Raisin Township supervisor questions legality of recent meeting

A heated contention between Raisin Township Board of Trustee Larry Crittenden and Raisin Township Supervisor Jay Cavanaugh occurred during a special meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 2, that was called to discuss the resignation of Public Safety Director Scott Lambka and the future of the Public Safety Department.When Raisin Township Interim Superintendent Jim Palmer learned of Lambka’s resignation on Tuesday, Aug. 26, an email was sent out calling for a meeting of the township board. Under the direction of Township Attorney David Lacasse, that letter was rescinded, though a meeting of administrators did take place to inform them of Lambka’s decision. Cavanaugh raised concerns that the meeting could have been a violation of the Open Meetings Act (OMA). “Well, I got a memo from the clerk calling for a meeting that morning, which of course would be a violation of the Open Meetings Act,” said Cavanaugh.“Unless we were there, it’s not a violation,” Crittenden said. “It was an administrative meeting.” Cava-naugh wondered why some Trustees were there and asked why it wasn’t done as an official meeting. “It seems a little unusual, don’t you think so?” he asked.“Did you get one [email]? Then you were invited,” said Crittenden. “Did you get one on the Monday night public hearing? You were invited. You weren’t there. You didn’t even let us know you weren’t coming.”Cavanaugh was not at the public hearing on Monday, Aug. 25, set to discuss the proposed special assessment district. Crittenden chaired that meeting. “Mr. Crittenden. Mr. Crittenden. Mr. Crittenden. Stop. Stop,” said Cavanaugh, talking over the trustee.“No, I won’t stop,” Crittenden shot back.“Mr. Crittenden, you will stop.”“No I won’t.”“Yes. Mr. Crittenden. If you do not—you are not recognized. Stop. You barged in. You interrupted. Stop. And now you’re making personal attacks.”“It’s not a personal attack.”“Yes sir, you are making personal attacks. You are talking about something that is completely unrelated.”“No it’s not.”“Really?”The two continued talking over one another. Crittenden said Cavanaugh’s statutory duties are to attend meetings, cutting Cavanaugh off and citing the public hearing Cavanaugh did not attend. “Mr. Crittenden, final warning, stop.”The two went back and forth until Cavanaugh asked, “Mr. Lacasse, will you please explain to Mr. Crittenden that he needs to stop.”Lacasse did not address Mr. Crittenden’s conduct, instead speaking of how the events transpired leading to the issuing and rescinding of the trustee email that was sent and the subsequent meeting, which were a concern to Cavanaugh.“I was involved in the direction of what transpired that morning,” Lacasse said. “As you well know, just because a quorum of the board is together, it is not in and of itself a violation of the Open Meetings Act, unless there is discussion and deliberation that leads to a decision.”Lacasse said that an email was sent while talking to Palmer and Trustee and Raisin Township Clerk Betty Holdridge about how to notify the board and township administrators about Lambka’s resignation. Lacasse felt it was best to rescind the email to remove any possibility of an OMA violation, whether actual or implied. “The description that was given to me as to what that meeting was to consist of, in my opinion, it was not going to be a violation of the Open Meetings Act as long as there was no discussion among the board members and no deliberation of the board members during that meeting,” added Lacasse. “It’s getting awfully close, especially with us dealing with legal actions right now with the OMA,” said Cavanaugh. Currently, the township is facing a lawsuit alleging violations of the OMA and Freedom Of Information Act. Lacasse did not follow the supervisor’s conclusion.“In other words, I think the very appearance of being on the township property, in a town hall, sending it out to all the trustees—but then one trustee shows up. I don’t think I would want to have to be in a court of law having to deal with that,” Cavanaugh said. “I have no problem with the way things occurred that morning,” Lacasse said. “And I think they would be legally defensible”“I’ll trust your counsel,” Cavanaugh added. Holdridge and Township Treasurer and Trustee Kami Johnson were present at the meeting where Lambka’s letter was read to administrators. Trustee Dale Mitchell, who was absent from Tuesday’s special meeting, attended the August 26 meeting. The discussion then moved on to what to do with the public safety department and the public safety director’s position. “Now, we have an individual who was promoted to the highest ranking in the department, created at his advice and received a substantial pay raise, and now he’s leaving,” said Cavanaugh. “It’s a reasonable question to ask, is the turmoil still going on?” “There’s been a recession of stress in both departments,” said Palmer.In Lambka’s letter, he suggested that the Public Safety Department be dissolved, taking the police and fire departments back to operating as separate entities. However, he also said he would stay on to assist in whatever transition the board decides to do. Trustees wanted to move to fill the roles of police and fire chief, but Lacasse said that wasn’t a possibility because those positions no longer exist. They would need to fill the public safety director position. Trustee Debra Brousseau felt that the board should take its time on deciding what to do. She raised similar concerns when the position was originally created that the board should be deliberate in its decision-making. “We rushed into joining them to begin with as far as I was concerned,” Brousseau said. “I would like to see a little more discussion on this. We rushed right into it and now we’re back in the same situation.” She added that she would like to see both positions advertised to the public, if the board goes back to separated police and fire departments.“Maybe we should give someone else a chance to try,” suggested Cavanaugh. “Let’s advertise it at least.”“We have no need to rush in to hire a public safety director,” said Trustee Tom Hawkins. He did make a motion of promote the current fire, police and EMS assistant chiefs to full chiefs. “I don’t think it’s going to work,” said Cavanaugh. “We’re creating positions that don’t exist. We can’t do that.”Crittenden then made the motion to have assistant police chief Kevin Grayer serve as interim safety director and assistant fire chief Eddie Mathis as interim fire chief until the board makes a decision. Lacasse explained why that was not a possibility at that meeting. The board has to fill the director position or move to a split fire and police department system. The board made no decision about the public safety director or the future department. Lambka would help in an administrative, almost interim, capacity along with Palmer as overseer. The senior command officers already in place would continue to operate as they have been until the board makes a decision.