GT County Approves New Legal Counsel, Law Enforcement Changes, Facilities Study

Grand Traverse County commissioners voted Wednesday to hire Cohl, Stoker & Toskey to serve as the county’s new civil counsel – the first time that role will be held by an outside firm and not the county’s prosecuting attorney, due to increased workload demands in the PA’s office. Commissioners also approved law enforcement staffing changes – including adding a new community police officer in Long Lake Township – and approved a contract to create a joint facilities master plan with the City of Traverse City.

Legal Counsel
County commissioners and staff will soon turn to a law firm instead of the county’s prosecuting attorney for legal advice – including contract reviews, real estate transactions, opinions on rules and policies, ordinance drafting, court representation, and other legal matters – after commissioners voted to retain new civil counsel Wednesday.

Commissioners agreed in October to go through a request-for-proposals (RFP) to find new civil counsel, a role historically held by the county’s prosecuting attorney. According to a memo from County Administrator Nate Alger, while he and current Prosecuting Attorney Noelle Moeggenberg agree “there is a recognized benefit of having the elected prosecutor provide this service, the prosecutor's office is challenged in managing the obligation of reviewing and prosecuting increasingly challenging criminal cases.” Moeggenberg previously told The Ticker that the recent addition of body cameras at the Sheriff’s Office and Traverse City Police Department – while “the way of the future” – would significantly increase her department’s workload. That includes increased staff time for processing video evidence for discovery and handling Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from the media and public.

Moeggenberg’s department will continue to manage FOIA requests going forward. However, the rest of civil counsel responsibilities will now be handled by Cohl, Stoker & Toskey, one of three firms to bid on the RFP. The company – which also assists the county in labor negotiations through a separate contract – scored the highest among members of an internal review committee and also had the lowest bid. Cohl, Stoker & Toskey proposed a monthly retainer fee of $6,400, or $78,600 annually. The other two bidders – Foster Swift and CMDA – proposed hourly rates instead of monthly retainers that were estimated to run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars annually based on anticipated hours, Alger said.

Commission Chair Rob Hentschel was the sole ‘no’ vote against hiring Cohl, Stoker & Toskey (Commissioner Darryl Nelson was absent). While attorneys from the firm will virtually attend all commission meetings, the retainer covers just three in-person meetings per year (additional meetings will be charged at an hourly rate for in-person attendance). Hentschel said he wanted lawyers that would regularly attend meetings in person, and also thought the other two bidders should have a chance to offer counter-proposals with retainer fees so commissioners could compare apples to apples. However, Alger said all bidders had the option to present whatever fee structure they thought would best cover their services.

Commission Vice Chair Brad Jewett pointed out that even if commissioners want attorneys from Cohl, Stoker & Toskey to attend meetings in person regularly instead of virtually, those added costs would still be significantly lower than the other bid packages. Mattis Nordfjord, a shareholder at Cohl, Stoker & Toskey, said the firm specializes in municipal law and is “very, very efficient,” rarely encountering county legal issues it hasn’t handled before. That made Cohl, Stoker & Toskey comfortable in its lower proposed costs, Nordfjord said, because the firm can quickly address issues that would take other firms significantly longer to handle. “We have so much experience in this area,” he said.

Law Enforcement Changes
County commissioners approved staffing changes at the Sheriff’s Office that include a new community police officer for Long Lake Township and a full-time sergeant to oversee the recreational vehicle division (marine, snowmobile, and ORV).

Long Lake Township trustees unanimously agreed in December to add a CPO for the township. CPOs are largely township-funded – Long Lake would pay just over $92,000 annually for its officer – though the Sheriff’s Office also incurs $30,000-plus annually in expenses for the role. In addition to performing regular road patrol duties, CPOs work closely with schools and businesses in their assigned townships and focus on community outreach and education. There are currently 14 CPOs in Grand Traverse County: 5 in Garfield Township, 2 each in East Bay and Peninsula townships, and 1 each in Acme, Blair, Fife Lake, Green Lake, and Kingsley/Mayfield/Paradise.

According to the Sheriff’s Office, Long Lake Township’s CPO could assist with boat launch and township ordinance enforcement, foot patrols in the Natural Area trails, the township’s seasonal home program, elder fraud awareness training, DEA drug take-back, school lockdown drills and safety, building/business security evaluations, and rescue task force training with the fire department, among other responsibilities. Grand Traverse County will start billing Long Lake Township for its new CPO as soon as the position is filled, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Commissioners also approved changing a part-time seasonal recreational vehicle division supervisor position – a civilian position – to a full-time law enforcement sergeant’s position to oversee that department’s operations, including the marine, snowmobile, and ORV divisions. Drone team and K-9 operations will also be assigned to the position in the future. The sergeant will also be available to assist in the patrol division at other times of year outside the marine and snowmobile seasons. Alger said he was supportive of the staffing change, though he cautioned commissioners it will contribute to the Sheriff’s Office overall legacy costs – a factor that will need to be considered each year when considering how to divvy up the “pie of a budget” for the Sheriff’s Office. Commissioners voted 7-1 to support the proposal, with Commissioner Scott Sieffert opposed.

Facilities Plan
Commissioners voted 7-1 Wednesday – with Commissioner T.J. Andrews opposed – to hire consulting firm Tower Pinkster to create a long-term facilities master plan for buildings owned by Grand Traverse County and the City of Traverse City. At a bid of $98,750, the firm will review nearly 500,000 square feet of facilities, buildings, and courthouses owned by the county and/or city and provide a road map for both entities to best utilize their buildings into the future. The final report will include design concepts for various properties, including construction estimates for building new facilities or redesigning existing ones. That could include recommendations for the city consolidating its services at the Governmental Center on Boardman Avenue and the county consolidating services at its LaFranier Road campus. The city will share the costs of the contract based on its ownership stake in various buildings reviewed within the plan. Traverse City commissioners will also need to vote to approve the contract; they are expected to do so at their February 21 meeting.