EAST LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Michigan State University (MSU) has a document problem and some are arguing that the university doesn’t seem to be in the habit of turning documents over to the public in a transparent and expedient manner.

Recently, there was a lawsuit brought about by victims of convicted sex offender and former sports doctor Larry Nassar. His victims say that MSU officials met secretly and voted not to release about 6,000 documents to AG Dana Nessel related to the doctor’s tenure at the school citing “attorney-client privilege.”

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Azzam Elder, an attorney representing the victims, said in a press release, “We contend that board members made a behind-closed-doors secret decision not to release the records in blatant violation of the Open Meetings Act. They followed that up with violations of the Freedom of Information Act when we requested emails that might show they discussed and made a closed-door decision on the matter in violation of law.”

MSU is also being sued by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in two separate lawsuits, one of them being over their failure to provide information about the use of land for the prospective Megasite, formally referred to as the Michigan Manufacturing Innovation Campus (MMIC) in Eagle Township in Clinton County.

The policy group is suing the university for more information concerning the land that MSU owns, roughly 1200 acres, that was bequeathed to them by David Morris, university alumnus and farmer of Morris Farms, who died in 2009.

The Whitmer administration, which has a partnership between the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), the Lansing Economic Area Partnership (LEAP) and MSU, wants the MSU land to be used for a potential multi-billion dollar Megasite that will most likely produce EV batteries or semiconductor chips. In fact, it was recently learned that Governor Whitmer has already tried to negotiate a deal to use the Megasite properties for a semiconductor plant but she lost the project after 15 months of talks.

Many who knew Morris argue that he would not be happy about the Megasite plans and contend that the agreement he made was to keep the land preserved as agricultural land.

According to a “memorandum of understanding” between the MSU Board of Trustees and the Clark Retirement Community (a beneficiary of the Morris trust), when the land is eventually sold, Morris’ terms state that 55% of the proceeds from the sale would fund four MSU endowments in the College of Agricultural Natural Resources and the other 45% would go to the Clark Retirement Community in Grand Rapids.

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The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, in trying to find out more about the Morris trust, submitted a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA) to MSU. In response, they received the memorandum of understanding, an option agreement and a heavily redacted document titled “fifth amendment of trust.” In a press release about the lawsuit against MSU, they say, “Michigan State University’s response redacted several paragraphs of the agreement, claiming that they contained private information, but a review of the documents suggests that the exemptions Michigan State University claimed don’t apply to the information that was redacted.”

The MSU land in question is currently being leased and farmed by Jake Clark of Clark Farms and according to the documents that MSU has released without redactions, his lease doesn’t expire until 2031.

MSU hasn’t released any documents so far to Michigan News Source or to the Mackinac Center that appear to confirm their ability to break that crop lease. In fact, the documents they have provided say the opposite.

In the case of the “memorandum of understanding” between the MSU Board of Trustees and the Clark Retirement Community, it says that MSU will manage the leasing and sales of the property and act as landlord under the Crop Lease which Morris planned to lease to the current tenant for 25 years unless “earlier terminated by the tenant as allowed by the Crop Lease.”

Once the lease expires or is earlier terminated by the tenant, the memorandum says that MSU can sell the property after a “commercially reasonable time.”

Documents that have not been disclosed by MSU so far include the Crop Lease, the original trust and any amendments to the trust before the fifth version.

In the option agreement that was provided to the Mackinac Center between the MSU Board of Trustees and PG&W LLC (a subsidiary of LEAP with funds being spent on MEDC’s behalf), it says that the buyer assumes “all easements, rights, appurtenances, and all existing encumbrances, including rights of tenants and licensees.”

Additionally, under “crop compensation” it says, “A large portion of the Premises is currently leased to a farming tenant. Buyer is solely responsible for any crop loss or damage on the Premises resulting from its activities, and any costs associated with the early termination of crop leases caused by Buyer’s exercise of the option. Buyer acknowledges that Seller is not terminating any existing leases.”

That last sentence means that MSU doesn’t intend to break the crop lease and that the new owner would be the one negotiating any early termination of the lease after the crop lease transfers to them. Teresa K. Woodruff, Interim President of MSU, has said the same about the sale of the properties, “The Morris property is currently under a 25-year crop lease to Clark Farms, which Mr. Morris initiated in his lifetime and which will expire in 2031. If MSU sells the property, the crop lease will transfer to its new owner, who will work in partnership with the leaseholder to determine the future of that arrangement. Until there is an end-user identified for the land, Clark Farms can continue to farm it.”

MSU has stated publicly that they do intend to sell the land, however PG&W currently does not have a buyer for their proposed development which would move them to exercise their exclusive option to purchase the land from MSU. The option agreement, which was signed on August 24, 2022, is for one year with wording in the contract that allows them to renew the option agreement for an additional year. If they renew the option, they would have to pay an additional $25,000 to MSU in addition to the previously $50,000 “option fee” paid to them.

Unfortunately, without all of the Morris documents being provided by MSU, no one is able to get a clear picture of what MSU’s property rights are and what rights PG&W (and their potential buyers) would be able to exercise if they bought the land.

It is speculated by some that Morris transferred the land to MSU with conditions and possible tenancy protections but without complete documentation and unreacted paragraphs, that cannot be verified.