Ottawa County settles with Kleinjans for $112,500 after both sides agree to mediator's proposal

OTTAWA COUNTY — The Ottawa County Board of Commissioners on Thursday voted to pay former commissioner Chris Kleinjans $112,000 to settle a lawsuit over his claims that former board chair Joe Moss pressured Kleinjans' former employer to force him out of his job.

The lawsuit was the seventh and final litigation stemming from the tumultuous two-year tenure of far-right political group Ottawa Impact’s control of the board.

On Thursday, commissioners unanimously voted to accept the settlement agreement that was presented by a private mediator.

Kleinjans alleged that former board chair Joe Moss pressured Michigan State University Extension to no longer allow the nutrition instructor and Democratic nominee for the county board to work in Ottawa County — or the school's contract would not be renewed with the municipality.

The settlement, which Kleinjans also accepted by the mediator's Friday deadline, ended the last and longest of the lawsuits filed against the county stemming from decisions and actions made by the former Ottawa Impact majority, which controlled the board in 2023 and 2024. 

How it started

Moss is the founder and president of Ottawa Impact, a far-right political action committee that ran a slate of candidates in 2022 motivated by frustrations with the county and state over COVID-19 mitigation measures. They went on to achieve a controlling majority of the county’s top governmental body and elected Moss as chair.

Since taking office in January 2023, OI commissioners pushed through a series of controversial decisions, resulting in numerous lawsuits against the county. Those decisions included an unsuccessful attempt to fire the county health officer — who sued and later settled with the county — and cutting the public health department’s budget.

After being seated, “they immediately began making … charitably speaking … aggressive decisions,” Kleinjans said in August 2024. “It was a different interpretation of freedom than what we were operating under before.”

Kleinjans said Moss fixated on him in November 2023 after Ottawa Food — a collaboration of over 45 local agencies that provides access to healthy, local food — announced it was suspending operations after the board made deep cuts to the county’s public health department.

At the time, Kleinjans was a member of the Ottawa Food Advisory Board and was interviewed for a FOX-17 news article about the announcement. 

Shortly after the interview aired, Ottawa County Democrats announced that Kleinjans would be their candidate in a special recall election targeting then-OI commissioner Lucy Ebel.

Moss then contacted MSEU officials requesting that they prevent Kleinjans from continuing work in Ottawa County.

Moss told the officials that several of Kleinjans’ social media posts around December 2023 were “false and inflammatory” because they said, among other things, that “children in District 2 are going to go hungry bc (sic) Ottawa Food will be eliminated” and that “District 2 families that are struggling will lose access to dental care for their children.”

At the same time, the annual approval for MSUE’s contract with the county was removed from full board consideration, despite receiving unanimous approval from the county’s Finance and Administration committee just weeks previously.

The contract, often referred to as a “memorandum of understanding” or MOU, obligated the county to pay $272,572 to MSUE for fiscal year 2025 — fiscal years are Oct. 1-Sept. 30 — to provide office space, utilities, clerical support and funding for an MSUE educator, which covers a 4-H programming coordinator. 

The perceived threat to the MOU with the county led to a series of meetings and emails between MSUE leadership and Moss, where the university declined to change Kleinjans’ employment status.

“Our Extension leadership and university counsel reviewed your request to have us relocate Christian, and have determined that we are unable to implement requests that would violate an employee's rights to participate in political activities outside of their workdays and hours,” James Kelly, district director for Extension, wrote in an email to Moss on Jan. 5, 2024.

Emails show that this reporter, who was then employed at The Holland Sentinel, requested comment on the delayed approval of the MSU Extension’s contract with the county.

That prompted Kelly to urge Moss to approve the contract so the dispute wouldn’t be made public.

“Hi Joe. It seems the issue of our delayed contract becoming a more public issue is on the verge of breaking out. We had a request from the Holland Sentinel to provide some insight as to why our contract was being delayed. They referenced in their email both the connection with Ottawa Food and the connection to Christian's candidacy as the potential reason for the delay,” Kelly wrote to Moss on Jan. 8. “I would love to be able to respond to that request saying that the contract is due to be on the upcoming agenda and that we do not anticipate any issues at this point.

“We will hold off on responding to The Sentinel, but would like to send them a positive response as soon as possible. Please let me know if there has been any developments, one way or the other, as soon as possible.”

The MOU was then put on the board's next meeting agenda and was approved Jan. 24, 2024.

Kleinjans went on to win the special election on May 7, 2024.

Just 16 days later, MSUE told Kleinjans he could no longer work there and serve as a county commissioner.

Kleinjans filed a federal lawsuit in June 2024 in U.S. Western District Court, claiming MSUE violated his First Amendment Rights.

An Aug. 9, 2024, evidentiary hearing featured testimony from Kleinjans and two of three MSUE supervisors who had several conversations with Kleinjans from before he was a commissioner candidate to after he was elected.

M. Scott Korpak, then-incoming District 7 director, testified that during a Dec. 7, 2023, meeting he had with Kelly as well as Moss and OI Commissioner Allison Miedema, the board chair “threatened” the MOU.

When asked how he interpreted Moss addressing Kleinjans’ employment, Korpak said: “You could characterize it as a veiled threat … of concern with Christian’s involvement in the recall process. … They were unhappy about his political activity.”

Korpak also testified that Moss initially brought up “concerns” about Kleinjans in the lobby of the county’s administration building in West Olive before the board’s Nov. 21 meeting.

“He shared his concerns about Christian’s efforts against Ms. Ebel,” Korpak said of the Nov. 21, 2023, conversation.

“Because he’s a Democrat?” Kleinjans' attorney, Sarah Riley-Howard, asked.

“Yes, among other concerns,” Korpak replied.

Lawsuit’s second year

Federal Judge Hala Y. Jarbou ruled in early August 2024 that Kleinjans was not entitled to a preliminary injunction that requested he be immediately restored to his MSUE position and awarded back pay.

However, Jarbou said it is “undisputed that the OI majority sought political retribution against Kleinjans” because of his comments about OI and involvement in the recall effort of Ebel.

Shortly after Jarbou’s ruling, Kleinjans amended the lawsuit to add Moss as an individual defendant for his alleged role. 

Ottawa County is paying to defend Moss in the litigation because there is an existing policy within the board's bylaws that says commissioners are indemnified, or protected from personal liability, when acting within their official capacity.

However, Michigan law does not mandate that government agencies provide indemnification and the board's policy says there is an exception to revoke indemnification "if the commissioner is adjudged liable for actions taken outside the scope of his/her authority."

The lawsuit then proceeded to the “discovery” process, where parties exchange information and evidence to prepare their cases. This includes requests for documents as well as taking formal interviews, called depositions, and requesting affidavits from supporting witnesses.  

A key question is whether the statements Moss made to MSUE officials affected the university’s decision to fire Kleinjans when it did. 

MSUE and the county say that because the school refused Moss’ requests and fired Kleinjans months after the county re-approved the MOU, that the commissioner’s actions didn’t dictate the employment decision.

The school said the decision to fire Kleinjans “was premised entirely on concerns relating to potential conflicts of interest” and compliance with the Incompatible Public Offices Act, which regulates how many and what type of roles public officers or employees may hold.

Kleinjans and Howard point to deposition testimony indicating that MSUE actually made the decision months earlier — in December 2023 — that if Kleinjans were elected, he would be fired.

Audio recordings Kleinjans made with MSUE leadership leading up to his termination indicate that school officials had long-term concerns even if the MOU were to be approved.

Read More: Was Ottawa County's newest commissioner punished for running?

In a November virtual meeting with Kleinjans, assistant director of MSU Health and Nutrition Institute Erin Moore characterized the political climate in Ottawa County as “dire” regardless of whether Kleinjans pursued the elected office.

“If this were any other county, any other part of the state, where it was just a little less contentious, we wouldn't be talking about us being defunded because of your interaction with politics,” she tells Kleinjans on the recording. “But that is our reality right now … is that there is a vengeance-type of relationship that this board has with the only power that they have with this money, and that is to defund those that are ‘against them.’”

On Dec. 7, 2023, Kelly summarized notes for other MSUE leaders via email, saying: “It is likely that the majority of commissioners would follow the lead of Joe Moss and only support the MSU Extension MOA if Christian is removed from Ottawa County. … They claim he is damaging the community, that he has proven himself to be a liability, and until MSU can show they can be trusted to handle his indiscretions appropriately, they will not have the support of the board.”

During an April 1, 2025, deposition, Moss confirmed that he sent an email to former interim administrator Jon Anderson shortly after Kleinjans was elected to the board of commissioners that he had been assured by MSUE back in December 2023 that if Kleinjans were to be elected, the university would fire him.

“Commissioner Miedema and I were told by the directors of MSU Extension, who had conferred with their corporate counsel, that it was forbidden for an elected commissioner in Ottawa County to also be employed by MSU Extension and that they would have to separate if Christian was elected,” the email read.

“Did I read that correctly?” Howard asked Moss in the April deposition.

“Yes,” Moss replied, going on to say the conversation with MSUE leadership and its attorneys occurred in December 2023 or January 2024 — just before the MOU was re-approved by the county.

As the discovery process unfolded, the parties made some attempts to resolve the litigation.

Howard said there were two settlement conferences in February and July involving all three parties and their legal representation. The county and Kleinjans also used private mediator Lee Silver on Nov. 28, which led to the proposal that was approved by Kleinjans and the board this week. 

Meanwhile, the board of commissioners saw a new moderate Republican majority assume power in January 2025 and OI went from six seats on the 11-member board to a four-seat minority. 

Kleinjans lost his bid for re-election to Republican Jordan Jorritsma by just 237 votes.

Chair John Teeples expressed shortly after being elected chair that one his top priorities was to resolve the remaining lawsuits stemming from the previous two-year period.

Read More: Closed meeting minutes: Moss agreed to $4M settlement with Hambley to 'get this over with'

The road to resolving the lawsuits was contentious and controversial at times, with three sets of closed session minutes — two with audio — that inspired two ethics complaints against Moss that the current board refused to investigate in November.

What happens next

Kleinjans must still resolve his claims against MSUE, likely through private mediation without the county, Howard said.

If a settlement isn’t reached, a trial is scheduled for June 1, 2026.

Prior to that, however, a judge will need to resolve various motions for summary judgment — where all sides are asking for the court to find in their favor without further proceedings. 

That process also could take an additional year to conclude and likely would delay the trial.  

— Sarah Leach is the executive editor of the Ottawa News Network. Contact her at sleach@ottawanewsnetwork.org. Follow her on Twitter @ONNLeach.