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ESCANABA -- An infamous dump trailer, a camper, two trailers, and an agricultural disc are among the pieces of equipment the Delta Conservation District says are missing or were sold to Former Conservation District CEO Rory Mattson under, according to new documents obtained by the Daily Press.
The documents, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, state that Mattson had already purchased the dump trailer that became a key component of disputes between Mattson, the district, and Delta County before questions about the trailer's ownership were raised at a county meeting last December.
According to the district, the trailer was purchased in January of 2016 in a three-way split between the county, district, and Mattson, with $2,000 of that purchase coming from county park funds and the remainder from district funds. Of the remaining $4,000, Mattson's $2,000 share was recorded in a Quickbooks entry as being from part of a bonus he received in the 2015 fiscal year.
"When they decided what they were going to give me, the board said, 'you know, you can pay the two (thousand). We can give you the whole thing or we'll just deduct two.' And I said, 'we'll just deduct two (thousand),'" Mattson told the Daily Press.
The dump trailer was never registered, but remained a non-issue for the district until the Sept. 2, 2022 district board meeting when the board asked Mattson to sell a number of items owned by the district, including the dump trailer. A transcription of the portion of the meeting related to the equipment sale provided to the Daily Press does not include a specific sale price, but Mattson indicated at that meeting that the items would be priced for sale rather than put out for bid.
On Sept. 19, 2022, the district deposited a $2,000 check from Mattson, dated Sept. 5, 2022, with the message "Buy partnership trailer" in the memo line.
A Quickbooks entry for Sept. 19, 2022 notes "Other Revenue/Misc Income" of $2,000, with the a memo stating "Rory bought out partnership trailer" and specifying that the district and the county parks would each receive $1,000.
Another document, a bill of sale, similarly states that Mattson paid $1,000 to each entity to buy out the other shares of the trailer, but that document's providence is unclear -- the district says that data on the district's computers suggests the Word document file for the bill of sale was created as recently as June 3, 2023 despite the document being dated Sept. 19, 2022.
Mattson also says that he paid $2,000 in September of 2022, which he says brings his investment into the trailer to $4,000 and that he now owes $2,000 to complete the purchase of the trailer. He says any claims about the origin of the bill of sale are untrue.
"I still owe the two (thousand). I truly believe that, and now it'll be one (thousand) and one (thousand) because the last one got, that one got split between the two," said Mattson.
The trailer came up again in late December 2023, when concerns were raised about the split ownership of the trailer at county board meetings. No mention was made of the 2022 sale during county meetings, and -- with the exception of comments that Mattson had sunk an additional $2,000 into the trailer for repairs -- discussions from the county board treated the ownership as three equal $2,000 investments. Based off that understanding, the county agreed to sell its portion of the trailer to either party for $2,000 at the the Jan. 2, 2024 county board meeting.
"If the district wants it (or) if the county wants it, just give me my $2,000. If not, I'm not leaving the county hanging or the district, I'll be happy to give them $2,000 and $2,000," Mattson told the county board at the Jan. 2, 2024 meeting in public comment.
Upon Mattson's departure from the conservation district at the end of last year, he signed a document stating that all district property had been returned. However, Mattson wrote a note at the bottom of the page that read "1/3 trailer still owned by Rory. Also 1/3 by District, 1/3 by County." The change was initialed by Mattson and also his witness, Conservation District Treasurer ‹Mike Segorski.
Mattson told the Daily Press the one-third designations were about the number of entities with ownership of the trailer and not about the value of each party's share. Mattson also said he currently suing the district in a dispute about his contract, and his attorney is also working to settle the dump trailer issue.
While the dump trailer has dominated the discussion of Mattson and the district's property, there are other pieces of equipment that the district says were either sold to Mattson under unusual circumstances or were purchased under Mattson's leadership but never entered into the district's possession.
District records show Mattson purchased a camper trailer from Hilltop RV Superstore in 2018 using a district check for $3,900, which may have been for a deposit but had no description in the memo line. The purchase was entered into the district's Quickbooks accounting as "Camper trailer for District Property," but the district says the camper was never registered to the district nor entered into the district's depreciation schedule. The district records do not indicate what make or model the camper was, and summary notes provided to the Daily Press say it was never been in the district's possession.
"That camper has always been and is at the conservation district property. I believe it's still there, unless they got rid of it. Last time I was on that property was the end of summer and it was there. It was for them to rent out," said Mattson, who said the camper was purchased at roughly the same time the district purchased a cabin to rent.
In a seven-page summary document produced by the district in 2024, which outlines a number of incidents the district finds troubling, the district says the camper in question was purchased five days after a 2012 Springdale camper was purchased from Hilltop RV for the district to rent out on a nightly basis.
The summary document also says the district has records for a sideboard trailer, a flatbed trailer and an agricultural disc that were purchased by the district using county park funds in 2020. In all three cases, the purchases were not noted in the district's minutes, and the district claims to have never had possession of the items. The summary says Mattson purchased the items from the district for a total of $10,818 in June of 2023.
Mattson declined to comment on the two trailers and the agricultural disc, saying he was not familiar enough with the district's claims to comment.