Internal conflict continues on the Bay Area Transportation Authority Board. Some Grand Traverse County Commissioners are raising concerns over the BATA board appointing it’s own members.
Grand Traverse County Commissioners met Wednesday to discuss removing two of it’s own appointed BATA board members as soon as next week. One of the board members threatened with removal, Richard Cochrun says the board is overstepping.
“I was on the BATA board to serve BATA, not serve the board of commissioners,” Cochrun admits.
Back in February BATA board members made the decision to appoint two new board members without first getting approval from the Leelanau or Grand Traverse County boards. Grand Traverse County Commissioner, Darryl Nelson, calls their plan concerning.
“There’s local, state and federal money, $11.7 million controlled by this board,” Nelson reports. “They want to appoint their own board members; they want to be their own boss. It’s kind of the fox guarding the hen house.”
Cochrun says he’s been completely blindsided. He believes some commissioners had ‘ample’ time to let them know they should bring their plan in front of the entire commission before it got to this point. He says the board would still have to answer to taxpayers as he points out their last millage passed with 60 percent approval from both counties. However, some commissioners in Grand Traverse County are still concerned how the board will be held accountable by taxpayers.
“We’re trying to control the structure of the BATA board and keeping the way it’s been since its inception. Elected officials appoint members to that board and let them make responsible decisions,” Nelson states.
Nelson says they want more input in the process before the BATA board makes decisions on its own.
“They have a meeting March 16, they could make some changes that day. Our meeting was going to be after that, so we moved it forward to March 15. It’s something we need to address now,” Nelson acknowledges.
County Commissioners decided to move up their next meeting to March 15 in order to possibly remove two of the existing board members because there’s concern that those members support BATA’s new plan. Grand Traverse County’s next meeting would open the door to appointing two new members before the BATA board takes any action.
