Opponents of the Northport Village-Leelanau Township sewer system have accused the two governments’ joint utility authority of holding an illegal meeting.

In December 2007, both the Northport Village Council and the Leelanau Township Board approved a change in the meeting schedule for the utility authority, which usually meets once a month. Village Council trustee Barbara VonVoigtlander, who is responsible for posting the authority’s meetings, said the board decided to hold three meetings in January and February since many of the authority’s members will be gone in March.

VonVoigtlander said Friday that the regular meeting schedule was changed to Jan. 8, Jan. 21, and Feb. 12. The schedule change was posted and noticed to the public.

However, two weeks ago, VonVoigtlander said the authority had to change the Jan. 21 meeting to Jan. 22 to assure a quorum of the authority board would be present. She said the date change was posted in public in the three areas the village and township normally place public notices: the township hall, the village hall and at the Northport post office.

The problem, said Ronald J. Schobel of Northport, is that the public notice did not include the time, location and topics to be covered at the rescheduled meeting. In a letter dated Jan. 21, Schobel said that because of the failure to include the time, location and topics in the posting, the utility authority violated the state Open Meetings Act. Schobel said he was representing the Leelanau Forum, a community group formed by opponents of the current joint sewer system now under construction.

“Please be advised that today’s meeting, and all future non-properly posted meetings, are in direct violation per above statement. Therefore, this meeting today is illegal and subject to investigation as to your conduct in violation of the Open Meetings Act,” Schobel wrote to Richard Lang, the authority’s chairman.

VonVoigtlander said she didn’t think it was necessary to include the time, location and subjects to be covered since the information was the same as was posted in December.

According to Public Act 267 of 1976, part 15.265, Section 5 subsection 4, the rules for posting notices state the following: “Except as provided in this subsection or in subsection (6), for a rescheduled regular or a special meeting of a public body, a public notice stating the date, time, and place of the meeting shall be posted at least 18 hours before the meeting.”

VonVoigtlander said the posting for the Jan. 22 meeting was placed immediately below the first posting. VonVoigtlander said Lang, an attorney, reviewed the new posting and told her it met the Open Meetings Act requirement.

“The only thing that changed was the date. I placed it below the original meeting notice,” she said.

The next scheduled meeting of the utility authority is Feb. 12 at 9:30 a.m. at the Betty Mork Administrative Building in Northport.