By Ilsa Minor

iminor@dailypress.net

ESCANABA — A nearly-decade-long saga over a dump trailer that was purchased jointly by the Delta Conservation District, Delta County and former Conservation District CEO Rory Mattson came to a close this week.

While certain facts about the dump trailer have been contested, a few facts about the trailer have been established. The trailer was purchased in January of 2016 for $6,000 from a third party, in the three-way split with Mattson, the county parks fund, and the conservation district each being responsible for contributing $2,000.

However, the district and Mattson differ on whether or not Mattson’s initial investment of $2,000 was ever made. Mattson says his portion was subtracted from a bonus he was paid in 2015 and a separate $2,000 payment he made in 2022 brings his stake in the trailer to $4,000, with the county and the district each having a $1,000 stake. The district has argued Mattson’s 2022 payment, which is documented in the district’s accounting system, instead brought the district’s portion to $3,000, Mattson’s to $2,000, and the county’s to $1,000.

In late December of 2023, Mattson attended a Delta County Board of Commissioners meeting to request that the county sell its stake in the trailer for $2,000 or to buy out his stake.

“I would be willing — as long as it was in half-way decent shape — to pay back the $2,000 and the $2,000 (to the county and district), that was how we made things work. I don’t care. If the district wants it, if the county wants it, just give me my $2,000,” said Mattson at the Jan. 2, 2024 meeting, prior to a final vote on the issue.

At the Jan. 2, 2024 meeting, the commissioners voted to relinquish the county’s stake in the trailer for $2,000, the amount the county and the county’s finance committee believed was the county’s stake in the trail based off Mattson’s statements and the budget line item the county had on record for its initial investment in the trailer. That vote came following motion at the Dec. 19, 2023 meeting “to direct the Administrator to research and follow Finance Committee recommendation” on how to proceed.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Delta County Administrator Emily DeSalvo requested the commissioners rescind the Dec. 19, 2023 motion.

“The information that was referenced in the finance committee is now incorrect so I put this motion on here because it was never acted upon, and so I’m asking for the motion to be rescinded so we can clear it out,” she said.

While the motion was acted upon in that the finance committee met, made a recommendation, and a vote was had at the Jan. 2, 2024 meeting “to accept $2,000 to release the County claim to the dump trailer” based on that recommendation, who exactly would pay that $2,000 — Mattson or the conservation district — was never determined and a payment was never received. Moreover, the county argues the finance committee’s recommendation was based on faulty numbers, that the actual stake in the trailer was only $1,000.

The conservation district’s claim to the trailer was released as part of a settlement agreement with Mattson over payments Mattson claimed were owed to him after he stopped working for the district. That agreement was made after a claim that the district owed him $4,000 for his portion of the trailer was thrown out of small claims court last October.

Both Delta Conservation District Trustee Joe Kaplan and Mattson spoke at Tuesdays meeting, but they differed on the terms of the agreement beyond the fact the district no longer had a claim to the trailer now in Mattson’s possession.

However, the county was never named on the bill of sale and the trailer was never registered, because, according to Mattson, the state was unable to register the trailer to both governmental entities and private parties. This has the county with a stake in the trailer but a questionable claim to its ownership.

“Technically, we can’t ask the conservation district for money, we can’t ask you for money, because we never owned the trailer. It was never titled or registered in our name, you know, as the county. There’s nothing we can do about it, so you helped the county enter into a deal that they were going to lose money on, because there was no way that we were ever going to own that trailer,” Commissioner Kelli van Ginhoven told Mattson Tuesday.

After voting to to rescind the Dec. 19, 2023 motion, a new motion was put forward to relinquish all rights to the dump trailer with no attached monetary requirement. The motion was approved unanimously, and effectively washes the county’s hands of the whole affair.