Not all of the emails belonging to the Grand Haven Board of Light and Power (BLP) board member Anderea Hendrick, requested via FOIA, will be released. During the February 29, 2024, BLP board meeting, Attorney Ron Bultje stated, (1:07:07) “There are some documents that aren’t being released. There aren’t very many of the thousands of pages we reviewed, but there are some documents that are not being released.”
On August 16, 2023, then BLP General Manager Dave Walters submitted a FOIA request for emails and text messages mentioning him by name. The FOIA request was approved on September 6, 2023, but not fulfilled until February 29, 2024. After receiving the request for her texts and emails, BLP board member Andrea Hendrick hired a personal attorney. This action resulted in significant costs for the BLP and delayed the fulfillment of the FOIA request.
Hendrick’s personal attorney Sarah Howard worked with Grand Haven City and BLP Attorney Ron Bultje to resolve the matter. They initially reviewed Hendrick’s emails and determined a significant number could be public record and agreed to release a subset of the emails. During the February 29, 2024, meeting, attorney Bultje talked about the reasons the release was delayed, explaining there was a dispute over who would be responsible for covering Hendrick’s personal attorney fees. It was ultimately determined that the BLP would cover her expenses through indemnification. “The request was made in the latter part of August. By the latter part of September I had from Ms. Howard, an analysis of all the documents and her initial thoughts on them. By the end of [] October was my response to Ms. Howard. We then went through, basically, a three-month dead period where there were two insurance claims that were submitted, reviewed, considered, and rejected. And then we ended up with an indemnification discussion here that took two meetings, or two months [] before there was a decision on indemnification.”
(58:25) Bultje also justified the delay in fulfilling the FOIA request by blaming the requestor. He stated, “I think there has been a lot of misunderstanding, misstatements, letters to the editor, comments in the paper, that have just missed the boat on what’s been going on. First of all, I want to make clear, this has not been the case of a board member improperly using a Gmail address. [] The problem is nothing illegal, but the request was so broad as to not be limited to BLP activities, it was a request of anytime, in any email, or text, where any board member mentioned the name of certain people.”
After Bultje explained that the request was too broad, he explained how in an effort to maintain transparency, he increased the breadth of the request. “In reviewing these documents, my intent was to interpret the FOIA broadly. I interpreted it more broadly than the actual terms of the document. I included multiple things that could have been subject to attorney client privilege.”
The board briefly discussed using BLP issued devices to execute BLP business as a complicating issue related to this FOIA request. Attorney Bultje responded, “I want to be clear. I’m not sure we are understanding each other. There is not a mixture of a BLP person using personal devices for BLP business. That’s not the issue. It did not happen.”
Board Chairman Mike Westbrook sought clarification. “My understanding is that Andrea sent documents from her work laptop, to her personal laptop, and then forwarded them on. Is that not true?”
In a statement that some may describe as gaslighting, attorney Bultje answered, “Public documentation may have been used on a personal device, but not for a BLP purpose.”
Attorney Bultje explained that elected officials are entitled to lead personal lives that may include political activism. “Public officials still have a personal life and a political life unrelated to BLP lives. So, no; the fact that a BLP person may be involved in a political activity unrelated to being on the BLP board, that doesn’t make all of the political activity necessarily a public record, and even if it does, then there is the first amendment right for political expression and the protection that goes along with the first amendment and the inability of public officials to say open up everything you’ve ever done politically, I want to see it.”
He then got more specific and suggested the emails not released were related to Hendrick’s involvement with the BLPCCC. “A couple of you; one of you, two of you; have been involved in activities involving the BLP, but unrelated to the BLP board and BLP business. For example, the charter election. The charter election involves political activities, first amendment rights; So, there were thousands of documents that needed to be reviewed to determine, are they public records, or are they just simply personal records that happened to mention the name of somebody. If they are public records, are they exempt under attorney client privilege? Are they exempt under first amendment rights?”
Bultje continued, “First amendment includes freedom of political expression and political activities as involvement in the charter election, strategy sessions among BLPCCC members; those aren’t subject to FOIA request.”
To complete what I considered to be a master class in gaslighting, Bultje failed to address the glaring conflicts of interest present in this situation. Emails have already been produced that show Hendrick, a sitting board member for the BLP was actively working with the BLPCCC, an organization fundamentally opposed to the very existence of the BLP in its present form. In addition, Hendrick had exchanged emails with Grand Haven City Council Member Karen Lowe, expressing a mutual desire to see General Manager Dave Walters removed from his position. In this case, activities related to the BLPCCC directly relate to the business of the BLP, which should make the requested emails public record.
Hendrick, claiming to be a victim and an upstanding elected official stated, “We did spend a lot of money. We spent a lot of time. I spent time away from my children running around compiling hours and hours of emails to ensure that every single thing listed on this very specific words; This was an onerous and egregious request, but because I wanted to ensure that I was fully transparent, I did go through every one of my emails; and then to ensure that something that wasn’t a public document, because there’s a lot of people’s names on these, that didn’t intend, when they sent some random email to some other random person and CCed me on it, even though I never responded, all of a sudden their opinions, their thoughts, would then be public. [] I’m not done. So as much as you want to make this out like we spent a lot of money, we spent a lot of time, I feel that I did what was right here. I went above and beyond to ensure that everything I do is available to the public.”
Now that the BLP has the emails, they can be released. When discussing the timeline for releasing the emails, Andrea Hendrick commented, “I intend on publishing everything on my own for anyone.”
Board President Mike Westbrook responded, “Why didn’t you do that before we spent all this money?”
This entire situation is sad and somewhat comical. It appears an attorney was hired to both delay and prevent the release of emails that do indeed appear to be public record. Although elected officials are entitled to some degree of privacy and to be politically active, their political activities should not conflict with the duties of the office for which they were elected. If there is a conflict, it would seem their correspondence, whether on a board issued or personal device, should be deemed a public record.
Andrea Hendrick stated, “because there’s a lot of people’s names on these [emails].“ I guess Andrea does not understand that it is a common practice to redact the names of private citizens in FOIA requests. The content of the email discussions can still be provided with redacted names.
My final questions are these:
How many Grand Haven city employees and elected officials were included in the BLPCCC strategy planning emails?
Is preventing embarrassment to those in question #1 the real reason an attorney was hired to handle this FOIA request on behalf of Andrea Hendrick?