SPIL Executive Committee Meeting.
February 14, 2020.

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Who is here so far?
Mairead.
You are going to San Francisco?
Yes.  I'm ready to start spring break too.
That's perfect.
Good morning, this is Steve.
Good morning.
Steve: we have Yvonne and Mairead on the line and Joe Harcz.  I don't have Aaron yet.
Steve: I think that's the only one we are still waiting on then. Tracy can you send him a quick text to see if he remembered the meeting?  Sure.
Steve: Thank you.
Joe: Steve have you got IRS990 for the last year?
Steve: No, we don't, Joe.  It is being prepared.
Joe: Thought it was supposed to be submitted 31st.
Steve: We have an extension.
Joe: How did that get done.
Steve: It's being done by our auditor under contract.
Joe: How did the extension get done?
Steve: By our auditor to the IRS.  
Tracy: Steve, he hasn't responded yet.
Steve: We will sit tight and see if he dials in.  Is there a way that you can try to call him Tracy or is your cell phone tied up?
Tracy: Yeah, my cell is tied up.
Steve: All right, I will drop off and call him now and then I will log right back in.
Tracy: Okay.
Steve: This is Steve, Aaron is calling in right now.
Tracy: Okay.
Is the CART provider here?
Tracy: Yes.
Joe: Thank you.
Aaron: Hello, everyone, I'm sorry.
Hi Aaron.
Hi Aaron.
Steve: I think we have everyone present now Tracy if you want to do the roll call.
[roll call]
Tracy: Sure. Aaron Andres. Are you there, Aaron?
Aaron: Present, can you hear me?
Tracy: Yes.
Not very well.
Tracy: Yvonne.
Here. Mairead Warner.
Here.
Tracy: You have a quorum.
Steve: Hey Aaron, if you don't have the agenda in front of you, Tracy can read through it for you?
Aaron: I'm pulling it up right this second, so give me a minute.
Steve: All right.
Aaron: We need a motion to approve the agenda as presented.  Did everyone have a chance to look it over?
Yvonne: I will move that we approve the agenda.
Aaron: Is there support?
Mairead: I support.
Aaron: Tracy, any discussion, I'm sorry?  Hearing none, could you call the roll call vote.
[Roll call vote]
Tracy: Motion passes.
Aaron: I forgot to ask if anybody has an accommodation request, but if anybody does, they should let us know. Public comment, members of the public will be given five minutes to speak and they should use this time to address the council and not use this talk to talk amongst themselves or of that nature. If we need to, we can do another time, otherwise, I'm going to open the floor to public comment.
Joe:  Joe Harcz. Hello? Hello?
Aaron: Go ahead, sir.
Joe:  This is Joe Harcz.
Aaron: Yes.
Joe: For all the problems that have faced the SILC over the past several years have been because we have been violating law.  Everything has happened.  I feel like I'm in groundhog's day.  We violated the FOIA and The Open Meetings Act where determinations were made behind the scenes and that let to Richard Hart lake and the embezzlement and to the MCRS fiasco that we are still out of money on, and that led to all kinds of unauthorized appropriations and no competitive bids.  Now we are like groundhog's day where we are going in full circle where we had some reforms and people are saying, o well the FOIA doesn't apply, or it does, or we are going to go get an opinion.  That's crap.  Garbage.  You know it applies and ladies and gentlemen, I will be taking legal action if it continues.  It is a criminal offense a misdemeanor to violate the opening meetings agent and it is a criminal offense, a misdemeanor with fines to knowingly violate The Freedom of Information Act.  You Aaron and you Steve were told last year by ACL and ILA at the SILC that the council ‑‑ were the same and the same laws apply.  You have been informed of case law by all these determinations and these attorney general reports, but this goes back to the same globally gook that Sara Grivetti put forth last year.  Oh, we are a nonprofit or we are part of the governor's office and it doesn't apply.  I'll tell you what, ladies and gentlemen, that has been disproven over and over and over again.  Last year at this time everybody said they were going to go to Whitmer when she came into power and write her a letter on the whole thing, never was done.  We have had major roll over, over and over again in our membership because of these abuses and because of the abuse of power.  We got Alex Star what wasn't term limited off of this board.  He was approved the same time as you and the same time as Mairead.  By the time this executive order came in ‑‑ he was removed prior to his term limit.  This is an outrage.  You are public officials and deal with public friends and Ms. Fleener just because you think The Open Meetings Act or FOIA doesn't apply you are putting your statements and to disregard the case law, the existing attorney general's stuff that Eleanor and I have sent you is in out phage.  This is a public body.  This entity is a public body, and this executive committee cannot make final agency determinations without approval of the full board at public meetings.  The purposes of the FOIA and Open Meetings Act are to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse and that's on going.  We had the problems with our last bill because we did it all in secret, and now you are doing it again in secret, you are aren't even looking at the executive directors of governor Whitmer in terms of openness and transparency and you are continuing to violate the law.  Every time I send out a request for information and I get no response, that's a violation.  That's a violation and you Mr. Andres, have ‑‑ in your comments about Patricia sterling and all that access have become a part of the problem.  You continually want to deal in secret.  You were on the board when many of these things happen.  So were you, Steve, you were on the SILC when Richard Hartwig was brought in ‑‑ without any approval Rodney Craig and Sara Grivetti.  You people cannot continue to do this, and decisions are made behind closed doors.  Sunshine is what prevents waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption.  Transparency should compete the minimal requirements of the Open Meetings Act and the FOIA according to the executive directives I have sent you.  Transparency should exceed, and that goes to the roll.
Aaron: Thank you Mr. Harcz, your time is up. Is there anyone else that would like to give public comment?  Okay, moving on to establishing the agenda for the March 6 board meeting.
Steve:  This is Steve, I just have a couple suggested edits to the agenda.  Under new business, number one SILC audit, I would like to ALG tax solutions as the auditor and then also put in a motion to receive and file the audit and audited financial statements and a second motion to approve the submission of the form 990 to the IRS.  The last suggested edit would be item 3 new business where it says executive session, it should say closed session‑personnel evaluation, and those are my only two suggested edits to the agenda.
Aaron: Okay, anyone else have any changes or suggestions?
Steve, can you hear me?
Steve:  Yes, I just was on mute.
Yvonne: Yeah, me too.  The kind of update on the SPIL plan, that's different committee report.  Is that different than the SPIL committee report, right?  That's the monitoring portion?
Steve:  It is.  And for the SPIL writing team, I will have an update in my staff writing report under reports number one.
Yvonne: Okay, great, that was my only question.
Steve:  Great.
Yvonne: Your suggestions and recommendations make sense.  It is best practice to have the auditors to have the staff of the nonprofit leave and let the auditors have a few minutes to be able to talk without the people doing the work in the room.  I don't know if that's necessary, were you planning on doing that or no?
Steve: Generally, in the past when we have had our auditors come in, they have just done it in open session and presented the audit.  I hope to have a draft of that prior to the meeting that will go out with the council packet and be posted on the website, so everyone will have a chance to look at that, and then they will verbally go through the audit and audit financial statements and provide opportunity for council members to ask questions they may have.
Yvonne: Right. Given that the meetings are public is a little bit different than a nonprofit I suppose, so that makes sense. Those are my only questions.
Steve: Great.
Aaron: Okay, do we have a motion to approve set agenda?
Steve: A motion to approve the business meeting agenda as modified.
Aaron: Okay.  Is there a motion to approve the agenda as modified?
Yvonne: I move to approve the agenda as modified.
Aaron: Is there support?
Mairead: I support.
Aaron: Any discussion? Tracy, could you call the roll?
[roll call vote]
Tracy: Aaron.
Yes.
Tracy: Yvonne.
Yes.
Tracy: Mairead.
Yes.
Tracy: Motion passes.
Aaron: Great.  Bylaw work group update.
Steve: This is Steve, do you want me to take both of those, I can give a quick update on both bylaws and the executive order.  We are receiving assistance from the AG's office with our bylaw revisions, I had a chance to meet with them and present the bylaws in their original form, and then also the bylaw revisions that the bylaw work group made, the most recent submissions and submitted both to their office, I explained the current makeup of SILC with the council being housed in the governor's office and the nonprofit arm and the bylaws are currently written as corporation bylaws, and that our desire is to operate as kind of one unit going forward and seeking their assistance on that.  I also submitted our current executive order and the order marked up ‑‑ to be consistent with current federal law and language and so both of those documents are in the AG's office now that I have a contact there and they will be assisting us with that going forward.
Aaron: Wonderful.
Steve: So as soon as I hear back from them once they have had a chance to digest that, hoping to get a working meeting with them, and then we will pull in members of the executive committee as necessary as we work through that, so I'm really hoping to have the bylaws, their input on it to bring back to the work group, and then the executive order to bring back to the full council any modifications they would make to it and ultimately with the governor issuing a new executive order based on the new recommendations to that, so that is where we stand with both of those items right now.  Any questions?
Yvonne: I don't have any questions no.
Aaron: Thank you Steve for your hard work and update on that.
Steve: Absolutely.
Aaron: Now we are down to public comment again.  Any members of the public that would like to speak, same rules apply as before, so take it away whoever wishes to give public comment.
Joe: Joe Harcz. Am I recognized? can you hear me?
Aaron:  Yes.
Joe:  I want to know who in the attorney general's office you are contacting, that should be a public record.  I want to have each and every correspondence that's public record.  I want to know how the executive order revisions are going to include the provisions under both federal and state law that require that all meetings are open to the public, and every one of them, and that the FOIA applies.  End of story.  That needs to be in this executive order.  That needs to be in our bylaws.  I also want to know how the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act apply which is required under both state and federal law.  I want to have those documents and those contacts Steve.  I have requested them before.  As to being in the governor's office, you are part of the executive branch, but you are not a part of the governor's office per se.  You are not a part of the staff of the governor's office, and as per the bylaws, the only reason, and the only reason to have bylaws is a separate corporation are to act as the fiscal agent to pay for staff and to keep them separate from other agencies in government.  The rest of it needs to apply.  The rest of the laws need to apply, all of them, as you have been informed by ACL ILA, the federal laws on openness apply, and so do state laws.  The Open Meetings Act and the FOIA are joined at the hip.  If you are a public body for one, you are a public body for another.  You also cannot throw this back on to being in a nonprofit.  Again, I have sent you Jackson v Eastern Michigan corporation and Sklofeni (indiscernible):  You are wholly funded by public monies, wholly, all laws apply.  By the way, when are you going to get your website fixed in compliance, Steve?  It is still cored for other people.  I want a list of all the current members who have been approved, even from what I can see on your website, which is not fully accessible, you don't even have the full complement of members.  Also, going back to the FOIA, each and every new member, including you Yvonne have received the orientation and in that orientation package the FOIA was in there and the FOIA policies.  Those were approved before and paid for with legal consult that wasn't approved by Peter Jenson in 2015.  Steve, you voted for them in 2014.  Now you are going full circle and want to go by sleight of hand and to deny these things.  Your correspondences between public entities are fair game.  I want them.  I want them yesterday.  I want your letters to these entities.  You are a public employee by all effects, and the rest of you people are public officials.  You have fiduciary and legal responsibilities, and not to do again the minimum, but to do the maximum for including, not only citizens of this state and taxpayers of the state, but most especially, we people with disabilities.  We have had major, major corruption, which is documented.  We have had all kind of problems with your financial situation that are still not cleared up, and now we are going to less and less openness and scrutiny.  It is an outrage, and it must end.  It must end.  I will be going to the attorney general, and to Governor Whitmer's office to shed more light on these issues.
Aaron:  Thank you Mr. Harcz your time is up.  Okay, with that, we have reached the end of our agenda, is there anything else for the good of order that the council members would like to say?  Okay, we are adjourned.  Thank you very much.
Steve:  Thank you everyone.  Have a great weekend.
Yvonne: You too, bye.