Ilsa Minor | Daily Press Delta Conservation District Chair Joe Kaplan, right, points at the the Delta County Board of Commissioners during Tuesday night’s county board meeting. During the meeting, Commissioner Bob Barron made a motion to send a complaint to the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development about Kaplan potentially violating confidentiality requirements of the Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program. The commissioners delayed the vote on Barron’s request until the next commission meeting.

ESCANABA — Tensions between Delta County, the Delta Conservation District, and Former Conservation District CEO Rory Mattson boiled over Tuesday, after a county commissioner accused the district of violating the confidentiality of a state environmental and agriculture program while discriminating against the county, which participates in the program.

“The strength of the program is in its confidentiality and this is the start of a violation of that, which could bring the entire program across the state into jeopardy,” said Commissioner Bob Barron during Tuesday’s county commission meeting.

According to Barron, he was made aware that Delta County Conservation District Board Chair Joe Kaplan had directed a technician used by the district for the local administration of the Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP) not to work on any MAEAP projects for the county without clearance from Kaplan or the district board.

“That’s not part of this program, it violates the confidentiality and also is very discriminatory that we would have an agency that’s supposed to be delivering this in a confidential manner of discriminating against the county as being a landowner,” said Barron.

MAEAP is primarily an educational program that helps farm and forestland owners to reduce erosion and runoff from private land into public waters. Participants are recognized for their environmental efforts and may get preferential consideration for certain types of technical assistance.

According to Barron, the county participates through the program due to the county forest and other forested parkland.

Barron argued the county should send a letter of “complaint and protest” to the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD), which oversees MAEAP at the state level, about the incident. However, because the item was a last-minute addition to Tuesday’s agenda, the majority of the board wanted to hold off on voting on the issue until the next meeting.

Kaplan interjected from the audience that he was present and willing to speak on the issue. He was told he was out of order and the board voted in a 3-2 split vote to deny him the floor.

Instead, Kaplan waited until the general public comment period to discuss the incident during his three minutes.

According to Kaplan, the incident stemmed from a plan to construct a pavilion and parking lot at O.B. Fuller Park, which is part of a larger planned renovation at the park that some have been concerned may affect wetlands in the area. During Tuesday’s meeting, Delta County Parks Manager Steve Wery and Mitch Koetje of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) said the project may move forward with proper permits and delineation of wetland areas.

Following the initial presentation of the plan at the Feb. 3 county board meeting, Kaplan said he asked County Administrator Ashleigh Young for a copy of a map of the area in question. Kaplan ultimately received a map from the county after a Freedom of Information Act request, but discovered the map was identical to one produced by the conservation district a couple of years prior.

Kaplan then asked the MAEAP technician if she made the map and who asked for it. According to Kaplan, the technician initially indicated the map was requested by Wery, but later said it was requested by Mattson and possibly Delta County Commissioner Bob Petersen.

Kaplan then said he began asking about the program and the county’s involvement in it. The technician refused to give Kaplan the information he sought, so he directed her to call MDARD. He then began following up with the state himself.

“What I got was yeah, as the administrator, as an elected official, there is no confidentiality between a technician and the person who’s elected to be in charge of this. The confidentiality comes on me that when I realize that information that I don’t just disclose it like you just did,” he told Barron.

Kaplan went on to say he was shocked the internal conversation was leaked and being discussed at a public meeting. He blamed the disclosure on Mattson, adding he hoped the technician was not responsible.

“I can tell you that I had conversations with the state, I’m waiting for information, I have not disclosed a damn thing about your program. You disclosed way more than I ever would. And you sit there in that seat. It’s ridiculous what you do,” he said.

Barron raised a point of order at the statement, which further fueled the already heated comments. Kaplan argued his First Amendment rights were being violated while Commission Chair Dave Moyle said Kaplan must come to order or leave the room.

Sometime after Kaplan left the podium, Mattson took to it to make his own comments about his role in the alleged incident. He said a county commissioner had asked him if he had a copy of the old map. He did not have the map himself but approached the technician and asked her to provide it to the county. He said that was the only thing he had done and he’d continue to connect people to the conservation district.

“I’m going to keep doing that for a long time,” he said.