Ben Garbacx/Daily Mining Gazette

HOUGHTON — The Houghton County Board of Commissioners met in regular session Wednesday. The board was considering engagement with the Varnum Law Firm regarding accounting questions between the county and Tri-County Public Defenders (TCPD), the nonprofit public defender office providing legal representation in Keweenaw, Houghton and Baraga Counties to those who cannot afford a lawyer. The board, however, tabled any action after TCPD agreed to provide invoices and other information to the county.

The boardroom of the Houghton County Courthouse was packed for the meeting, with members from various courts including 97th District Court Administrator and Head Magistrate Nickole Jollimore and 12th Circuit Court Judge Brittany Bulleit. Also in attendance was TCPD’s Deputy Public Defender Cameron Harrington and Administrator Ann Harris. All spoke of the importance of TCPD.

Jollimore read a letter from 97th District Court Judge Nicholas Daavettila, who could not attend the meeting due to obligations in Baraga County. Daavettila wrote he was once optimistic the matter could be resolved due to what he believed appeared to be confusion over accounting practices and timing of payments from the state of Michigan. He also stressed the importance of TCPD. “Since its creation in 2018, TCPD has dutifully served the citizens of Houghton County who would otherwise be unable to afford legal counsel on their own,” the Daavettila letter read. “Their commitment to justice and their service of the underprivileged in our community has benefited the Tri-County area in ways I cannot adequately express.”

The letter explained the services TCPD provides: “All persons charged with crimes that carry the potential of incarceration are entitled to the appointment of attorney if they cannot afford one on their own. For Houghton County, this means hundreds of defendants every year. The Michigan independent indigent defense standards require that the incarcerated defendants must see an attorney within a brief period after their incarceration. TCPD never fails to satisfy this requirement. Moreover, a county’s public defense system must have a person qualified to defend capital cases.”

Daavettila’s letter explained that lawyers who meet this standard are difficult to find in the U.P. and there is no satisfactory replacement for those within TCPD. The letter also said the district court is opposed to any personnel changes in the area of indigent defense.

In regards to the accounting questions, TCPD said they will provide invoices to the county and will provide anything more the county requests. However TCPD members were persistent they already provided all the invoices and information the county requested. Commissioner Glenn Anderson suggested a special meeting to be held at the end of the month to go over the invoices, as well as holding the check to TCPD until that special meeting. Once the board receives invoices from fiscal year 2018 to the present, they will be sent to the auditors from the Michigan Idigent Defense Commission .

Jollimore, however had concerns regarding with withholding the check. “It’s easy to push back a special date for the board. It’s not easy to recalender a bulk of our court dates because we don’t have indigent defense to represent these defendants in our county,” she said. “We would have to make sure people’s rights aren’t being violated because there are timelines with us as well.” Jollimore said the courts need to know if they are going to have attorneys in the courtrooms or not. Judge Bulleit agreed. “If we don’t have attorneys, you could have somebody sitting in jail who literally has nobody to represent them whose rights are being violated,” Bulleit said. “And we just really need to know as a court system, if we’re not going to have attorneys, because it will shut the system down, and we will harm people, and it will harm justice as a whole.”

In other action, the board approved three millage proposals for the August ballot. A renewal request of 2.1 mills for Canal View, a one-mill request for the Meals on Wheels Elder Nutrition Program and a 1.6 mill request for a new jail will all be before Houghton County voters in the Aug. 5 election. The jail millage will fund a 30 year $32 million bond with the goal of addressing problems of the current facility and provide a total of 70 beds to lessen the potential for overcrowding, a new sheriff’s office and a small courthouse for the district court.

The board also passed a motion of appreciation for the Drain Commissioner John Pekkala and his 17 years of service.

“He brought a wealth of experience up here and guided the county through three major dam improvement projects in Otter Lake, Twin Lakes and and Rice Lake, and [all] quite complicated, with special assessment districts being required. And so we will miss him,” Chairman Tom Tikkanen said.