Statement on the Open Meetings Act and the Dangers of Delegation

I shared the following statement with the Board regarding the Open Meetings Act, recent court rulings, and the meeting before us.

Last Friday, I asked the Interim Administrator if a recent Michigan Supreme Court case on the Open Meetings Act was being considered for how it applies to the process of hiring a county administrator. Chair John Teeples assured the Board that Ron Bultje, Ron Franz, Doug VanEssen and himself had been evaluating the process for compliance with state law, and the process being used was “tried and true”.

I am concerned the “tried and true” process has been challenged by the recent ruling.

The February edition of Michigan Counties Magazine, a publication of the Michigan Association of Counties, featured a cover article titled, the Open Meetings Act: The Dangers of Delegation.

The article highlighted the July 31, 2024, Michigan Supreme Court decision on Pinebrook Warren LLC v. City of Warren, as well as the subsequent case of Exclusive Partners, LLC v City of Royal Oak, heard by the Court of Appeals— which applied the holding of the Pinebrook Warren case.

(Highlights from the Michigan Association of Counties article on pages 10 and 11 were shared. See link: https://micounties.org/.)

In 2025, the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners delegated its responsibility to the county administrator, several staff members, and Double Haul to assist with the process of hiring a county administrator. The work has included the collection of applications, cover letters, resumes—and with a smaller number of candidates narrowed down by Double Haul and not commissioners—two additional rounds of multiple questions and an interview. Double Haul has now provided their insights and a ranking of applicants based on the interview scores and how far they advanced in the process. The ranked listing and candidate information was made available to the members of the Board around noon on Monday.

To quote the final paragraph of the MAC article, “The tasks of studying, considering and narrowing a variety of issues for the purpose of rendering a final recommendation to the full Board should be open to the public consistent with the purpose of the OMA.”

This did not happen. Double Haul ranked applicants and effectively decided which applicants would receive interviews utilizing a non-transparent process. This must be remedied by the Board demonstrating its independent consideration of the 39 candidates and the merits of Double Haul’s recommendations, and not merely giving approval to or acting on the recommendations without appropriate discussion.

If the Board of Commissioners does not now publicly deliberate on the rankings, Double Haul and staff could be viewed as the de facto decision makers—whose decisions and process to rank candidates would be subject to the OMA. Without public deliberation by the Board now, there is no record of the Board fulfilling our responsibility in the process, and the process is arguably flawed.

The court has ruled when a process of ranking and recommendations begins in private—whether by an individual or entity/subgroup/committee tasked to do it, it must be followed and completed with deliberation and decision-making by the public body—in this case the Board of Commissioners— in compliance with the OMA.

How can the Board demonstrate the fulfillment of its responsibility to the public unless we discuss Double Haul’s ranking and recommendations in public?

Whether a process can begin in the dark and end in the dark is not an angle that has been fully tested since the recent court cases—but for us to intentionally do so would be playing with fire.

Had the process thus far—and the community interviews planned for next week— been open to the public, I would be more comfortable entering into a closed session today—although it would still fall short of providing the transparency and accountability to the public which is in the spirit of the Open Meetings Act.