From the start, something wasn’t right.

Frank Goodroe remembers the day in late December 2014 when he attended mass at St. Gertrude Parish in Northport. He had just arrived in the community to start his new job as village coordinator.

“Of course, there’s not that many newcomers, and I went in and was welcomed and things like that, and as I was leaving — it’s a very elderly congregation — a couple of the folks came up to me and said, ‘Sir, you have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into. The village is so dysfunctional,’” Goodroe recalls. “Now, these are people that are in their 70s and 80s and 90s that are telling me this. It was very strange. It was a very peculiar situation.”

Three years later, he’s been forced from the coordinator job, he’s seen his campaign signs disappear, and he said he’s been targeted by village officials in an ordinance-violation case he believes was meant to drive him out of town.

In this week's Northern Express - sister publication of The Ticker - investigative reporter Patrick Sullivan goes behind the scenes of Goodroe's ouster after just six months on the job and explores the village politics that have led to repeated court battles and run-ins between Goodroe and Northport officials including Barbara Von Voigtlander, the former village president who took his job. Von Voigtlander had been village president until the end of 2014, when she was voted out of office by only a few votes. Goodroe says that when he started his job in January 2015, it seemed Von Voigtlander didn’t want to cede power. "She continued to come in constantly,” he says. “She was there all the time. She was the chair of the utility authority, so she would use that as the reason. She was just there all the time. It wasn’t appropriate.”

In June 2015, Northport Village Council Trustee Phil Mikesell asked Goodroe to resign. Goodroe says he wasn’t given specific reasons for the request, and can think of only one reason officials might have been frustrated with him: the position he took on Northport’s controversial sewer, a project that went way over budget and for years has cost residents thousands of dollars in monthly bills. Goodroe had opposed the use of general fund money to pay bond payments for the sewer system. “I thought that was an inappropriate use of the village general fund,” he says.

While Von Voigtlander denies she had anything to do with Goodroe’s resignation, the two have continued to spar on multiple fronts since she took over his position. Goodroe's attempts to provide affordable housing by renting out inexpensive rooms to several village residents was challenged in court by Northport under Von Voigtlander's direction. Goodroe won the case, but spent thousands of dollars in attorney fees defending himself from what he says were trumped-up zoning violation accusations. When Goodroe ran for Leelanau Township supervisor, Von Voigtlander ordered his signs taken down from privately-owned property near the village's "Welcome to Northport" sign (she has since stated she forgot the land was privately owned and mistakenly had the signs taken down). More recently, Goodroe and another Northport resident and businessman who's tussled with Von Voigtlander - North Shore Outfitters owner Will Harper - both applied for openings on the village board; both were passed over for a recent newcomer to Northport Goodroe says was backed by Von Voigtlander.

Read more about Northport's ongoing political turmoil in this week's Northern Express story, "In Northport, The Housing Debate Got Personal." The Northern Express is available online, or pick up a copy at one of nearly 700 spots in 14 counties across northern Michigan.