Leelanau County Commissioner Melinda Lautner is continuing to invoke the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in her efforts to uncover correspondence between a fellow commissioner and other government staff. The board of commissioners will discuss waiving the county prosecutor’s fee for completing the request at their meetings this month.
In her initial Nov. 13 request, Lautner asked for “any correspondence sent and received between Commissioner Kama Ross and any employee, department head, or elected official, including our Administrator (Deb Allen) outside of the entire BOC” going back 10 weeks to September.
Lautner said she believed these emails were influencing a then-ongoing organizational culture study being conducted by the Michigan Leadership Institute. The survey results — which singled out Lautner as “toxic, mean-spirited, (and) anti-employee” — were presented on Jan. 3, marking the end of the contract.
If Lautner hoped to steer the direction of the survey, the opportunity has passed. However, the District 7 commissioner still wants to see the emails. In a Jan. 18 interview, Lautner said that she submitted a revised letter to the county prosecutor earlier that week focusing on correspondence between Ross and department heads and elected officials, including Allen, and “shortened up the time frame a little bit.”
By limiting the scope of the request to communication between higher-ranking staff members rather than all employees, Lautner hopes to reduce the number of emails that the prosecutor’s office would need to review. In a written response to Lautner on Dec. 5, County Prosecutor Joe Hubbell said her Nov. 13 request would cost $5,000 to complete.
According to Hubbell, Lautner’s initial request would have covered over 1,250 emails. Hubbell estimated that it would take about 100 hours to review these emails and determine whether disclosing each email would violate Michigan Common Law (MCL) exemptions protecting an individual’s right to privacy and frank communication.
Hubbell used this estimate and the hourly rate of the lowest paid public employee capable of fulfilling the request — in his opinion, Chief Assistant Prosecutor Tristan Chamberlain — to arrive at the $5,000 figure. Chamberlain attended the board of commissioners executive session on Jan. 9 to answer Lautner’s questions about waiving or reducing this $5,000 cost, which she described as “ridiculous.”
“I understand that in this there was concern about confidentiality between employees et cetera… It wasn’t the employees, necessarily, where I think I’m going to find the information I’m seeking. So, I can drop the ‘employee’ portion of that,” Lautner told Chamberlain.
Lautner didn’t elaborate on what “the information (she’s) seeking” is during the meeting, or in response to the newspaper’s request for comment, but she clearly believes it’s somewhere in the correspondence between Ross, Allen, and other officials and department heads.
“If you want to submit a new FOIA that delineates that you don’t want employees, that’s fine. I have no problem with that. And that was really the crux of why this was going to take so long. Because it wasn’t targeted to ‘@leelanau.gov,’ it could have been a personal email address from an employee to the commissioner, which means we had to go through everything,” Chamberlain said.
Chamberlain went on to say that completing Lautner’s revised FOIA request could be “exponentially cheaper” and “quite reduced” compared to her November email. Lautner told the newspaper on Wednesday that the cost of fulfi lling the request was reduced to $1,000. However, other county commissioners — including Ty Wessell, Kama Ross, and Gwenne Allgaier — have been critical of Lautner for what they perceive as a violation of employees’ trust.
“I’m not supportive of making personal communications between commissioners and employees public. I think if we do that, we’ll never hear from anyone again. So, I’m very concerned about this action in general,” Commissioner Allgaier said at the executive session. “I think if somebody communicates with us, that should be private.”
Lautner has repeatedly stated her belief that the cost of completing the request should be waived altogether, and still maintains that she shouldn’t have to pay the reduced fee for the revised request. According to Attorney Matt Nordfjord of the county’s legal counsel, Lautner said that the county board can consider upholding the fee, modifying the fee, or waiving the fee at a public meeting.
The board of commissioners had scheduled discussion and possible action on Lautner’s appeal to waive the fee for completing the request during a Jan. 24 special session but did not have enough time to reach this item. The item has been postponed to the February executive session on Feb. 13 and 20.
