Commissioner Melinda Lautner failed to gain a second to her motion to waive the $1,000 cost on her Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request at the county board’s regular meeting Tuesday night, with no other county commissioner willing to support her efforts to see personnel committee correspondence leading up to a recent organizational culture survey.
Now that her attempt to appeal the request through the board of commissioners has failed, Lautner said she’s “unsure” of her next move. Prior to the meeting, she explained she had consulted with Bonnie Toskey of the county’s legal counsel, Cohl, Stoker, & Toskey, P.C., who told her that she could take the appeal to court for judgment.
However, in Lautner’s words, “a lot (of the information in the request) is going to be moot at this point” and she needs to “decide whether it’s still worth pursuing.” Lautner felt that Ross was providing information that could influence a survey by the Michigan Leadership Institute, and the survey concluded late last year, and its results were presented a month and a half ago on Jan. 3.
