Members of the Board of Trustees at Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) will participate in annual refreshers on the state's Open Meetings Act (OMA) after being accused of violating the law by the Traverse City Record-Eagle, but have been cleared of any wrongdoing by an investigation of the college's legal firm, Smith Haughey Rice & Roegge.

In an ongoing series of reports in recent weeks, the newspaper accused board members of violating the state's OMA after it obtained emails it said showed board members engaging in “non-public deliberations” on whether to allow their meetings to be recorded. (The board voted to allow such recordings at its January 27 meeting.) OMA generally doesn't prevent two members of a board from discussing issues with one another by email, but does require that if a quorom of members becomes involved in deliberations, such discussions must take place in public.

OMA also, however, allows board members to engage in an “informal canvass” by email of fellow members on how they may vote on a particular issue. Smith Haughey Rice & Roegge found that this exception described the emails between NMC's trustees.

“We take our role in the community very seriously, and we took these allegations seriously,” NMC President Tim Nelson wrote in a letter to the NMC community Tuesday, after the board discussed the investigation Monday night. He noted that while Smith Haughey Rice & Roegge attorney Chuck Judson found that the board's emails "did not constitute a violation of the Open Meetings Act," because of NMC's “commitment to continuous improvement, we are going to take some action." Such action includes evaluating a policy to formalize board email communication protocols, planning annual formal refreshers on OMA for board members and making such refreshers available to other community boards.

In his letter, Nelson also responded to several demands Record-Eagle publisher Neal Ronquist and executive editor Mike Tyree had made of NMC in a March 26 letter outlining their allegations of OMA violations. In the document, the newspaper threatens it “may file a criminal complaint with the Grand Traverse County prosecutor and/or file suit in 13th Circuit Court” unless NMC officials agree to the following demands:

* Make an open acknowledgment of their OMA violations during a public meeting, and allow the Record-Eagle to approve the language of the acknowledgment before its publication
* Draft and approve a policy requiring the board's adherence to OMA and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) laws
* Agree to receive training from a recognized expert on state OMA and FOIA laws
* “Separate from the above-mentioned alternative to civil or criminal action, the Record-Eagle also demands the immediate resignation of NMC Board Chair Doug Bishop from that post," the newspaper's letter states

“In last night's meeting, Chairman Bishop stated...there were no circumstances, on any topic, where the board would seek the approval of the local paper before issuing a statement,” Nelson wrote in his letter Tuesday. “As to the second demand, Chairman Bishop said the board does adhere to all laws, and would not need to create a policy to do so. He also said that as someone elected by the public to serve on the NMC Board of Trustees, he would not dignify (the Record-Eagle's) final demand with a response.”

Nelson concluded his letter by noting that NMC had “complied with the multiple Freedom of Information Act requests, counsel's review of the materials have show no violation occurred, and we have taken formal steps to make our processes even better and stronger.”

“We, as a college, are ready to move on,” Nelson said.