ESCANABA — An ongoing investigation into past activities at the Delta County Airport continued to be a point of contention at the Delta County Board of Commissioners meeting this week, with one commissioner raising concerns about who — if anyone — was overseeing the investigation.

“My question is: are there individual commissioners guiding this process?” asked Commissioner Steve Viau.

A discussion of the investigation, which was approved in a split vote at the last board meeting in December, was not on the agenda Tuesday, nor was a “commissioners’ workshop,” the monthly hour-long discussion period where commissioners can address any issue they wish. However, as the workshop was only stricken from Tuesday’s agenda because the meeting also served as the board’s reorganizational meeting, Commission Chair Dave Moyle informally allowed a workshop on Viau’s concerns and the investigation to take place.

“You have the floor, sir. I have no intention of engaging you, but you have the floor. Please, go ahead,” Moyle said to Viau.

Throughout the discussion, Moyle repeatedly stated he did not wish to comment on an ongoing investigation, but did say he was not aware of any individual commissioners guiding the investigation itself.

“I don’t have any more knowledge on it than you do. When we get the report from counsel, we all get it at the same time. So there’s nobody who’s in the know and nobody outside of it,” said Moyle.

The investigation comes following a presentation in early December by current Airport Manager Robert Ranstadler, who said the airport was in “a state of administrative crisis.”

The commissioners have differed as to how many individual items of concern they have been made aware of, with commissioners stating they were aware of 13 items in December and stating during Tuesday’s that there were as many as 38 separate concerns identified at the airport. However, key concerns have included the lack of documents being submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) prior to audits, fees not being assessed on flight tickets, and documents serving as evidence of training not being properly retained.

“I can tell you, there is a significant absence — it’s almost like a vacuum — of records just having completely disappeared or not being kept up since 2021,” Ranstadler told the board at the Dec. 5 meeting.

At the Dec. 19 meeting, Commissioner Bob Petersen made a motion to have County Attorney Scott Graham investigate “airport activity and policy that may have violated local, state or federal law as well as contractual obligation, or any other airport right, duty, of operation.”

Petersen initially indicated he wanted Graham to look into airport activities since 2019, the year former Airport Manager Andrea Nummilien took over operations. He later said that the motion was structured to allow Graham to follow the investigation wherever it may lead.

Both Viau and Commissioner John Malnar have raised concerns that the investigation is targeted against Nummilien, who left the airport in early June with just two days notice. Her resignation letter pointed to her mental well-being and to the county commission — especially, Board Chair Dave Moyle — as the cause of her departure.

Nummilien later gave a public statement saying Moyle and Commissioner Bob Barron had come to the airport when she was on vacation to “find dirt” on her. She also said Moyle had given “legitimacy to a disgusting lie” about a security threat at the airport “that wasted people’s time from the county all the way up to the federal government” through comments made on Facebook.

Viau and Malnar both voted against launching the investigation to begin with, but have argued that any investigation should have a broader scope than just Nummilien’s tenure.

“Other commissioners spoke at the meeting that it’s not just the four-year period. This is something that’s been ongoing further than that, and I want to make sure it’s not personal,” said Viau.

Viau also stated Tuesday that many of the claims made about Nummilien’s tenure were made “without concrete evidence.” Barron shot back at Viau’s statement, pointing to Ranstadler’s report as evidence and arguing that there was no report of wrongdoing before the board about the period prior to Nummilien’s hire — only the comments made by Malnar.

“I didn’t appreciate this idea that you’re saying we don’t have concrete evidence, yet you’re relying on basically the hearsay of — you’re relying on non-concrete evidence to to deny the evidence,” said Barron.

Petersen defended the investigation and his initial motion by saying he’d rather be wrong about wrongdoing than do nothing.

“If we spend a little money to have this investigated, and nothing comes up, we’re going to get — I will get blasted for spending money. If we don’t investigate it, and something happens at that airport — (it) gets shutdown, gets fined — then I’m going to get blasted for the airport getting shutdown. So I would rather get blasted for spending a little money to make sure that everything is correct out there than have that airport get shutdown or fined, and in turn, the county get fined,” he said.

Delta County Administrator Ashleigh Young stated that the FAA had extended its inspection deadlines to allow the airport to come into compliance. Because there was no documentation to prove trainings had taken place, airport staff is in the process of retraining to meet the FAA’s requirements.