A leaked email obtained by the Leelanau Enterprise reveals a new target for the range.
On August 4, an email from resident Gary Hosking to Michael Awrey accuses Leelanau County Commissioner Rick Robbins of misconduct that exploded at Tuesday’s executive board meeting.
“There’s no truth to it, no validity. My concern in that email is the three republican commissioners that were listed on the bottom,” Robbins said. “What concerns me is somebody spent that much time instead of picking up a phone and just talking to me and asking me what’s going on ... Put that energy into making our county positive Awrey, who the email was sent to in the Enterprise version, had this to say about the accusations.
“Robbins hasn’t done anything illegal. Drop it,” Awrey said in response.
Hoskings replied after being sought for comment about the original email.
“My involvement was pretty simple. (After Lauren Cypher’s, interim administrator) written update clearly asked the Board for help regarding concerns about being watched or monitored, I was doing some research on how a Board should appropriately respond to something like that — what questions should be asked, how the facts could be established and what kind of review would make sense. I wasn’t conducting an investigation and don’t have firsthand knowledge of what actually occurred,” Hosking said.
Tensions boiled over Tuesday as Robbins called out County Board Chair Steve Yoder and asked for an investigation into himself regarding the email and another investigation regarding credit cards.
The email states after the lead sentence: “A commissioner asking legiti- mate questions about attendance, performance, work hours, or dress-policy compliance is one thing. Quietly cultivating employees in separate departments to report when two women are seen, where they are, and what one of them is wearing is something else. It suggests a shadow reporting system outside normal supervisory channels and could reasonably be experienced as intimidation,” Hosking said in an email. “But we must proceed methodically. The fastest way to lose control of this is to publicly accuse Robbins before preserving the evidence.”
The allegations related to Robbins included Interim County Administrator Lauren Cypher and Finance Director Rio Risbridger, who reported being “watched.”
Cypher has formally told the full county board that her movements and appearance were being tracked and asked commissioners to intervene, according to the email.
“The Board and Administration is aware of correspondence referencing the monitoring of Interim Administrator Lauren Cypher and Finance Director Rio Risbridger. This has been addressed directly with the Board of Commissioners and no further comment will be made,” Cypher said. “the priority of Administration is executing the direction of the BOC, maintaining uninterrupted services, upholding the highest standards of municipal accountability, and continuing a standard of the utmost professionalism and respect in the workplace.”
The email essentially argues Robbins abused governance boundaries, misused employee time, engaged in workplace intimidation, and even dances with harsher accusations.
“The current evidence is not enough to call this criminal conduct, illegal surveillance, or a proven civilrights violation. It is enough to demand an independent factual review,” Hosking said in an email. “The Attorney General’s criminal complaint process is not a general local-government ethics tribunal. Its publicintegrity work may address serious official misconduct, but the office does not investigate every allegation of bullying, micromanagement or code-ofconduct violations. A premature complaint unsupported by documents could be referred elsewhere or dismissed ... The AG becomes more appropriate if evidence develops of: intentional misuse of public resources; obstruction, retaliation or falsification; unauthorized access to protected information; coercion by law-enforcement personnel; destruction of records after a preservation notice; conduct potentially violating a specific criminal statute.
Right now, I firmly believe the first destination is the Board chair, outside county counsel, and an independent investigator.”
Yoder, Leelanau County board chair, said he was taken aback when informed about the email.
“I was shocked at it. I never knew anything or heard of anything ... Seeing that it looked like a bunch of opinions and thoughts and nothing binding to it,” he said.
The immediate action plan, according to the email, was to form a “contemporaneous memorandum -- not an advocacy letter.”
The email even went as far as keeping it close to the chest: “Maybe distinguish exact quotations from paraphrases. Do not circulate the memorandum widely or discuss it with possible witnesses, because that creates arguments that recollections were coordinated.”
The author of this article was even mentioned to be a part of the grander plan to push a narrative.
Whether or not, the plan is still in motion; a knife could cut the air as the tension continues to rise at the heart of Leelanau County.
