(Hackel)

Just when it seemed that the long-running feud between
County Executive Mark Hackel and the Board of Commissioners had subsided, it
appears they’re headed for another noisy spat.

Let’s hope this is all in the family and doesn’t lead to
irreconcilable differences.

(Flynn)
Though the board scored a resounding court victory over
Hackel and now seeks to exercise its right, after the fact, to review and
approve government contracts, the executive’s office is ignoring — and, in fact,
belittling — the commissioners.

When the board met last week to retroactively scrutinize
124 contracts — worth $82 million — that were signed by Hackel during the
yearlong legal battle, the Macomb Township Democrat refused to send any of his
top aides or department heads to the board meeting.

At issue here is this: Is the Hackel administration
committed to government transparency, or is the board simply using the spending
and budgeting process to hold onto control of county government?

In 2011, the 13-member board passed a reasonable
ordinance and policy that gave them final approval over contracts and purchases
in excess of $35,000, and any construction projects with a price tag above
$100,000.

The ordinance/policy was vetoed by Hackel, the veto was
overridden by the bipartisan board, and then the executive filed a lawsuit. He
won at the circuit court but lost badly at the appeals court.

When the commissioners attempted to backtrack and get a
good look at all those financial agreements Hackel signed since he initiated
the legal tussle, their requests were ignored. Until April 30, when a computer
disc arrived at the board office at 4:50 p.m.

The disc contained more than 2,000 pages of electronic
material but it was not indexed, and no list was attached. As county board
Chairman Dave Flynn remarked at the time, it was like dumping a bunch of paper
documents in a box and forcing the commissioners to sort it all out.

If taxpayers believe that this is no more than an
internal struggle, a political soap opera playing out within the upper floors
of the county Administration Building, consider this: The electronic files
contained details about $60 million in sheriff’s patrol contracts for local
townships; $11 million in road improvements; several million dollars for jail
inmate meals and various services for those on probation or awaiting trial;
nearly $1 million in contracts for county Medical Examiner Daniel Spitz; and an
allocation of $550 per meeting attended for a contractor tied to sewer/drain
issues.

What’s all that about? We may never know because no one
from the administration was on hand to answer questions.

The April 30 “document dump” painted the commissioners
into a corner. Under its own ordinance, the board has 21 days to accept or
reject a contract once it is supplied by the executive’s office. That meant
that two board staffers and one part-timer spent countless hours for three
weeks sorting through the electronic material — all written in legalese — of
124 contracts.

When the commissioners met on the morning of May 21, they
were under the gun. Because of the 21-day deadline, they had just hours to
accept or reject each of the contracts that had been previously hidden from
them.

As a result, the commissioners declared a victory for
government transparency while they reluctantly, frantically approved — on a
retroactive basis — nearly all of the contracts because no information from the
administration was forthcoming.

Hackel and his top aides say that the contracts are a
done deal and no one has complained about any of the details within those documents.
Fair enough. But it’s also abundantly clear that Hackel, the former county
sheriff, and Assistant Executive Al Lorenzo, the former community college
president, have a long memory of hours-long county board meetings in the past
where commissioners berated department heads, micromanaged their agencies, and
engaged in political pettiness and dysfunction. The pre-charter board, for
decades, was a model of inefficiency.

Because the commissioners’ reputation precedes them,
Hackel and Lorenzo agreed last week that they did not want department heads
sitting for hours in a board meeting, waiting for their time at the lectern so
the commissioners could get their pound of political flesh. The subject up for
discussion was old contracts, some of which have already expired.

That’s somewhat understandable, but equally
dysfunctional. The executive branch of our new government treats the
legislative branch with disrespect and disdain.

We have now degenerated back to the tensions of early
2011, shortly after Hackel took office as Macomb’s first executive, when the
administration refused to allow department heads to appear before the board or
its committees. A bunker mentality in the Administration Building may soon
resurface, similar to the long period in 2012 when the board office on the 9th
floor and the executive’s office on the 8th floor never communicated, except
through emails.

Once again, it must be pointed out that the one major
flaw in the county charter is that it provided no oversight duties for the
board.

When Macomb voters approved the charter in 2009, they
expected two co-equal branches of government, power sharing, give and take,
checks and balances. Instead, they have a legislative branch that has been
marginalized — some say the board’s powers have been gutted.

When angry unionized workers for the Department of Roads
and the crew of jail guards wanted to vent about the new labor contracts
imposed upon them, they packed into Thursday’s board meeting. But the
administration, not the board, now controls labor negotiations and no public
forum exists to wage an effective protest.

Despite the board’s checkered history, Hackel and Lorenzo
need to put their personal sentiments aside and put a priority on transparency.
Flynn needs to pull back and engage in a collaborative approach. If not, the
same disputes that have plagued our new county government for nearly 2 ½ years
may bubble to the surface again in the coming weeks as board Chairman Flynn
proposes an ordinance that will mandate much more budget detail from the
administration — on pay, benefits, overtime, pensions — than has been provided
to the commissioners so far.

Watch for talk of a potential Hackel veto to percolate to
the surface soon.

In January, Flynn was selected as the new board chair and
he and Hackel promised that a new day had dawned. But the cooperative spirit
and the good will of the past four months disappeared in an instant when the
board asked to retroactively review and approve contracts, just as the court
said they should.

Flynn once talked of new personal bonds and mutual trust
but now, after the administration for months declined to supply the budget
details the board demanded, the Sterling Heights Democrat seems ready to dare
Hackel to veto another matter that appears to center upon government
transparency.

I would suggest that this should not be about dares and
bluster and I-Told-You-So’s.

Hackel and the commissioners may never get along. But
this issue should be about good government and maintaining an open door to the
taxpayers who foot the bills.