Concerns raised about Malik & Bay Mills Tribe's Plastics Business long before $900k federal grant awarded

excerpted from the Bay Mills News, March 24, 2005 article titled “GTC authorizes council extension on Port Huron:”

… PLASTICS BUSINESS

[Bay Mills Tribal Chairman Jeff] Parker said that Mike Malik is involved in the plastics business because the tribe did not want to expend any tribal funds on the project. He said the initial concept is to have the business in Kinross until the planned creation of an industrial park on tribal properties at I-75 and M-28.

A member of the community had questions about the business — who is the International Composite Institute of Michigan (ICIM) and what is the tribe's relationship with this company? Parker said that ICIM is a non-profit entity comprised of Lake Superior State University and Bay Mills Community College and that BMCC is a charter member.

The concerned member said that ICIM is a non-profit corporation chartered within the state of Michigan and it's chief principal is Tony Andary.

BMCC President Mickey Parish said that ICIM is a non profit testing company and that the college is involved to give students an opportunity to do internships there. He said that LSSU would also like to use the facility for their students to do internships. He added that BMCC has applied for a grant to purchase testing equipment and that LSSU has also applied for a $500,000 two-year grant to fund the staff of the testing institute.

The concerned member said that ICIM'S mailing address, P.O. Box 915, Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., currently shares the same address with Integrated Composites Company, a company owned by both Tony Andary and Parker. He said that BMCC shares a partnership with this group to provide free labor that will help advance Parker and Andary's company. He added that Parker had signed a lease to the building to ICIM and the group that licenses this technology is known as Polycomp, Inc.

Parker said that he and Andary did form an L.L.C. called Integrated Composites, L.L.C., but he sold out his interest in the company. He said they had only one piece of equipment and that has been sold. He admitted that they did lease the building, but said that has since been assigned to someone else. Parker said that he is only listed as a partner of Polycomp, Inc. because he did legal work with Andary [Andary, Davis & Andary P.C.] and, because of potential problems, he did sell his interest in the business.

A concerned community member said that at the last GTC meeting Chairman Parker had said that he had no interest, whatsoever, in the business. She suggested the GTC put together a committee to investigate the allegations.

Another member said that it was his understanding that Malik would invest $1.3 million into the company and would own 49 percent of it, while Bay Mills would own 51 percent. He also recommended a committee be put together to investigate some of these allegations and report back to the GTC with their findings. Parker said he would like to have the tribe do the venture on their own, but said that they did it this way so they would not be out any money.

A motion to have the council report back with paperwork at the next GTC meeting on all of the legal issues presented failed to pass.

A motion to have the Executive Council enter into a joint venture for the Plastics Business carried.

You may want to review these previous posts:

The Verifiable Truth: Bay Mills & Malik get into Plastics; Senator Stabenow announces they'll get $900,000 federal jumpstart

The Verifiable Truth: Michigan Senator's re-election realizes $113,000 from Detroit syndicators after she introduces plans for their Port Huron Indian Casino

The Verifiable Truth: UPDATE: More Money (post election) to Sen. Stabenow brings total to $117,200 from Malik & the Ilitch Family