The Leelanau Energy Futures Task Force — a 14-member committee of engaged county residents and some elected officials — was the subject of a citizen complaint filed at the county prosecutor’s office.
Allegedly, the group was in violation of the Open Meetings Act. County departments forwarded the matter to the Michigan State Police (MSP) in Traverse City.
The newspaper followed up on this complaint with MSP Specialist Lieutenant Derrick Carroll, an information officer for MSP’s Seventh District — which includes Leelanau County — who said his agency is not investigating the matter.
Based on a similar-sounding letter to the Leelanau Enterprise’s editor, the crux of the complaint may have been that the Energy Futures Task Force did not post notices prior to their meetings on leelanau.gov or make the minutes of these meetings publicly available for its first three or four meetings.
The task force was appointed by the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners in September 2023 and held its first meeting the following month. Leelanau Energy President Joe DeFors was named chair of the task force at this October meeting. DeFors took responsibility for the notices and meeting minutes not being publicly posted, citing confusion on the task force’s status as a public body.
“It was my mistake — if a mistake was made at all,” DeFors commented to the newspaper. “We were created as a fairly unusual entity called a ‘task force.’ We had asked to create a new county committee, but the board elected to use this other status … It never occurred to me that (posting notices and minutes) was an issue, given our more unofficial status.”
“Three or four months in, someone in the county said that you should be submitting minutes and putting them up on the website. As soon as the request was made, we changed,” DeFors continued.
The county does not appear to have any other active task forces besides the Energy Futures Task Force, although a Communications Task Force existed at one point. This public body was created back in May 2016.
The lack of prior notice to meetings seems to have been an error or an oversight, as the Leelanau Enterprise was receiving meeting notices for the task force by email from the county clerk’s office since the very beginning.
“If they weren’t posted due to an error, then there isn’t anything to investigate,” Specialist Lieutenant Carroll of the MSP said.
County Prosecutor Joe Hubbell said he forwarded the citizen’s complaint about the task force to the sheriff’s office, who determined there was a conflict and forwarded it to the MSP Post in Traverse City, where the case was assigned to a specific trooper. However, county Sheriff Mike Borkovich denied receiving this complaint, and Carroll verified that the trooper in question was not working on any such case.
Meeting notices for the task force started appearing on the county website two months ago in March. The group typically meets at the Leland Public Library at 9:30 a.m. on the first Thursdays of the month. These meetings are open to members of the public who wish to attend.
