Shiawassee Drain Case – Randy Colbry Presentation

On March 20, 2007, Prosecutor Randy Colbry speaks about the AG Opinion, and attempts to persuade the Board of Commissioners to sue Bernie Butcher and Gary Holzhausen for the fees they received.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Some quick, uncollected, unedited observations (emphasis is mine):

1. he disagrees with attorney general opinion regarding what a ‘mistake’ is
2. the attorney general letter didn’t reference anything factual
3. the information provided to the commissioners is not complete
4. the criminal issue is done; the board must decide what to do about the fees that were taken
5. one thing that colbry agrees with ag opinion on is that there is no record of authorization to take fees
6. due to #5, the county has the right to seek reimbursement
7. colbry says the clerk was able to tell him that the fees were never approved (5:40 into video 1)
8. no indication that anyone ever told butcher that taking a fee was improper. (“we simply don’t have that information“)
9. difference between butcher and holzhausen is that holzhausen took fees for waivers
10. ag is not indicating the drain commissioner had authority to charge these fees
11. these were special revenue accounts where $ was paid under signature of elected official, which had control over that account (board didn’t have control of the account) ms braid has changed that practice (:38)
12. investigation indicates Holz was told “you cannot do this” .. Carroll overheard Buginsky tell holz he had to get permission to charge for waivers (documents)
13. Holz did not voucher for waiver fees until after Buginsky left office
14. fees that were “legitimately authorized by board action”, those inspections were done, fees were paid, “county isn’t, per se, out that money” (3:17)
15. butcher can make contention that there was some kind of implied clause .. “obviously there was some awareness that this was happening” (4:28)
16. board has a duty to recover those fees
17. there’s an argument to be made that all of these fees should be returned because no one who has looked at this has come up with any authorization
18. (7:14) everybody gets the waiver for free, “as far as i know that’s still true”
19. Holz asks to speak at 7:50
20. At some point in video 2 (forgot to mark the time) Colbry says that if a soil erosion permit is not required by a site, then the soil erosion statute does not apply. Therefore the fee schedule for the soil erosion compliance does not apply. Therefore you cannot charge for waivers.