On October 21st, the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MIOSHA) filed to dismiss a citation against the city of Port Huron. The citation was related to claims that the city violated COVID-19 regulations.
MIOSHA dismissed the citation 6 days after city officials said they planned to have their lawyer, Todd Shoudy, depose the agency’s director, Bart Pickelman.
The city of Port Huron has consistently maintained that it was not guilty of violating the COVID-19 workplace mandates established by Governor Whitmer in Executive Orders.
According to Port Huron City Manager James Freed, everyone was following safety protocols such as mask wearing and physical distancing, and the city was spending over $100,000 on microbial cleaning in its buildings, facilities, police cars, and fire trucks.
“When this first started, we took it very seriously. My job is safety: safety of our residents, safety of our staff. So if you ask people to come to work, you must provide a safe environment, and we took that very seriously,” said Freed.
When the inspector visited, he told city officials that he observed no violations. They later learned that he wrote a citation anyway which is what motivated the city to appeal.
During the deposition for the appeal, Freed said the inspector admitted under oath that he had observed no wrongdoing and destroyed emails and documents related to the case.
“It’s very disheartening. We have the resources to defend our name, to challenge when wrongfully accused, and to follow due process. My heart does break for the small business owners, for the mom-and-pops, who didn’t have the resources to defend themselves, to either plead guilty or take a settlement, because they couldn’t go through the process, and they didn’t have the resources to put MIOSHA under oath,” said Freed.
The city spent between $10,000 – $15,000 to appeal the citation.
The Michigan Supreme Court determined that all Executive Orders issued by Whitmer after April 30, 2020 were unconstitutional, and there are still cases similar to the one involving the city of Port Huron that are in appeal or open until the business resolves the situation.
A formal adoption of the Attorney General’s request to dismiss the case against the city should happen soon, and Freed expects the Michigan House and Senate Oversight Committees will begin investigations into this situation.
Reporting for WGRT – Jessie Wiegand
