CADILLAC — A Cadillac homeowner is pushing for change, asking the prosecutor to look into what he calls missteps with the Local Development Finance Authority.
The LDFA is in charge of clean-up in the Industrial Park area where PFAS were discovered recently in private wells.
Long time resident Brad Marine said he mailed that request to the Wexford County Prosecutor’s office over the weekend, hoping they will investigate violations he’s accusing the LDFA board of making.
“They need to hold those responsible accountable. I’m not one to sit back and condone this kind of behavior,” Marine said.
Marine said the LDFA board has several examples where they violated their own charter. He said the open meetings act was created to ensure that government bodies are transparent and are held accountable
“The whole purpose behind the Open Meetings Act is for the public to be able to watch our government officials work to make sure that they’re accountable and to make sure there’s transparency,” he said.
He said now he’s demanding accountability and transparency from people that were connected to the board back when these issues came up years ago.
“People have gotten sick. We could have been testing five years ago. We could have been very proactive. Instead of letting this chemical build up for the last five years, for people not knowing because they didn’t follow the Open Meetings Act,” said Marine.
He said after doing some digging, what he discovered was shocking.
He said over the past four years, a total of 11 meeting minutes have been posted to Cadillac’s website, when there should be at least 48.
Curious, he said he dug some more.
“I started printing out the actual minutes and it got even worse. So, these minutes that they’ve got listed and when they had these meetings were not posted for the public to see. So, in essence, they were holding meetings in secrecy with no public oversight,” Marine said.
He said he found other violations like LDFA members meeting without the number necessary to conduct official business, and another big violation, being non-compliant with the EPA.
“They’ve been out of compliance since 2020 with the EPA. They’re supposed to do quarterly testing. Their excuse was that the EPA guy or person had retired? And if it hadn’t been for Matthew, they probably wouldn’t be in compliance,” said Marine.
Matthew Schichtel became the new LDFA chair more than four months ago.
Marine said because the city manager, Marcus Peccia, was the former chair for years, and the city’s utilities director, Jeffrey Dietlin, is also the director of the LDFA board, he feels things were intentionally withheld from the city council, homeowners, and the EPA.
“The city council claimed that they didn’t know anything about it until 24, which makes sense, if they held these meetings in secrecy,” he said.
According to Marine, if the prosecutor declines to pick up the case, he will be filing the same request with the Michigan Attorney General next.
We reached out to city manager Marcus Peccia for comment. He declined our request for an interview but did give us this short statement.
“Mr. Marine, as anyone, has the right to file anything they wish to,” Peccia said. “That’s their right but I’m not going to litigate these assertions by way of the media.”