By All Means, Let’s “Clear the Air” About Haven’s Favored Write-In Candidates

Write-in candidate Laura Rodgers says she wants to “clear the air” about the fact that she apparently hasn’t lived in the City of the Village of Clarkston (COVOC) for going on fourteen months now. Based on her own admissions in a blog that she writes about her home renovations (in which she seems to fancy herself as the star of an HGTV episode), she moved out in the beginning of September 2020 and has yet to return. As of August 18, 2021, she stated on her blog that she didn’t anticipate moving back in until after September 2021. In a letter to the Clarkston News this week, Rodgers admits that the Main Street house is still “uninhabitable.” The construction advertisement sign remains on the front lawn, and a casual inspection reveals that no one is living there, despite Rodger’s assertion that she divides her time between temporary lodging and Main Street. This self-serving claim of “dividing time” contradicts statements that she made on her blog when she wasn’t trying to shade the facts to get elected.

There’s a reason why the Clarkston charter requires COVOC residency for appointments to commissions and committees and why a candidate for city council must reside in the COVOC for the preceding twelve months to be eligible to run for office. People who live away from the city aren’t part of the fabric of the city. This isn’t a small technicality – a candidate who is unqualified to hold office can be removed from that office after election, which would of course result in more legal fees for the COVOC. This is what Rodgers invites while laughably suggesting that she’s not being “self-serving” or pursuing her own “wants and needs” by not temporarily removing herself from consideration for public office until she’s physically lived in the COVOC for twelve months before an election.

Rodgers says that when she moved out of the COVOC, she didn’t change her driver’s license, voter identification, or her mailing address. Whether she should have changed her driver’s license or voter identification in this circumstance is a question for the State of Michigan. And, since Rodgers extensively blogged about her frequent “visits” to the COVOC to pine over things like the builders removing “almost every floor” in the home, I presume that it wasn’t inconvenient to pick up her mail during her visits to her uninhabitable home.

In support of her position that she’s legally qualified to hold elected office, Rodgers offers two things – a supposed favorable legal opinion from the city attorney and “research” performed by the city clerk at the “State of Michigan level.”

Let’s start with the city attorney that Rodgers apparently holds in such high regard. Had Rodgers been living in the COVOC and familiar the goings-on here, she would be aware of the following facts and might not be so quick to rely on the city attorney’s thoughts concerning her qualifications for holding a COVOC office while she physically lives outside of Clarkston:

• • The city attorney caused the COVOC council to violate the Open Meetings Act (OMA). This happened because the city attorney asked the council to close a part of a city council meeting to the public when he clearly lacked the legal basis to do so. He “withdrew” the request after its legal sufficiency was challenged. Rather than apologizing to the council for what he’d done and warning the council members that their vote to unlawfully close a public meeting would expose all of the “yes” voters to civil and criminal liability, the city attorney went ahead and led the discussion in the subsequent unlawfully closed session at the city council’s request, sealing the fate of the affirmatively voting council members.

• • As a result of the unlawfully closed city council meeting, a reporter from the Clarkston News filed a criminal complaint with the Oakland County Sheriff and a civil lawsuit was filed.
  • In resolving the civil lawsuit, the city was forced to admit that it had violated the OMA and had to pay a settlement of legal fees.
  • The Oakland County Prosecutor’s office resolved the criminal complaint by sending a letter to the city council about their OMA violation, noting that the prosecutor’s office was aware that the city had admitted to violating the OMA as part of the lawsuit settlement. The city was warned about not violating the OMA in the future and about potential criminal liability.
  • The city attorney withheld public records regarding Clarkston government business from both his client (the city council) and the public. These records were requested under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
  • The city attorney developed a bizarre theory that if he kept Clarkston records hidden in his private, off-site office, the records somehow weren’t public records. He also claimed that these records wouldn’t magically transmogrify into public records unless (or until) he alone decided to share them with someone else from the city – even though Clarkston taxpayers paid the city attorney to create and receive these public records during the course of his work on Clarkston’s behalf.
  • The city attorney’s decision to hide public records resulted in a FOIA lawsuit that dragged on for five years and was one of the very rare cases selected for hearing and decision in the Michigan Supreme Court. Needless to say, our state’s highest court disagreed with the city attorney’s opinion about what public records are.
  • The city attorney’s actions in the FOIA matter forever tarnished the reputation of the COVOC by associating the city with hiding public records from the public, something that can be discovered by anyone performing a basic internet search using the words “FOIA” and “Clarkston.”
  • The city attorney told the city council that the plaintiff’s legal fees in the FOIA lawsuit would be covered by the city’s insurance carrier. He said this after being advised by the city’s insurer – in writing and at the very beginning of the lawsuit – that the insurer objected to paying any legal fees because the insurer believed they weren’t covered by city’s insurance.
  • In resolving the lawsuit, the city attorney’s malpractice carrier contributed to the legal fee settlement as a result of the city attorney’s actions during in the lawsuit, a fact that the city attempted to hide from the public by disclosing only the city’s contribution to the settlement. The city attorney’s malpractice insurer paid the same amount that the city paid toward the settlement, along with a compromise payment from the insurer (made presumably to avoid litigation with the COVOC over the insurance policy coverage).
  • Even though the city attorney’s advice was directly responsible for both the OMA and FOIA lawsuits, he refused to limit his involvement in either lawsuit. This created a conflict of interest, because no objective and detached attorney would conclude that the city attorney could separate his personal interest in having his erroneous legal advice judicially vindicated from the legitimate interest of his COVOC client to receive legal advice free from the attorney’s personal interests.
  • Even though the city was represented by a mid-size law firm with multiple lawyers working on the OMA and FOIA cases, the city attorney extensively billed Clarkston taxpayers for his unnecessary and improper involvement in the lawsuits to the tune of thousands and thousands of dollars.

But hey, no doubt the city attorney’s advice is correct this time. 🙄

How about Rodgers claim that there was “research done at the State of Michigan level by the city clerk”? Gosh, this sounds like there was some sort of a formal legal inquiry.

Oh wait, there wasn’t.

The COVOC Clerk apparently called some unknown person and repeated the “facts” that Rodgers gave to her. In her written response to me, the clerk provided the results of her telephone call, advising that in addition to being registered to vote in the COVOC, “[Rodger’s] driver’s license states that is her address, all of her mail is sent to that address and more importantly per the State of Michigan Elections Division her personal effects are located at 58 N Main St.” So, the most important fact – for which Rodgers was the only source of information – was that Rodgers keeps her personal effects on Main Street, even though she also admits that her house is still uninhabitable fourteen months after she moved out. When she didn’t have a motivation to shade the facts, Rodgers posted on her blog that her belongings were “whisked away for safe keeping” and stored in PODs in September 2020. Did she leave a toothbrush and a stick of deodorant on an unfinished countertop on Main Street so she could claim that she had “personal effects” there? Inquiring minds want to know.

This isn’t the only potential legal issue that Rodgers (as well as her co-candidate Bruce Fuller) have. Rodgers filed her “Write-In Candidate Declaration of Intent” with the COVOC Clerk on September 8, 2021. Fuller filed his “Write-In Candidate Declaration of Intent” with the COVOC Clerk on September 28, 2021.

The Michigan Campaign Finance Act’s stated purpose is, among other things, to regulate political activity, anonymous contributions, campaign financing, campaign advertising and literature, and acceptance of certain gifts. The Act requires campaign statements and reports in certain circumstances, and there are compliance deadlines. For example, candidates are required to file a Statement of Organization. Neither Rodgers (nor Fuller) have made this filing. The Statement of Organization requires that candidates provide the name of an official depository, and an account must be opened at that financial institution once campaign contributions are received.

Despite that requirement, these two write-in candidates have been actively campaigning. In addition to speaking as candidates in the October 11, 2021 city council meeting and asking people for their vote, these two have prepared flyers with their biographies on them for distribution to voters. Their names appear on some expensive campaign signs that have popped up throughout the COVOC, along with council member Gary Casey’s name (though I would note that Casey has complied with the law and his Statement of Organization is publicly available for viewing under the “Campaign Finance Requirements” section of the Oakland County Clerk’s website).

Mayor Eric Haven prepared a letter of support for Rodgers, Fuller, and councilmember Casey. Haven included his taxpayer-funded email address and taxpayer-funded telephone number in his letter of support so that people could contact him to discuss these particular candidates at taxpayer expense. Oh, you didn’t receive one? That’s because Haven’s letter was provided only to some absentee voters – but not to all absentee voters. That makes perfect sense when you realize that Haven’s goal wasn’t to provide information to voters or to have a city council that represents the concerns of all Clarkston taxpayers. Nope. He’s just focused on getting malleable council members elected who will vote the way he prefers.

The write-ins want your vote, yet they have both failed to comply with campaign finance law.

And if Rodgers and Fuller can’t obey campaign finance law . . .

• • Do you think they will follow the charter?
  • Do you think they will care about our ordinances?
  • Will they care if a board or commission doesn’t follow its own rules?
  • Will they disregard other state laws, such as the Open Meetings Act and Freedom of Information Act?

Gosh, the write-ins are already acting just like Haven does. When someone shows you who they are – believe them the first time.

Hard pass on Haven’s candidates.

Please consider Paul Angelini, Steven McLean, and Christopher Moore. Christopher Moore is a write-in candidate, so please be sure to spell his name correctly. If you’d like to read a letter from a write-in candidate who actually has a lifetime of investment and connection to the COVOC, take a look at Christopher Moore’s letter to Clarkston voters, which you can find here:

https://clarkstonnews.com/letter-to-the-editor-love-for-village-top-priority-for-potential-councilmember/

Please vote.