ESCANABA — Former Airport Manager Andrea Nummilien may be given access to more documents related to an investigation into her activities at the Delta County Airport after all. The Delta County Board approved reversing one of her Freedom of Information Act denials and pursuing legal review of emails she may have been wrongly denied.

Two separate FOIA appeals from Nummilien were discussed during Thursday’s special meeting, the first of which was for the names of the people interviewed by the county’s attorney at the time of the investigation, Scott Graham, as well as copies of notes, recordings, or summaries of the interviews. That FOIA was initially denied because the county said the documents did not exist, however it was later revealed that the documents were in Graham’s possession.

“Reversing the denial makes the most sense to me because the denial was based on that they don’t exist and that’s not — we don’t think that’s true. We believe they do exist; they’re in a different office,” said Commissioner Christine Williams.

At a meeting late last month, County Administrator Ashleigh Young, who serves as the FOIA coordinator for the county, told the commissioners that the documents were in Graham’s possession and that it was her understanding that Graham “owns his notes.” Williams, who has a history with FOIA as a requester, noted at that time that the 2020 Michigan Supreme Court case “Bisio v. City of the Village of Clarkson” established that documents created by an attorney working for a public body is part of that public body’s record and is subject to FOIA.

The county then set our to retrieve the records and evoked a ten-day extension permitted by law for the county to respond by either reversing the denial, upholding the denial, or reversing the denial in part. That extension will run out at 4 p.m. Friday, prompting Thursday’s 2 p.m. special meeting. Nummilien was not in attendance.

The board voted unanimously — with the exception of Commissioner Keli van Ginhoven, who has recused herself from all votes related to Nummilien due to her friendship with the former airport manager — to reverse the decision. However, there was some discussion as to how long the county had to get the documents to Nummilien.

Williams said it was her understanding that the motion to reverse the denial full-filled the county’s obligation as far as meeting the deadlines, which would allow Graham to produce the documents and have them reviewed for exemptions before providing them to Nummilien. Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Beth Wickwire was present at the FOIA-focused meeting, but said she was unable to answer any questions that were posed about how long the county actually had to provide documents under FOIA or if the reversal was sufficient.

The only other item on the agenda Thursday was a request to seek a second opinion from an attorney from the Michigan Municipal Risk Management Authority on a small selection of emails that were not provided to Nummilien under a separate FOIA request because they were deemed attorney client privilege and exempt from FOIA. The request sought emails between Graham, Former Delta County Board Chair Dave Moyle, and Nummilien’s sucessor at the airport, Robert Ranstadler, who has resigned and left the airport.

“I went through all the emails that were exempted, and I do not agree that those are all exempt,” said Williams.

Through the course of discussion it was revealed that the emails in question were in some way related to the Delta County Prosecutor’s Office. Young said she sought opinions from the prosecutor’s office — which also serves as the county’s primary legal counsel — on some of the emails that were deemed exempt but not the emails in question.

“What Ashleigh is saying that some of those she got a legal opinion on but some she made her own decision on, and so, when we met yesterday and I asked her about, ‘what was your decision? How did you come to the decision on these things?’ at that point I said, ‘I feel like we need a second opinion on these emails,'” said Williams.

Williams specifically said she was seeking an opinion from an attorney from the MMRMA because of a possible conflict of interest from the prosecutor’s office. Commissioner Patrick Johnson, however, balked at the proposal, saying the commission should trust the prosecutor’s office to make a decision on whether or not it had a conflict. He also argued it should be Nummilien who pressed the county to release the documents.

Williams and other members of the commission were quick to point out that the next step — and the step Nummilien would use to pressure the county into releasing the documents — was an appeal before a circuit court judge. The judge would then review the documents and determine if they were properly exempted. If the county acted in error, it would not only owe Nummilien the documents but attorney’s fees and punitive damages.

After some discussion, Johnson and the other commissioners reached a compromise: send the emails to the prosecutor’s office for review. If the office deemed it had a conflict of interest, then the documents could be immediately forwarded to the MMRMA for their opinion.

The clock for that FOIA appeal is also ticking, with the county required to make a decision by 4 p.m. Tuesday. In order to meet the deadline, the county set a special meeting for 9:15 a.m. Tuesday. The regular county meeting will take place at 5:15 p.m. that day as originally scheduled.