Her office is investigating a $2 million grant to fund efforts to bring commercial rockets to Michigan, a $25 million health and fitness project in Clare awarded to a former aide to former house Speaker Jason Wentworth, and a $20 million grant for a job incubator run by a Democratic power broker.
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The grant-making process helps fund everything from parks and pools to job training, but it has swelled in recent years under both Republican and Democratic leadership.
The process involves little to no public debate. Grants are often no-bid and written in broad language that are designed for one recipient — a situation Nessel likened to a “glass slipper” where “only one foot fits the slipper.”
Nessel told Bridge that she hopes to complete the investigations this year.
The Clare grant, awarded by lawmakers, went through the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services while the other grants went through the Michigan Economic Development Corp.
Bridge has revealed that MDHHS officials were unclear who was to get the $25 million for the Clare health project until a lobbyist reached out, informing the department that it was intended for a nonprofit created by David Coker Jr., a former aide to Wentworth.
Emails acquired by Bridge then showed that it was approved after a staffer told his superiors that the intended recipient was “both well connected politically and a bit antsy.”
Months later, in May 2023, the grant was halted after questions arose that Coker’s nonprofit had potentially double-billed the state, which paid out over $10 million before stopping the health and fitness project that would have included a bowling alley as its centerpiece.
Coker’s nonprofit used the money to buy 70 acres for $3.5 million, or $50,000 an acre, a price far exceeding local land values.
The land was purchased from a group that included State Rep. Tom Kunse, R-Clare, who succeeded Wentworth in the Legislature. Kunse has raised questions about the grant as well.
