed on the courthouse bulletin board for the Mason County Hospital Finance Authority (special) meeting scheduled for April 24, 2012. That notice has been attached.

As the Freedom of Information Act Coordinator for the County of Mason, I have searched the records and determine that the actual public notice displayed on the courthouse bulletin board for the Mason County Hospital Finance Authority (special) meeting scheduled for May 31, 2012 does not exist and have been advised that the Authority Board did not hold a meeting on that date.

Although not part of your request, I have attached the actual public notice displayed on the courthouse bulletin board for the Mason County Hospital Authority (special) meeting scheduled for June 5, 2012 because of your interest in this board." 

That was on June 4, and I had to miss the meeting due to a prior commitment, but I was able to take a picture of the notices up on the County Clerk's Courthouse bulletin board on the morning of June 5. 

 

And June 5 Notice MCHFA   was a close up of the notice.  The "public notice" that was sent to me for the April 24, 2012 MCHFA meeting looked like this FOIA MCHFA 4-24 Notice.pdf  .  You will note that it is referred to a letter, that it is addressed to other MCHFA Board members, and that it conspicuously looks unlike other public notices that find there way on the bulletin board, as they must be posted here for at least 18 hours before the meeting actually takes place. 

You may also notice that it lacks any pinholes or a 'date of posting' printed on it like other actual public notices put up on this board has, and that is exactly what I asked for.  Therefore, this public notice was not the actual notice posted, and either I got a bogus public record, or this notice was never put up here publicly.  Even if this were authentic, with the date of posting and the telltale pinholes, there would also be a question of if the 18 hour posting was actually met, since there was only one business day between when the 'letter' was written and when the meeting took place. 

 

Either way, if the public notice was never posted or the 18 hours of posting were never met, there would be a violation of the Open Meetings Act, MCL 15.265. 

 

Is this really how we want our County to be ran?  Our private hospital projects funded by public dollars to be decided on?  Secret publicly-closed meetings with nearly $20 million of public debt being decided upon?  County Commissioners filling out Boards that they ultimately have control over in all respects?  This is crazy and corrupt as all get out.

[Willy]

Wonderful report X. Why are public dollars supporting construction on a private business? I think you have just skimmed the surface as to how business is conducted in Mason County by elected and non elected officials. All we have to do is look at the wind turbine towers to see just how corrupt Mason County Government really is. My understanding is that most of the land on which the wind towers are built is owned by only a few families and they stand to make hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in revenues. All at the expense of their neighbors and the rest of the community and I'm sure some of the money will see the pockets of County officials.

[XLFD]

Great question, Willie, and why does a public meeting of a public body convened without public notice have a member of the hospital open and run the meeting?  Mrs. Kerri Nelson did just that as shown in the minutes:   MCHFA 2012 4-24 Meeting.pdf

 

The articles of incorporation say:  Article V, section 1:  "No officer, trustee, or member of any governing body of any hospital shall be eligible for membership or appointment of the authority."  Nelson and Vipperman, private individuals who are members of the MMC governing body, led this meeting, doing everything but voting, which really wasn't necessary with their 'amen corner' of County elected officials.  Nelson called the meeting to order, and asked for nominations for the officers of the authority late in the meeting, when the two County Commissioners took over in their illegal capacity.