Sumpter Township Board votes to take treasurer to court

At a special meeting June 10, the Sumpter Township Board of Trustees voted unanimously, with one absence, to take Township Treasurer Ken Bednark to court to have a judge tell him to do what they want.
Treasurer Bednark was absent from the meeting.
The one-hour meeting had one issue and was led by attorney Rob Young who did most of the talking.
Young said in a special meeting on June 2 the board ordered the treasurer to open the envelopes addressed to the water department.
In a June 8 memo to Supervisor John Morgan, Young said he has been told by the finance director that the township is receiving numerous phone calls from citizens wanting to know why their checks were not processed.
“This needs to be addressed sooner than later,” Young said, recommending the board call a special board meeting as soon as possible on this issue.
After a long presentation by Young, the board members present voted unanimously to order all township mail containing payments be delivered to the treasurer’s office where it will be opened and processed by the deputy treasurer and the treasurer’s office clerk.
Although it wasn’t on the agenda posted for the meeting, Young recommended the township take Bednark to court to seek a writ of mandamus on an emergency request to get a circuit court judge to tell Bednark to have his deputy open and process the water department payments at once.
Finance Director Elle Cole O’Connell said there should be a deadline for Bednark to comply and so they set 4:30 p.m. the next day, Thursday, June 11.
On Friday, Bednark said he got an email from Young at 9 a.m. Thursday morning with the command to comply by 4:30 p.m. and then two police officers opened the sealed gate to Bedark’s driveway and delivered the same order in a written letter.
Bednark said they didn’t have a warrant to enter his property, but he wasn’t going to complain, since it was a township issue.
Bednark said legally he is on solid, solid ground in refusing to have his deputy open the water department mail and there is case law on his side. He said he had talked to the Michigan Township Association attorney and another attorney who said it was not the treasurer’s job.
Deputy Treasurer Wendy Snook was the only employee in the treasurer’s office that the township deemed essential and she was overwhelmed with the work during the township’s closing for the pandemic. That work was usually done by three people, Bendark said.
Snook was doing tax settlement work and working with the auditor for the upcoming audit besides opening the night deposits and processing the payments. Bednark said it was the largest water bill cycle of the year.
He said often people don’t put the number of their account on the payment and this has to be found, and paperwork has to be printed out. Sometimes the payments are in cash. He said he has one payment in cash that has no name or account number included, so it is waiting to be identified.
Bednark said on May 27 he had directed Snook to put the unopened water payment envelopes together and give them to the clerk’s office where the water clerk now is located. The clerk had sent the envelopes back to the treasurer’s office and Snook had secured them in the vault.
After Young’s orders, Bednark said he decided Sumpter Township doesn’t need the bad press and his deputy can open the envelopes.
“While I don’t agree in principle, I’ll order you to open the mail,” Bednark said he told Deputy Snook after the orders from Young on June 11.
That’s when Deputy Snook told him she had been to her doctor and has a doctor’s letter that keeps her from going back to work until Monday, June 15. She then submitted the letter to the township.
Bednark said he called his part-time worker in the treasurer’s office, who was at home because she was deemed not essential, and she said she just had surgery and has a doctor’s letter saying she can’t come back to work until June 23.
She sent her doctor’s letter to the township on Friday, June 12.
“I ordered my workers to comply before the 4:30 p.m. deadline,” Bednark said. “I’m in compliance.”
Meanwhile, Bednark said he told Young that he would process the mail and open the envelopes as soon as possible, as demanded, and Young said he would proceed with the writ of mandamus request.
During the June 10 meeting, Young said he, can’t do litigation because of things he’s “going through,” referring to heart problems he told the board about in the past. [Young was unable to handle the lawsuit brought by mobile home park owner Sheldon Futernick, either, because of Young’s health problem.] “Another firm is available to do the writ,” Young said. “My goal is not to have this kind of nonsense going on.”
He said if the case is dismissed they’ll be back to where they were.
“We need to get this done,” Young said. “Time is critical.”
Trustee Tim Rush asked how long this would take and Young said it would take a few days to write it up, take depositions from those involved, and ask for an emergency hearing. He said sometimes there is a temporary resolution and sometimes full resolution.
“I would start delivering information to the law firm tomorrow,” Young said, noting he would do so before the deadline to get the work started.
Young recommended hiring Pentiuk, Couvreur & Kobiljak PC of Wyandotte. No cost was mentioned, but in a letter to Supervisor Morgan not included in the public packet, the cost is $175 per hour. A retention letter was due to be signed on Friday, June 12.
The board members present voted unanimously to hire the firm.
Trustee Matt Oddy suggested the finance director report to the board if the deadline is met.
“It’s an embarrassment to be involved in this,” Young said. “I don’t have another solution.”
In answer to one of the questions from Bednark the afternoon of Friday, June 12, MTA attorney Catherine Mullhaupt wrote: “It would seem to me that, under the current extraordinary conditions imposed by the coronavirus, that a township board would want to pull together to help when the usual staff are unavailable because of health issues or the board has not determined that it is best or possible to have them return to work. A township water/sewer system needs its payments to be deposited timely. No one person is required by law to literally open envelopes, and more than one person will likely be needed to get the job done. If board members or staff who have resumed work at the hall are able to assist temporarily, that may be a possible solution.”
The township did not answer its phone on Friday or reply to requests by email as to whether the legal action is moving forward. On Tuesday, Deputy Clerk Anthony Burdick sent this reply: “Please note that, on the advice of counsel and consideration for those involved, I cannot respond at this time.”