Leelanau Commissioner Update August 2025

September 4th 2025

Provided by Alan Campbell

Misunderstanding Reasons for LL, Leland Mini-Walks

When all these copycat bridge walks started popping up in Leelanau County, I admit to being skeptical. For decades, Michigan was home to one Labor Day bridge walk — the bridge walk — and for a while, I considered all others silly imitations.

I misunderstood. I thought the goal centered on tourism or was a bit egotistical. And besides, everyone was worn thin after a summer of entertaining, which makes the county’s economy hum.

I was way off.

Bridge walks in Leelanau are going-away parties to honor both a glorious summer season and the ties that bind our county’s quilted community. The Leelanau melting pot is spiced with well-off families who have summered on the peninsula for four or five generations, and relative newcomers who left their hearts here after vacationing for a week and then came back to claim them.

Leelanau is blessed with farmers and carpenters living on roads named for their ancestors. And we have recent residents who may have slept in basements and camping trailers before establishing a foothold that led to residency.

Leelanau County is a melting pot unto itself. Our Labor Day walks, especially those in Lake Leelanau and Leland, set aside an hour or two to celebrate the fabric of our community.

My wife, Deb, and I had opportunities to take in both walks. Thanks go out to members of the Lake Leelanau Community Association — shout-outs to Mary Lingaur, Madeline Houdek, Dave Albert, and others — and the Leland Committee for Holiday Excitement. Former county commissioner Patricia Soutas-Little did most of the organizing in Leland, and graciously asked Deb and me to hand out “congratulatory certificates” at the end of the “grueling” walk.

The Lake Leelanau walk served as a fundraiser, as 150 rubber duckies were sold for $10 each, dumped off the bridge, then “raced” toward the finish line. Everyone won. The Lake Leelanau VFW honor guard kicked off the Leland parade.

Cookies brought everyone together after both walks — although we already were looking like a pretty tight community.

Budget Short on Revenue To Fund List of Requests

September 4th 2025

The 2026 county budget remains a work in progress, but we’re getting there.

Commissioners on Tuesday, Sept. 2, held their third budget workshop for next year’s spending plan, and to be honest we appeared dedicated but somewhat amateurish. That depiction includes myself. Five of seven current board members were not in office when the present budget was written and approved, and the county has had three administrators running the ship over the same number of years while creating a finance department outside of the clerk’s office.

We may be dedicated. But most of us are unfamiliar with process being used and ourselves.

The consensus among  commissioners, I feel, is to move budget writing off autopilot. Eventually the taxpayers of the county will benefit, but it will take time and some of our goals may carry into 2027 budget writing. 

It would be easier to follow the same path. Instead, we’re asking a lot of questions, exploring options, and trying to make ends meet without digging deeper into the pocketbooks of constituents.

Here’s what we’re up against. The 2026 budget book — yes, it’s a couple inches thick — puts the fiscal plan about $317,074 short of balancing. That’s pretty good out of a roughly $17.5 million budget. However, proposed expenditures don’t include pay raises recently granted law enforcement unions that are retroactive to Jan. 1, 2025.. Eventually similar pay increases are likely to be extended to 911 dispatchers and non-union employees such as department heads. 

Plus, we’ve yet to wade through pages of capital outlay requests made by elected officials and department heads. They range from common items such as four tool boxes ($1,596) sought by Building and Grounds to $1 million requested to meet a federal mandate to purchase a new radio system with federally required encryption that will equip all emergency vehicles. The Sheriff’s Office, which typically rotates four new vehicles through its fleet every year, is seeking a fifth vehicle as part of a proposal to move a deputy from the Traverse Narcotics Team (TNT) to a school liaison position to work directly with school staff and young students. The cost for five vehicles is about $252,000. Those funds have not been loaded into our budget book.

The IT department needs a Safety Net security system ($35,000) and Microsoft Office 365 licensing ($42,000). Both are important. Neither are in the 2026 budget today.

The “wants” and “needs” represent a long list with no revenue source to fund most of them.

There’s good and bad news in the county’s financial status today. According to Finance Director Catherine Hartesfelt, municipalities should maintain a fund balance of between 30% and 50% of their budgets. She reported Tuesday that our percentage was 46.

From a historical view, however,, we’re slipping. I ran the numbers from our last three audits, and found the unassigned fund balance in comparison to expenditures moved from 57% in 2022 to 51%  in 2023 to 48% in 2024. (I can’t explain the difference between Director Hartesfelt’s 46% figure compared to mine other than slightly different time periods or bad math on my end.)

Another problem: The figures are reflective of calendar fiscal years. That means our fund balance slips much lower this time of year when property owners are just starting to pay taxes that aren’t due until Sept. 15. Somewhere around Aug. 1 of every year the county’s reserves have been drained before rebounding over the next six weeks.

I listened intently to remarks provided at our Aug. 26 budget workshop by resident Rebecca Hendrick, a retired  professor at the University of Chicago where she focussed on state and local government financial management. She said wise financial decisions begin with a disciplined process that results in a sound budget. She emphasized that the top priority, which she wrote was mandatory, was to provide a budget message describing “significant changes in priorities from the current year and explain the factors that led to those changes.”

I wrote out four priorities early in the process and sent them to administrator Dyer. They were  to stop dipping into fund balance, eliminate or reduce overtime, start the path toward following our own financial and investment policies, and to properly fund our county parks.

We can write down all the goals imaginable, but the bottom line is that Leelanau County needs to control costs without reducing the quality of service provided residents. That won’t be easy.

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As a resident, your voice is important as we continue work toward a 2026 budget. Please consider attending a future budget work session to express your thoughts. We have had very few people speak during public comment. Our board rules restrict comments early in  meetings to topics on the agenda. So for budget workshops, your opinions on just about any topic that includes county government spending are eligible and welcomed. 

What’s on your mind?

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Upcoming Budget Work Sessions

(All on Tuesdays. Expected to last 2-3 hours.)

• Sept. 9, after Executive Session (usually early afternoon.)

• Sept. 16, 3 p.m.

• Sept. 23, 9:30 a.m.

• Sept. 30, 9:30 a.m.

• Oct. 7, after Executive Session (usually early afternoon.)

• Oct. 14, 3 p.m.

• Oct. 21, TBA

County Conflict Policy Falls Short of the Mark

September 4th 2025

I thought I knew a conflict of interest when I saw one. Turns out there are different definitions of a conflict — one being common sense, the other being through an interpretation of state law.
Toward the end goal of ensuring all who represent Leelanau follow the same definition, I’m hoping commissions will rewrite and strengthen the county conflict of interest policy. I’ve asked that the item be placed on the agenda of the Sept. 9 executive session, which begins at 9:30 a.m.

Care must be exercised here because the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners has not voted to release an opinion from our attorney discussing conflicts of interest. I hope the board will vote to provide the public with the attorney’s opinion along with background information, then follow up with a plan to tighten our conflict of interest policy.

Too often local officials look at legal documents as their own, when in fact it’s taxpayers who picked up the tab for an attorney to produce the opinion. Constituents have a vested interest and right to know what their government is doing, especially through correspondence written by attorneys that does not contain information that could affect litigation or is private in nature.

This particular opinion deals with whether a member of a county authority, committee, commission — really, anyone representing Leelanau County — can participate in discussions and vote on contracts with a non-government entity for which the person sits on the board of directors.

The scenario seems like a direct conflict of interest.

A Suttons Bay resident who, like me, has spent much of his career pointing out instances in which governments fell short of executing arm’s-length transactions brought such an issue to the attention of his commissioner, who passed on the email to fellow commissioners. The County Board chair referred the complaint to the county-hired law firm of Cohl, Stoker & Toskey out of Lansing.

The firm came back with an opinion based mainly on state law that there was no conflict — mainly because compensation to the county employee was not involved.

It’s time to fill in some blanks, but understand that I’m more concerned about the long-term implications of the opinion than the events leading to the citizen complaint. One news report stated that the issue was based on a power struggle between commissioners and the county administrator over affordable housing. That thought never crossed my mind.

The events involved discussions and action held at meetings of the Leelanau County Land Bank (LBA) and the Leelanau Brownfield authorities, whose missions can include housing. The sale of 9.5 acres presently occupied by ball fields from Suttons Bay Public School to Leelanau Peninsula Housing was discussed and voted on by the LBA at its May 20 meeting. County administrator James Dyer is a member of the Peninsula Housing Board of Directors, and by statute holds seats on both authorities.

Mr. Dyer made the motion to enter Leelanau County as a co-signer of the land sale. The contract absolved the county from financial liability for the $800,000 price tag.

The benefit lent by the LBA, an independent government agency that operates within the Leelanau County governmental umbrella, was to allow Peninsula Housing to keep the property off the tax rolls for up to three years.

Peninsula Housing, a nonprofit, has emerged as a leader in addressing the lack of affordable housing in the county.

I’ve heard some pros and quite a few cons about the sale, with most complaints having to do with the process and a lack of public input. Even those with questions about the transaction understand the big-picture problem. Nobody in their right mind believes we’ve got plenty of affordable homes to go around. Differences of opinion exist within the community on how to best address the problem.

In the meantime, though, a hole has been uncovered in the county conflict of interest policy. If all goes as planned for the Suttons Bay project, the community will end up with dozens of units of low-cost housing without controversy. But what if something does go wrong?

In that case, as it stands today, a county official will hold allegiances with two sides in a three-sided controversy.

Leelanau County government should operate independent of the influence of outside contractors, which include for-profit and non-profit corporations. That’s why a stronger conflict policy is needed.

An example policy is used by the U.S. Dept. of Justice, which prohibits “acting in a particular matter” if it involves “any person for whom you have served, within the last year, as officer, director, trustee, general partner, agent, attorney, consultant, contractor or employee.” Also prohibited by the Justice Department is official interaction with “an organization in which you are an active participant.” Given the abundance of close social ties in the county — an admirable trait — such a clause could end up being counterproductive.

I tried at first to write this report without invoking the name of our county administrator, but the acrobatics required made it seem that I was hiding something. Administrator Dyer is sincere in his efforts to work for the good of Leelanau County. He also cares about and wants to make a difference in the housing shortage.

But the problem remains that our county policy falls short of adequately defining a conflict. The attorney’s opinion exposed a problem that was always there. Our policy deals almost exclusively with conflicts involving personal gain and family member benefits while ignoring corporate ties between public officials and those doing business with the county.

I strongly feel we must require space between organizations that have contractual ties to Leelanau County and the county itself.

Input Sought on How Best To Spend Nearly $1 Million in Opioid Funds

September 4th 2025

Amy Dolinky started with a greeting that thoroughly confused me:

“I am so glad to meet you. You’re No. 75.”

Eventually we backtracked and I understood. My reaching out to her on July 21 after a Northern Michigan Counties Association meeting in Roscommon represented the 75th out of 83 counties in Michigan that had made contact with the Michigan Association of Counties as a first step toward planning the future for a sizable pot of money. The funding is resulting from settlements of lawsuits against drug companies that produce and sell opioids.

One result of our discussion is that Dolinky agreed to be placed on the agenda of the Sept 9 executive committee of the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners. She will be giving an overview of options used by other counties to decide how best to use the funds.

The settlements represent a big number in Leelanau County. Our audit for 2024 showed that $177,680 was carried into the present fiscal year, and is drawing interest . The audit anticipated that another $527,317 would be received over a number of years, eventually establishing a total asset amount of $704,997.

A state of Michigan online dashboard estimates a higher figure for Leelanau at $851,410 over the course of the next 13 years. Two more lawsuits were recently settled, which could very well push the final figure over $900,000 through 2038. The total would break down to providing $75,000 annually not including interest on the principal. Counties get to keep the interest.

MAC has emerged as the leading organization in opioid settlement programming because early in the process it recognized the opportunities provided by the $1.6 billion in settlements realized by the state of Michigan, of which about half is being allocated to local governments. Counties are prime recipients. 

In 2022 MAC hired Dolinsky, who holds a master’s degree in public policy from Northwestern University. Officially, her title is Technical Advisor for Opioid Settlement Funds Planning and Capacity Building. 

MAC has a section of its website dedicated to opioid settlement use, and has conducted surveys of counties for the past two years. Some information from the presentation, conversation and website stuck with me and I thought it might be of interest to residents. I am providing bullet points  below (some of which include my thoughts)  in anticipation of Amy’s presentation:

 • Most counties begin by holding a public forum open to all residents and stakeholders, which may lead to the formation of a steering committee. Decisions on how funds are spent are reserved for county boards of commissioners. 

My hope is that the County Board will open the decision-making process for how funds are spent to all stakeholders in the community.

• The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health released five key principles to opioid settlement spending: Spend the money to save lives, use evidence to guide spending, invest in youth prevention, focus on racial equity, and develop a fair and transparent process for allocating funds. The racial equity focus has little bearing here beyond reaching out to everyone as hispanic (24.7 deaths per 100,000) and Indian (25.3) populations have been less affected than white (39 deaths per 100,000) populations. African-Americans were the most affected at 85 deaths per 100,000; recent censuses have shown a very small number of African-Americans in Leelanau County.

• Every commissioner I talked with from northern Michigan used an Request for Proposals (RFP) process to ensure all options within and outside of government are explored. In Leelanau, we tend to lack treatment and health facilities that would be natural beneficiaries. So innovative uses for the funding may result from RFPs received.

• The Leelanau County Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition was formed in 2018, long before opioid settlement monies were available. It has been mostly inactive of late, with no updates or minutes posted on the county website since 2022. To my knowledge, and I am a member from years ago, the organization has met once this year after the resignation of its long-time chair. Having a funding source may resurrect interest.

• Other possible beneficiaries within government include the Sheriff’s Office, which is looking at creating a school liaison deputy from within its current ranks. Other ideas could come from court systems, Benzie-Leelanau Health Department, and local schools. 

Amy is an expert in explaining what activities and groups would qualify — and which will not. I feel we should cast our search within and outside of government, inviting community members associated with nonprofits, churches and opioid addiction itself to lend their voices.

Counties are progressing quickly in laying out opioid settlement project plans. In 2023 some. 47% did not have plans. That ratio of inactivity fell to 23% in. 2024.

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Please consider attending our executive committee meeting, which begins at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 9, to lend your thoughts to the conversation. You may speak on the topic at the first public comment, and Amy is scheduled to talk early in the meeting,