Advantage or conflict? Oakland County senior leader’s private business deals in question<\/a><\/p>\nHe also says local governments were promised an analysis of the actual 2025 costs to see if the county really needed that full 6% on top of CPI increase.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrankly, they have kept us out of this process and they have not done, again, what they said they would do,\u201d Barnett said. \u201cThey promised us they would have information to us in November with a true-up, what these costs actually were, because they cannot charge us more for the service than it cost them. So they’re supposed to go through and say, did we guess right or did we guessed wrong? They did not do that in November, December, January \u2014 I asked for an update. They promised me it’d be early February. Then the CFO from the county said February 23rd, we’ll have that information to you,\u201d Barnett said.<\/p>\n
He says he still does not have the information.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow long have you been asking for a meeting with Executive Coulter?\u201d Catallo asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince November of 2024, when this first happened,\u201d said Barnett, who provided multiple text messages with Coulter to back that up.<\/p>\n
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Chris Barnett\/ WXYZ<\/p>\n
Barnett says he\u2019s asked Coulter at least eight times for a meeting to get the actual costs for policing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have not performed. They point fingers at each other. Woodward says it’s fiscal services who reports to the county executive. The county executive’s team, Fiscal Services, says Dave Woodward, the chair the board, has to bless the rates,\u201d Barnett said. \u201cI’ve been threatened and I frankly am concerned about some of the opportunities and funding sources that come from the county if they will be harmed by me speaking out. But that said, I’ve had dozens of local leaders on both sides of the political aisle reach out to me and thank me for standing up. Because that’s the way I was raised.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barnett says now he\u2019s been forced to file a Freedom of Information Act request with Coulter\u2019s staff to get access to the public records that show the actual cost for his sheriff\u2019s services.<\/p>\n
The township supervisor says being forced to file a FOIA does not match Coulter\u2019s recent announcements that the county will be more transparent following several 7 Investigations about county spending and top leaders having side jobs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is rising frustration. Someone is not doing their job. And at the end of the day, there are two people that are leading the county: A county executive, Dave Coulter, and a county board of commissioners, Dave Woodward,\u201d Barnett said. \u201cAnd at end of day, if their directors and their direct reports are mired with controversy and other jobs and other things, it’s their responsibility to resolve those issues and hold people accountable. And I don’t see that happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Late last week, Barnett says Coulter told him he could either have his meeting with Coulter and his team to go over the actual sheriff\u2019s contract costs, but only if Barnett withdrew his FOIA request.<\/p>\n
Saying that crossed a line, Barnett said he wanted the public records request fulfilled. Shortly after that, Coulter canceled a previously scheduled meeting that had been set for Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
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Chris Barnett\/ WXYZ<\/p>\n
Executive Coulter\u2019s Communications Director released this statement to us:<\/p>\n
\u201cOakland County values its relationship with Orion Township, including its longstanding contractual arrangement for the Oakland County Sheriff\u2019s Office to provide law enforcement services to keep the township\u2019s residents safe. <\/p>\n
“After a thorough review of prior contracts between the county and communities for law enforcement services provided by the Oakland County Sheriff\u2019s Office, the county determined that the rates that had been paid by those communities were lower than the county\u2019s costs for providing the services. This meant that in effect, communities with their own police departments were subsidizing costs for those which contract with the county those services. In 2024, the county Board of Commissioners adopted new rates to more closely align with anticipated costs.<\/p>\n
“The County Executive never threatened Supervisor Barnett. He offered to provide the contractual rate information in either a meeting or a FOIA request and the supervisor chose FOIA, as is his right. Either way, the county has offered him the opportunity to discuss the information provided once he has reviewed it. While the supervisor continues to make baseless accusations, the county stands ready to provide him with all the financial information used to help set the rates.”<\/p>\n
The 7 Investigators asked Recinto why the county is saying it\u2019s ready to provide the information but instead canceled the Tuesday meeting, where the information was supposed to be provided. We have not received an answer to that question.<\/p>\n
If you have a story for Heather Catallo please email her at hcatallo@wxyz.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(WXYZ) \u2014 For months, the 7 Investigators have been looking into how your tax dollars are being spent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[14634,113510,143,904,113511,145,144,14635,14636,4552,14637],"class_list":{"0":"post-256706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-heather-catallo","9":"tag-investigating-oakland-county","10":"tag-oakland","11":"tag-oakland-county","12":"tag-oakland-county-leaders","13":"tag-oakland-headlines","14":"tag-oakland-news","15":"tag-ross-jones","16":"tag-the-investigators","17":"tag-wxyz","18":"tag-wxyz-investigations"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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