Deer Management Consultant’s Work Draws High Praise and Harsh Criticism
by P.D. Lesko with reporting by Maddie Fetchiet
BETWEEN DEC. 2014 and June 2015, Project Innovations, a Farmington Hills, Mich. consulting firm owned by Charlie Fleetham, was paid slightly less than $40,000 total by Ann Arbor. Despite the relatively small amount of money involved, Fleetham’s work has sparked enormous backlash. His citizen engagement and meeting facilitation work has engendered both admiration and derision, depending on whom you speak to.
The final work product of his consultancy, in the case of the Sanitary Sewer Wet Weather Evaluation Citizen Advisory Committee, is being scrutinized thanks to a lawsuit against the City of Ann Arbor’s Footing Drain Disconnect Program (FDD). Fleetham filed a formal complaint against one of the plaintiff’s attorneys. The attorney, in court filings, questions why the Asst. City Attorney Abigail Elias was present at facilitation sessions supervised by Fleetham.
Documents from the FDD lawsuit, including depositions, reveal sharp questioning of the votes and work of the citizens whom Charlie Fleetham was paid to help wade through questions concerning stormwater management and radon mitigation.
Critics allege that Fleetham’s services to the City of Ann Arbor included the delivery of pre-determined outcomes desired by Council members and city staffers.
“No one with the deer management team ever told me, ‘This is what we want,’” said Charlie Fleetham.
Ann Arbor City Councilman Jack Eaton said he was “pretty disappointed with the whole deer management study approach.”
“If you’re going to spend money, it seems like you would spend money on someone that’s well–versed in how to count deer using some infrared technology,” Eaton said. “Instead of hiring a consultant to talk to the public, just let the staff who’s quite capable of this, listen to the public.”
Fleetham refused to answer questions about the Sanitary Sewer Wet Weather Evaluation Citizen Advisory Committee facilitation work other than the say his work with that citizen group and the public was “straight facilitation.”
In the case of the Sanitary Sewer Wet Weather Evaluation Citizen Advisory Committee, former City Services Administrator Sue McCormick, in her Mar. 2015 deposition in the matter of the FDD lawsuit, claimed that radon mitigation had not been offered to Ann Arbor homeowners because it might have appeared as though something were being given for free to certain homeowners. Coincidentally (or not, depending on whom you ask), the Sanitary Sewer Wet Weather Evaluation Citizen Advisory Committee facilitated by Charlie Fleetham voted 7-3 against radon testing and mitigation in homes where FDD work was thought to have disturbed naturally-occurring radon deposits.
Radon is a radioactive gas and a carcinogen which is responsible, according to the EPA, for between 15,000-22,000 lung cancer deaths in the U.S. Each year.
Supporters, including city staffers who have hired Fleetham’s consulting company, point to Fleetham’s 20 years of experience as a consultant and his integration of the principles of Jungian psychology in his facilitation and citizen engagement work. In 2005, Fleetham self-published a book titled “The Search for Unrational Leadership.” Fleetham says, “one of his greatest passions is writing.” While his book encourages the use of Jungian principles in decision-making, Fleetham holds an undergraduate degree in English from Michigan State.
The five principles of Unrational Leadership outlined in his book have been distilled from what Fleetham says are years of study of Jungian theories.
His five principles of “unrational leadership” have sparked the most intense criticism of his facilitation work for the City of Ann Arbor. They are:
Start all problem-solving by taking personal responsibility.
Aim at increasing energy, not just efficiency.
Confront and partner with the unconscious.
Creativity drives change.
Look two generations behind and two generations ahead.
In a 2014 RFP response to facilitate citizen input regarding the city’s deer management project, Fleetham writes, “most leadership and organizational development practices were based on worn out traditional thinking and that the most powerful sources of creativity and energy were stored in the unconscious. Based on Jung’s ideas and his own experience, he developed the Unrational Leadership™ process to leverage the unconscious for growth and change.”
In a phone interview, Charlie Fleetham was prickly and defensive before settling down and answering questions about his work for the City of Ann Arbor.
“None of the five principles of Unrational Leadership were mentioned in my work in Ann Arbor,” he said. Fleetham did, however, provide copies of his book “Unrational Leadership” to city staff during the course of a leadership workshop. City staff who received copies of the book went on to hire Fleetham for consulting work. He refused to say which city staffers who’d been given copies of his books had gone on to hire him for consulting work.
In addition, in a deposition given by a member of the Sanitary Sewer Wet Weather Evaluation Citizen Advisory Committee, the individual said under oath that Fleetham had sent him a copy of his book “Unrational Leadership” when facilitating that group’s meetings.
When discussing Humane Society Dir. Tanya Hilgendorf’s criticisms of his work on facilitating the deer management citizen engagement, at first Fleetham refused to comment. He went on to say that HSHV director Tanya Hilgendorf never contacted him directly, by phone or email, to bring up her concerns that citizen presentations had been shaped to favor lethal methods of managing the deer population.
Fleetham did admit that he had “interviewed” Hilgendorf.
In a 2014 response to a request for proposals issued by the City of Ann Arbor, Fleetham listed a baker’s dozen of articles he has authored and published. The first piece on the list, “Bought, and Waiting for the Ax to Fall,” was published in The New York Times on Jan. 8, 2006. The author of the piece, however, is not Charlie Fleetham, but rather Matt Villano, a San Francisco-based freelance writer and editor.
When asked why he’d listed the article as one he’d authored, Fleetham said, “I didn’t write it. In the RFP I should have put that differently.”
Likewise, in the RFP Fleetham lists himself as the author of a book titled “Aysa’s Laws.”
When asked about that he explained that on the “cover of the book it says, ‘As told to.’ I’m a co-author.”
Frank Burdick and Charlie Fleetham
Frank Burdick, a former member of the Sanitary Sewer Wet Weather Evaluation Citizen Advisory Committee, was kicked off that committee for disobeying a set of CAC-approved “norms” and expressing dissent toward Charlie Fleetham’s consultation methods regarding the Footing Drain Disconnection program, according to a close source of the CAC who requested anonymity.
Another member of the Sanitary Sewer Wet Weather Evaluation Citizen Advisory Committee said Frank Burdick was removed for being disruptive and offering up his own solutions and professional services.
Either way, Burdick’s password to a private website called BaseCamp was confiscated because he posted on the site in capital letters, which according to the 2014 “CAC Approved Norms” was “perceived as screaming and disrespectful.”
An anonymous source also stated that Burdick was required to redact his posts, apologize to the City of Ann Arbor, and apologize to Fleetham, President of Project Innovations, for offensive comments, and what Burdick called the “Charlie stifle rule,” referring to Fleetham’s alleged lack of consideration for the public’s opinion.
When Burdick refused to meet the CAC’s demands to regain BaseCamp access, he was subsequently kicked off the committee.
City Public Services Administrator Craig Hupy, when asked about Burdick’s removal, pointed the finger at Fleetham. Hupy said that city staff had neither removed Burdick from the CAC nor asked for the police to be present at a public meeting of the Fleetham-facilitated group.
Using multiple BaseCamp websites as a discussion platform, OHM Advisors, Fleetham, and the CAC conducted some business through a series of posts and comments on password-protected sites.
In 2013-2014, OHM Advisors was contracted by the City of Ann Arbor to help the city evaluate the Footing Drain Disconnect program.
OHM hosted the BaseCamp websites, according to a source close to the CAC and a report called “Facilitation” at the FDDP CAC (I): “Basecamp” on a2underwater.com, a website for those against the FDD ordinance.
According to Jack Eaton (D-Ward 4) of the Ann Arbor City Council, as citizens attending a public meeting, he and Burdick attended the CAC meeting following Burdick’s removal.
Eaton and Burdick were hushed and threatened with removal from the meeting for whispering to each other during the committee’s discussion.
“I admit that at least twice, members of the committee turned around and hushed us,” Eaton said “But nobody asked the police to intervene, it didn’t stop the meeting, there was no uproar.”
Eaton said they arrived to only to find two Ann Arbor police officers there in case Burdick caused trouble, citing his former military background as a cause for concern.
Since, the City has modified the local discrimination ordinance to prohibit discrimination based on past military service, an amendment not in effect at the time Burdick was removed.
While Fleetham didn’t directly silence Eaton or Burdick in response to their dissent over his work, Eaton believes he influenced the public process decisions of the CAC that forced Burdick off the committee.
In the past, the civil rights activist group Ann Arbor To Ferguson has attended public meetings in Ann Arbor committing acts of civil disobedience—often disruptive, but perfectly legal methods of protest. Acts included chanting and banging on drums, according to Eaton.
Eaton said it wasn’t until they protested multiple times that they were expelled from a public meeting, leaving one to wonder how threatening to punish someone for whispering could be warranted. Eaton believes it wasn’t the whispering that was the problem, but rather that he was whispering to Burdick.
Eaton, along with a close source to the CAC, as well as some residents and other business owners have expressed concern over the City of Ann Arbor and Fleetham’s methods of public outreach on both the FDD ordinance, and the deer management study that recommended shooting the deer.
A close source to the CAC who requested anonymity suggested, “Because Fleetham was paid by the city, he was producing what the city wanted.”
Eaton also said Fleetham “guides a discussion to get to a pre-ordained result.”
“I’m not a big fan of hiring consultants to begin with, across the board, but I’m offended that the City would hire somebody who brags about being able to make the public come to a conclusion,” Eaton said.
Critics blame Fleetham’s alleged subjectivity on the book he authored, “The Search For Unrational Leadership: Using Rational And Irrational Methods To Change Your Life.”
According to Eaton and close sources of the City Council and SSWWE-CAC, the book argues in favor of relying on gut feelings, “seeing around corners,” and suggests that avoiding facts are good ways to evaluate situations and make decisions.
The same methods detailed in the book are being applied unprofessionally to the engineering and public policies of the City.
In fact, members of the City staff were told by City Administrator Steve Powers to read Fleetham’s book and implement his methods, according to Eaton and a video record of a staff meeting.
Powers could not be reached for comment.
Eaton said, “when we conduct public outreach, we should be trying to learn from the public, not trying to guide them to our point of view. If his book is correct, if this is really what he does in this kind of process, then we shouldn’t be engaging him.”
As for Charlie Fleetham, he chalks up the whoop-la about his facilitation work for the city to the fact that the issues involved are extremely controversial ones.
“For instance, the deer management issue was a sensitive topic,” said Fleetham.