Despite suggestions that officials administering the county’s early childhood “Parenting Communities” program were spreading “outright misinformation or lies” and were being “deceptive” about the program, the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners this week voted 5-2 to approve a contract with the Health Department to administer the program through 2024.
A discussion and a vote on the contract at this week’s county board meeting went fairly smoothly in contrast to a more detailed and far more heated discussion the county board had about the program at its executive meeting last week.
At last week’s meeting, Health Department officials Michelle Klein and Dodie Putney appeared before the board to explain a work plan and 2022 budget proposal for the program but ended up on the hot seat under questioning by commissioners.
District No. 7 Commissioner Melinda Lautner accused Health Department officials of spreading “outright disinformation or lies” about the program and called use of the term “Parenting Communities” a “shell game.” Lautner said she’d heard from people who went to one of the Parenting Communities events who did not know what it was.
Klein explained that “Parenting Communities” amounts to a “brand name” that has been used by the county’s early childhood program for many years – since before voters approved a millage for the program and it was funded through a variety of grants that have since dried up.
District No. 2 Commissioner Debra Rushton noted that the millage was for children ages 0-6 but that the Health Department’s work plan indicated home visits were also being made to pregnant mothers.
“If we wanted to take care of children in the womb,… that should have been spelled out in the millage,” Rushton asserted.
District No. 5 Commissioner Ty Wessell commented: “I’m a little bit mystified that for the first time ever we’re saying children aren’t children until they’re born.”
District No. 2 Commissioner and county board Chairman Will Bunek said he questioned whether the county could legally fund a “Parenting Communities” program when “Parenting Communities” wasn’t named on the millage ballot. He asked county administrator Chet Janik to obtain a legal opinion from the county’s “corporate counsel” about whether a “Parenting Communities” program can legally be funded.
Bunek, Lautner and Rushton have repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of the November 2019 election in which voters approved the millage because it was conducted in an “off year” and voter turnout was low. In September, the three commissioners and fellow Republican Commissioner Rick Robbins of District No. 3 all voted to recommend that the voter-approved 0.253-mill property tax levy for the program be reduced to zero.
Following a public outcry – and now an ongoing campaign to recall Bunek from office – the county board approved a millage levy of 0.1988-mill for the program to match funding required by the Health Department to execute a 2022 work plan.
It took more than an hour of debate and several failed votes at the board’s Nov. 9 meeting to move the issue forward to this week’s agenda. Discussion was sometimes heated at last week’s meeting with Wessell addressing Bunek and noting that the visiting Health Department presenters had been “beat up on.”
Bunek responded that Wessell should not address the board chairman or other commissioners by name during meetings, and that Wessell should focus on budget issues on the agenda rather than how other commissioners were acting.
“We do not address each other,” Bunek admonished Wessell.
It is not known whether Bunek received the legal opinion he requested on whether the county can fund an early childhood program named “Parenting Communities.” The last time the Leelanau Enterprise asked county officials to turn over a document “subject to attorney-client privilege” that request was denied.
However, Bunek did vote “yes” at this week’s meeting to approve the early childhood program’s work plan and budget proposal for 2022. Lautner and Rushton voted “no.”