OTTAWA COUNTY, Mich. — It was a tense and at times eruptive scene at Ottawa County's Finance and Administration Committee meeting on Sept. 5 as commissioners engaged on multiple controversial issues.
One such issue was the ongoing debate over the budget proposal for the county's Department of Public Health.
The county's top health official, Health Officer Adeline Hambley, drew heat from commissioners in recent weeks for speaking out on different platforms on a request from County Administrator John Gibbs to reduce the department's general fund proposal to $2.5 million.
"At that point, we're looking at the Health Department closing four weeks after October and the public deserves to know," Hambley said on Tuesday. "It's a significant threat to public health."
In a rare move, Finance Committee Chair Gretchen Cosby requested during the discussion that Hambley answer commissioners' questions under oath. It came after some commissioners have asserted in recent weeks that claims made by Hambley that the department would close or cut programs are not true.
"There are 11 county commissioners," Cosby said. "There are, Adeline, and I would never ever vote to reduce the budget to that degree that would put the public health at threat."
In an Aug. 21 work session, some commissioners initially proposed the idea of the reduction to $2.5 million in general funds from the department's requested $6.4 million, preceding Gibbs' request to the department.
Hambley on Tuesday, however, did not back down.
In another rare moment for a public official, Hambley herself spoke during public comment.
"In some instances, you are literally taking services out of the mouths of children with these actions," Hambley said. "This is not a return to 'pre-COVID' budget levels, since it results in cuts to services and positions that existed pre-COVID."
Numbers released by the Health Department showed the new budget including over $4.3 million in general fund allocations.
Hambley has said that this new budget did not involve input of department leadership and, while meeting some minimum requirements, still reduces fiscal resources for certain programs.
While Hambley did make mention of such numbers she said she'd seen in the new budget proposal that were increased from Gibbs' initial request, documentation for the new proposal was not available for commissioners or the public in the meeting materials.
When asked when those may become available to view, Gibbs declined to specify an exact date.
It wasn't the only controversial topic commissioners took up.
In a separate vote, the committee signed off on removing its vice chair, Jacob Bonnema, from his leadership role.
Bonnema, a former member of the conservative political action group Ottawa Impact whose current members make up a majority of the Board of Commissioners, had similarly drawn backlash from commissioners after a tense exchange between himself and Gibbs that resulted in a complaint to the Ottawa County Human Resources.
"I exercised the rights I have as a county employee and as one of 11 members of this commission," Bonnema said. "I followed H.R.'s harassment policy, you made this public and you are the ones abusing the power with this vindictive retaliation."
"I think it has to deal with a pattern of behavior," Board of Commissioners Chair Joe Moss responded. "And like [Cosby] just said, members on this committee want a vice chair who they can trust and who they trust."
The meeting showed persistent divides among members of the community and county government as they work to identify some of the county's top priorities.
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