County Commissioners Talk Camp Greilick Oil Agreement, Budget, Flock/Law Enforcement

On top of a tense session with County Treasurer Jamie Callahan Wednesday, Grand Traverse County commissioners tackled a busy agenda that included an agreement to protect Camp Greilick from disturbances from oil recovery work in the area, discussion on the 2027 budget, and law enforcement topics including Flock cameras and Governmental Center security.

Camp Greilick 
Oil and gas producer ReefWorks LLC has filed a petition with the state to recover oil in East Bay Township in an area that includes Camp Greilick (pictured). Though the county has little sway over the planned work, commissioners approved a memorandum of understanding that “protects Camp Greilick from any disturbances,” according to Deputy Administrator Chris Forsyth.

Commissioners reviewed the agreement the same morning the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy held its hearing on the ReefWorks petition. Forsyth explained the required notification period to the county is brief under state rules. “We’re at the mercy of those rules,” he said. Staff engaged attorney Joseph Quandt of Kuhn Rogers, who specializes in such matters, to help negotiate an agreement to “protect our property, our investment at Camp Greilick, from any oil drilling activity that may be proposed at our park,” Forsyth said.

The agreement states that ReefWorks “does not anticipate the need to install any new facilities, infrastructure, or wells on the county land.” ReefWorks is not allowed to proceed with any surface operations or disruptions on Camp Greilick property without prior written approval from the county. In a confidential opinion from Quandt that commissioners voted to make public, he explained that ReefWorks has requested “enhanced recovery” of oil and gas by using water or dry gas to push those underground resources to an extraction point.

“This may be a poor analogy, but think of this as a sponge, saturated with oil and with a straw sticking out at opposite ends,” he explained. “If you push water or air through the sponge from one of the straws, the saturated oil moves through the sponge to the other end of the sponge and the oil can be extracted more easily from the other straw at the opposite end of the sponge. Basically, in this scenario, the petition defines the size of the sponge and the number of straws that can be inserted into the sponge and where the water or gas can be pushed into the sponge to aid in the recovery of the oil.”

Quandt said that “while allowing for more convenient or comprehensive extraction of hydrocarbons drives a policy discussion beyond the legal issues presented in this memorandum, the petition does not appear to necessarily create additional threats to the environment that are not already present in typical hydrocarbon extraction operations.” Vice Chair TJ Andrews said she had a “lot of concerns” about the proposal but that in terms of being able to influence proceedings, “the law doesn’t give us a lot of leg to stand on.”

Because the resources are thousands of feet underground, Quandt said the planned work “would not likely result in any additional threat to fresh surface water, groundwater, drinking water or similar threats beyond the normal risks of what these types of operations typically present.”

Budget
Commissioners discussed the county’s proposed $59.3 million budget for 2027 ahead of a more detailed study session planned next Wednesday on the topic.

County Administrator Nate Alger compiled a report reflecting 72 individual budget requests from various departments in five categories: personnel, vehicles, facilities, capital projects, and IT improvements. After review by finance and discussions with department directors, that list was whittled down to 40 and will help commissioners narrow and prioritize upcoming expenditures. Recommended capital projects next year range from the replacement of Oleson Bridge to Camp Greilick window and septic repairs to extensive HVAC improvements at the courthouse and Hall of Justice.

On the personnel front, commissioners discussed several job vacancies that seem to go perpetually unfilled and lock up space in the budget. Those include positions that are difficult to fill nationwide, such as corrections officers. Commissioners requested a report on all positions that have been vacant longer than 90 days for consideration for potential reductions or eliminations in the budget. Commissioners also discussed on updating a fleet management strategy and analyzing the tradeoff of owning versus leasing vehicles for various county departments.

Law Enforcement
Finally, commissioners Wednesday approved two motions related to law enforcement. After extensive public comment in which multiple commenters urged the board to remove Flock cameras from Grand Traverse County, commissioners approved a motion to request the Grand Traverse Sheriff’s Office to present a report by the end of the year with data and information on its use of Flock cameras. There’s been increasing backlash nationwide to the use of the public surveillance cameras over privacy and misuse concerns, with some communities – including Westland and Milford in Michigan – recently terminating their contracts with Flock Safety.

Commissioners also approved a motion to have a safety committee prepare a proposal for consideration that would have law enforcement staff the first floor of the Governmental Center for security. County and city employees have repeatedly raised concerns about safety on the first floor, citing an open-floor layout and lack of metal detectors and armed guards. Any plan would likely go to both county and city commissioners for approval and be covered under a cost-sharing agreement between the two municipalities.