A Response to the City Manager and Clerk

I saw the city manager’s email complaining about some vague Facebook post before I saw the 11/13/23 city council meeting video that included the city manager’s interesting though inaccurate commentary on my most recent blog post. Apparently, he was referring to this post. Pro tip for the city manager – if you’re going to use your government position and government resources to complain about someone exercising her first amendment rights, you should be more specific about the source of your complaint – rather than sending your readers off to “Facebook” to try and figure out what you’re talking about.

Ever the master of misrepresentation, our city manager complained about me in his usual manner – setting up straw men and then indignantly knocking them down. And shall we use everyone’s given name here, since the city manager used my name and my former employer’s name at the meeting? I usually try to stick to titles when I’m addressing public official and employee conduct, but what the heck – if city manager Jonathan Smith thinks it’s appropriate to use names to castigate me in a city council meeting, then I will use them too.

What are Smith’s allegations? Well, Smith claimed I – (checks notes) – was very, very disrespectful; expressed incorrect assumptions and speculation; dragged the city through the mud; and referred multiple times to the city government as “idiots with no knowledge of the FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] process.”

Whoa Nellie! That sounds pretty awful, doesn’t it? It was admittedly a critical blog post, but did I really do all those things? And did Smith really think I wouldn’t call him out on his faux indignation over the actual content of my local government criticism, criticism that has been far more civil than the political speech our Framers engaged in? (You know, the guys who were responsible for drafting the first amendment that protects my right to do all the things on Smith’s list – if I wanted to.)

It is ironic that Smith now calls for all to “treat one another with respect and dignity.” He knows that, for over five years, ending not long ago, the City of the Village of Clarkston declared war on my husband and me simply because we asked a court to order the city to be transparent and follow the law. In open court and public court filings, the city actually (with examples) – was very, very disrespectful (claiming I’m nothing more than an incapable puppet and my husband pulls my strings); expressed incorrect assumptions and speculation (I didn’t really write the 2015 FOIA request or actually want the records because I was just a “front” for my husband); dragged my husband and me through the mud in court and at city council meetings (we were supposedly abusing the legal process and my request for public records was really about some unarticulated vendetta against the city attorney); attacked our integrity (my husband and I were doing unethical things and I committed actual fraud the instant I sent my 2015 FOIA request to the city, something that, if true, could have cost me my license to practice law); attacked me personally based on my gender (frequently using he/him pronouns when referring to me as a way to emphasize the city’s oft repeated allegation that my husband was secretly the plaintiff, not me) and my marital status (I was incapable of any independent thought and needed a husband to think for me); claimed we were incompetents who didn’t understand the FOIA (some sort of dynamic “duo” who apparently couldn’t read the statute); and my husband was a dolt who couldn’t figure out how to use the Michigan Court Rules to get records from the city if he wanted them (even though he was specially appointed by the Michigan State Bar to help revise these rules, sits on the Michigan State Bar Civil Procedure and Courts Committee making rule recommendations, and his name is on a multi-volume published treatise on the Michigan Court Rules and civil procedure).

Does the city manager think this conduct shows the “respect and dignity” that he now says everyone should exhibit? Apparently so because he and the city have had years to apologize for what they did – and haven’t. City clerk Karen DeLorge said she was upset that her friends read my blog post and asked her about it. If I don’t pay my web hosting bill, my website – and that post – will go away. The entire legal community and the public will be able to read the city’s court filings forever.

During the transparency lawsuits, the city used far more energy trying to destroy my husband’s livelihood, my life savings, and our reputations than they did litigating the simple legal issues presented, creating a billing bonanza for the city’s multiple attorneys. At one point, the city even secured what was effectively a gag order so my husband couldn’t talk about the city’s egregious conduct, and they only backed off after my husband asked the court of appeals to intervene in what was clearly a first amendment violation. Why? Because the city didn’t want Clarkston residents to know what they were doing to us. And rather than trying to amicably resolve the lawsuit after finally losing in the Michigan Supreme Court, the city doubled down on its disgusting attacks against my husband and me, increasing my overall lawsuit fees and costs by almost a third within just a few months’ time by making the specious argument that we didn’t actually win the lawsuit even though the Supreme Court ruled in my favor — an argument that was never going to be successful. We won, they lost, they couldn’t deal with it, and they wanted to make me pay some more.

And Jonathan Smith presumes to lecture me on appropriate conduct?

I don’t effing think so.

As a result of the lawsuit and my continuing transparency efforts, I was one of two recipients of the 2022 Jane Briggs-Bunting Transparency in Government award from the Michigan Coalition for Open Government, an award that was created to “honor the work of citizens who fight for better public access to government.” (You can learn more about what an amazing person Ms. Briggs-Bunting was here and here.) What did Clarkston get from all of this? A well-deserved anti-transparency reputation – and no one was fired. I’m not sure what it would take to fire a city attorney whose bad advice has caused the city to be repeatedly and successfully sued, but three times is apparently not enough.

Before I filed my FOIA lawsuit, I was far too busy with work, raising my daughter, and taking care of my dying father to pay attention to Clarkston government. But because of that experience, I now regularly write about the city’s underhanded attacks on people and businesses; favoritism for people and businesses it likes; violations of the charter; wasteful government spending; unlawful giveaways of our taxpayer dollars and resources to private organizations; and last but not least, the city’s seemingly never-ending desire to hide things from the public – just as they were doing when I sent my first FOIA request in 2015.

With that said, let me respond to my critics, one at a time.

Jonathan Smith:

I’ll start with Smith since he decided to make a public issue of his displeasure with my blog post, both at the 11/13/23 city council meeting and in his “Weekly Communication Letter” distributed to Clarkston residents and businesses. No doubt he’s particularly irked with me at the moment, since one of my recent FOIAs pertained to my annual request to the city for copies of records revealing the amount of money taxpayers have been unlawfully forced to contribute to his private non-profit organization’s (the Clarkston Community Historical Society’s) giant annual fundraiser in addition to the park use fee waiver. Smith really hates it when I bring that up, because he believes his organization is entitled to taxpayer dollars for some reason. (More on that in the future.)

During his comments at the council meeting, Smith falsely stated I referred multiple times to the city government as “idiots with no knowledge of the FOIA process.” I never said Clarkston government collectively has no knowledge of the FOIA process, though I would point out they’ve lost two lawsuits over the FOIA process, one of them concluding just a few months ago. Smith attempted to justify the bad wording of the resolution asking the city council to authorize hiring an additional attorney to help the city respond to federal FOIA requests, as opposed to Michigan FOIA requests (that weren’t mentioned in the resolution), because Smith claims the federal FOIA closely follows the Michigan FOIA (based on his extensive research, I suppose). I imagine the Arkansas FOIA also closely follows the Michigan FOIA, and they both use the acronym “FOIA,” so I guess it would have been equally OK to refer to the Arkansas FOIA in the legal services resolution using “Smith logic.”

I did say “[t]the idiocy that is our city government never ceases to amaze me,” but I went on to say that it was the failure to read either the charter or the FOIA statute that is particularly irksome. (I said: “They’d rather spend taxpayer dollars on an attorney to tell them what the charter says or what the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) says rather than reading the text for themselves.”)

Here is a recent example that arose out of the former mayor’s recent resignation. What exactly is it about this language that is so hard to understand: “Except as otherwise provided in this Charter, any vacancy occurring in any elective office shall be filled not sooner than fourteen (14) days nor later than thirty (30) days after such vacancy shall have occurred by the concurring vote of the majority of the remaining members of the Council. The person appointed by the Council shall serve until the next general city election at which time a successor shall be elected and installed to fill the office for the remainder of the term, if any.” Why did taxpayers have to pay the city attorney to read these words and write a memo about what they mean, in addition to paying him to prepare for and sit through every city council meeting (when he used to attend only every other meeting), especially since this isn’t the first time someone has resigned? The failure to read the charter goes beyond the recent vacancy question. Almost every time a question comes up about the charter, taxpayers are forced to pay for a formal legal opinion that could be avoided if our city officials would simply read the charter. (So far, newly elected council member Quisenberry appears to be the exception to the rule – thank you.)

My blog post pertained to a resolution brought in both Smith’s and DeLorge’s name asking taxpayers to pay for a “special counsel” for FOIA matters. Both Smith and DeLorge insist the reason for the resolution was because they wanted to be able to call someone for legal advice only when the city attorney isn’t available to discuss FOIA matters. The FOIA statute allows the city to take up to 15 business days to provide a final response to a FOIA request, excluding the 14 holidays city employees enjoy, and if the request is extensive, that final response can be a simple request for deposit before the city lifts a finger to retrieve any records. Are we expected to believe the city attorney leaves his clients and files unattended for three-week blocks of time? I worked for two large private law firms and can assure you that never happened, especially given most lawyers’ obsession with “checking in” at the office, even while on vacation.

When Smith asked the council for $7,500 of taxpayer money (the budgeted amount) to hire a “special counsel” on 11/13/23, he admitted he hadn’t requested a legal services agreement or received an engagement letter from this attorney for the city council to review. He asked the city attorney to go out and get something, but that was to occur after the council gave its approval for the arrangement (and perhaps never would have been requested if I hadn’t raised the issue in the blog post). Neither Smith, DeLorge, nor anyone on the council knows the details of what the city government will receive for $190/hour. Will it only be the named partner consulting on FOIA matters, or is that a blended rate that will include consultations with a paralegal or an associate attorney? If so, is the city council OK with paying a paralegal $190/hour to provide consultations? Will legal research, copying, etc. be billed separately, or are those administrative costs baked into the $190/hour? Depending on the complexity of the issue, electronic legal research costs can add up very quickly. What’s the time billing increment? (The city attorney bills in half-hour increments, which means he can spend five minutes on two separate issues and bill an entire hour of time for ten minutes of actual work.) And since it’s so easy to plead around the city’s insurance policy, who will handle any FOIA litigation arising from this attorney’s, associate’s, or paralegal’s advice? Will there be a different hourly rate for litigation? Smith has no clue what the answers are to these questions. (He’s told us he used to work at Stellantis – is that how he used to do things at his old job, or did they have higher expectations of him than the Clarkston city council does?)

Smith was specifically critical about my – (checks notes) – “incorrect assumptions and speculation.” At the 5/22/23 city council meeting (informal transcript and meeting video linked here), Smith expressly told the council he wasn’t interested in hiring another attorney with the $7,500 in additional legal budget money he’d asked for. In response to a council question about whether the money would be used to provide some relief to the clerk from her FOIA duties, Smith said he wanted a “FOIA consultant,” thought the legal services budget was the place to put those charges, didn’t envision hiring an employee that he would have to pay to sit around to wait for the next FOIA to arrive, but did want the ability to have someone on retainer so he “can bring them in. . . . [because] there might be days or weeks where he has no need for them. And then there’s other days when he needs them here eight hours a day” for times when their small staff can’t accommodate FOIA requests. (Underscore mine.)

My bad. I guess I need to apologize for engaging in “incorrect assumptions and speculation” because I relied on the words that came out of Smith’s mouth at budget time. So, what does the resolution mean by consultation and other assistance? Taxpayers had best not speculate about what “other assistance” means, lest they make an “incorrect assumption.” After all, everyone knows what undefined terms mean, and you apparently can’t ever rely on what Smith tells you because the 5/22/23 budget request now means hiring an attorney, not a temporary staff person (as he said then). It also doesn’t mean having someone come into the office to help (as he said then); it now means being able to call a new attorney – but only if the one who caused two FOIA lawsuits is unavailable. Did I get that right? Because I’m simply relying on the words Smith said at the 5/22/23 and 11/13/23 city council meetings, and Smith apparently thinks that’s not a reasonable thing for me to do. Did Smith mislead the city council when trying to induce them to approve the additional funding? That’s the way I interpret it, but you can click the link above and draw your own conclusions about whether Smith’s story drastically changed between May and November of this year – after he got the funding he wanted.

To be fair, I did actually use the word “idiot” once in my blog post, but it was in reference to Smith’s own inappropriate conduct. It is clear from the blog post (and Smith undoubtedly knew) I was referring to a April 2021 email obtained through the FOIA that he’d sent to the city’s insurer-funded attorney and the outside counsel the city hired to help them settle the lawsuit (an outside attorney hired because the city attorney was unavailable due to the malpractice claim the city made against him). The lawsuit had just ended, but Smith apparently wanted to stir the litigation pot and make absolutely sure those lawyers knew that Smith believed my truthful statements here “border[ed] on slander.” So, while being paid to do city work, Smith was reading a blog post, downloading and storing a copy of it on government equipment, using government email to share his learned “legal” opinion about a post on a website Smith admitted the attorneys were already aware of in his email (the city’s attorneys referenced my website in a court filing, no doubt because Smith had breathlessly made them aware of it), with the obvious goal being to get someone to sue a city critic into silence. (We had to pay for Smith’s time; did the attorneys bill for reviewing the email and attachment?) Any public official pulling cr*p like this deserves all the public ridicule that comes his way. But if Smith wants to fully embrace the title, rather than as a description of how grossly inappropriate his conduct appeared to the public once I published his email that actually made him “look like an idiot,” then I won’t bother to educate him on the difference between poor behavior and core personality criticisms.

Though I obviously don’t have access to Smith’s personal accounts (where I’m sure I would find more personal invective), I’m pretty sure Smith was involved in trashing me long before that 2021 email about my blog post. And, even if Smith wasn’t directly involved in what I’m about to tell you, it simply beggars belief he wasn’t aware of it. Be patient as I give you the facts as I know them so you can connect the dots and draw your own conclusions – as I did.

I’ve frequently referred to a small cadre of city residents as the “old guard.” These people were extremely angry that my husband and I were fighting for city transparency in court. One of them was William Basinger. Basinger is a retired attorney who used to sit on the Planning Commission, frequently attended city council meetings, gratuitously sent unrequested legal opinions to the city, and constantly referred to himself as a former “assistant Michigan attorney general,” likely because he wanted people who didn’t understand government titles to think he was some sort of important personal asset to the Michigan Attorney General. (In reality, he was one of a couple hundred easily replaced staff attorneys who likely only ever saw the Michigan Attorney General in person when s/he was invited to a general staff meeting involving his department.) Basinger was so piqued I had the audacity to engage in political speech by making a campaign contribution to former city council member Scott Reynolds that he sent a letter throughout the city addressed to “Fellow Clarkston Voters” trashing me (and others who’d made a campaign contribution) and attacking Reynolds for accepting contributions from the likes of people like us. To provide you with the extent of my purported transgression, I’d given Mr. Reynolds $50 and later sent him $25 more because election signs are expensive. I guess Basinger didn’t consider me to be a “Clarkston Voter,” because he didn’t send me a copy.

I held my tongue for a couple of years while my lawsuit was pending, but in 2018, I started speaking out about what the city was trying to do in secret. I wrote three letters to the editor that were published in the Clarkston News: 10/11/18 (Open Meetings Act lawsuit), 10/18/18 (FOIA lawsuit), and 10/26/18 (election law violations). I also sent a letter to voters to encourage them to vote for city council candidates I believed would support government transparency and explaining why I thought other candidates were bad for Clarkston. My public comments clearly angered certain people in Clarkston who wanted me to shut the eff up and go away.

On 10/12/18, someone registered the domain name clarkstonmatters.net and set up the now-defunct “Clarkston Matters” website, taking pains to keep the domain and website owner’s name(s) a secret. The Clarkston Matters political action committee (PAC) was created in Oakland County, also effective 10/12/18.

The Clarkston Matters PAC listed clarkstonmatters.net as its website address, so it’s clear the website and the PAC were connected. The group’s treasurer was someone named Jordan Bellant with a Waterford address. So, who the heck is Jordan Bellant and why would this Waterford resident care about Clarkston politics? For starters, Bellant was welcomed as a new member of Clarkston’s communication committee on their 3/9/17 agenda.

I became aware of Clarkston Matters on 10/27/18 when a friend forwarded a copy of what purported to be their first blog post from Bellant, shared on social media by Jennifer Arkwright, titled “The Point of it All…” This post was largely devoted to slamming the Clarkston News as biased and suggesting Clarkston Matters would be better. I did a bit of research and discovered an earlier blog post had been uploaded to the clarkstonmatters.net website in what appeared to be draft form (because of the typos and because it was dated one day before the website went live). The post, titled “A Letter in Response… to a Letter,” attacked me because of that letter I’d sent to Clarkston voters in support of my preferred candidates. The bulk of the text of “A Letter in Response… to a Letter” was attributed to Basinger because the Clarkston Matters group thought his opinion was super important for some reason. That first post was apparently not intended for public viewing and hastily taken down before the website was publicly announced, but I cut and pasted it into a document to keep for posterity. A short time later, Basinger sent a similar letter in his own name to the community, again excluding me. I also have a screenshot of a Facebook post from Melissa Luginski trying to drive traffic to the Clarkston Matters website and highlighting a later blog post titled “The Man of La Wompole,” a post that spent almost 2,000 words attacking resident and frequent city critic, Cory Johnston.

So, who are these people? I’ve already discussed Basinger. Arkwright is a former president of the Clarkston Community Historical Society (CCHS). Luginski is a current member of the CCHS board of directors (and on the Clarkston Historic District Commission). Smith is the current president of the CCHS, and his wife is the director. Oh, and at the time he registered the Clarkston Matters PAC, Jordan Bellant was Smith’s daughter Bailey’s boyfriend. He’s now Smith’s son-in-law.

Do you think Smith, who was sworn in as city manager almost two years before on 1/23/17, was unaware of Clarkston Matters and its attack on me (and Johnston)? Though it’s possible he had no idea what his future son-in-law and colleagues on the CCHS were up to, I find it hard to reasonably believe he didn’t know what was going on in his immediate circle. At the 11/13/23 city council meeting, some of the council members claimed only a small faction of residents agreed with me. Clarkston residents are splintered into many groups, and the groups don’t seem to like each other very much. Are those council members also aware that Smith’s family member and non-profit colleagues were (and probably still are) associated with an entirely different small faction of the community?

Last, but not least, Smith’s 11/13/23 comments noted that I said affiliating with an attorney who specializes in FOIA was a good start and probably a good move for the city. But that comment was also taken out of context. It’s only a good start if it means the city will eventually replace the current city attorney, and the “FOIA Specialist” appears to be a good candidate given his general municipal law experience. Since we’re told this newer attorney won’t even be called unless the city attorney is unavailable, I don’t see how contracting with this person will do much good. What is likely to happen is our city attorney may want to defer FOIA questions he doesn’t want to bother with to the new “special counsel.” If that’s the case, then taxpayers will need to watch for double billing – the city attorney’s time for reviewing and deciding whether he wants to answer the FOIA question, and the “special counsel’s” time for actually answering it.

Karen DeLorge:

Ms. DeLorge was quite upset at the 11/13/23 council meeting. We heard how she tries her best to do a good job. I believe that’s true, and I’ve been more of a champion for her than Smith has (as I’ll discuss below). And may I take this opportunity to say how much I enjoy the recent lighthearted, small town, homey posts on the city’s Facebook page? Because I do, and I’m assuming Ms. DeLorge is responsible for that.

Given Ms. DeLorge’s response at the meeting, it’s probably safe to infer she wrote the badly worded resolution I criticized, a resolution written as a request from both Ms. DeLorge and Smith that I assumed was Smith’s work product. Resolutions are official documents, so if Smith didn’t write it, then didn’t he at least read and agree with it before the meeting? Didn’t the city council read it before the meeting? Council member Gary Casey said he used to advise a community college regarding the FOIA, something he described as a “horrendous statute.” (Interesting comment to file away in my government animus file, but it makes me wonder why Mr. Casey came to our home to ask my husband and me to sign his nominating petition in support of his run for city council in 2021 and a month or so ago in 2023. Mr. Casey only needed 20 signatures, so why not solicit people he likes and who hate transparency as much as he apparently does? 🤔)

The city has a habit of continually revising meeting agendas, sometimes less than an hour before a city council meeting when no one could possibly see the changes. Didn’t FOIA expert Casey see the errors in the resolution, and if so, why didn’t he say something to Smith and/or Ms. DeLorge so it could be revised? It’s embarrassing that this resolution is part of the public record, because the city isn’t ever going to be called on to respond to FOIA requests intended for the federal government, the State of Michigan, or any other unnamed public authority for any “previously unreleased or uncirculated information” these entities control. If city officials and employes are going to ask taxpayers to pay for something, at a minimum, they should correctly identify what that something is. Is it overly harsh to suggest if you don’t know these things, then it’s also likely you haven’t really read the statute, don’t understand the federal government is separate from the state government, or are unable to grasp the import of what you are reading? Perhaps. But if those comments weren’t well received, city officials should refer to my introductory paragraphs describing what the city did to my husband and me and compare them to what they think happened here.

Ms. DeLorge was also apparently upset that I suggested the purpose of the resolution was to pay for someone to come in and assist her with the nitty-gritty of responding to FOIA requests because she works as hard as possible to do her job and doesn’t need someone to do it for her. I do think she works hard, but where could I possibly have gotten an idea like that? How about directly from Smith, who said he needed up to $7,500 in budget money for someone to physically come into the office and help Ms. DeLorge. Those were his words, not mine. I criticized the fact that Smith’s request for on-demand staff help has transmogrified into a request to hire a second attorney at $190/hour for consultation and undefined “other assistance,” which is broad enough to bring the lawyer to city hall and work with the clerk to respond to FOIA requests. I extensively quoted Smith’s comments from the 5/22/23 city council meeting as the foundation for what I wrote, but my apparent error was not realizing we aren’t supposed to believe what the city manager tells us is the reason for asking for taxpayer dollars. George Orwell’s 1984 is alive and well in Clarkston, since “[n]othing exists except an endless present in which [Jonathan Smith] is always right.”

I don’t think I’ve ever been anything but polite in my telephone and email communications with Ms. DeLorge. I extended an incredible amount of grace to her in appreciation of the fact she was inexperienced with the FOIA when she started the job, especially during our initial exchanges. Rather than giving up and filing lawsuits, I spent an inordinate amount of time going back and forth about what was missing from her responses to me. Why? Because I wanted her to be successful, and I even provided her with source material so she could look things up for herself and not take my word for it. Did she actually read it? Only she knows for certain.

I’ve even championed Ms. DeLorge against Smith’s rather shabby treatment of her regarding her compensation on two occasions:

• • Smith hired Ms. DeLorge and dismissed the other city clerk candidates without consulting with the city council, even though he could have easily asked for council approval before extending the offer. When finally asked for approval, the city council didn’t know Ms. DeLorge’s name, possess a copy of her resume, or have the chance to interview her for themselves even though the city council – not Smith – were the ultimate hiring authority. In addition to exposing Ms. DeLorge to potential economic harm in the event the city council’s approval was withheld after she’d resigned from her previous job, Smith reduced Ms. Delorge’s initial salary by $5,000 annually, arbitrarily deciding to withhold the full council-approved rate for her predecessor until Ms. DeLorge completed her probationary period (that Smith incorrectly told council was 60 or 90 days rather than the six months required by the city’s policies and procedures manual). The charter gives Smith no authority to hire a clerk or establish her salary. I wrote about how badly I thought Ms. DeLorge was treated and encouraged the city to immediately restore the $5,000 Smith took from her here.

• • During the 2023-2024 budget presentations, Smith initially recommended a zero salary increase for Ms. DeLorge (while recommending a 5% salary increase for himself). Smith reasoned that because Ms. DeLorge had recently received the $5,000 Smith had (improperly) withheld from her when she was hired, she should be content to wait another year before receiving any additional compensation. I wrote about that here. After I wrote that blog post, Smith quietly changed his budget chart to reflect a 5% salary increase request for Ms. DeLorge. Smith obviously reads my blog posts, so if I played any part in securing fair compensation, then you’re welcome, Ms. DeLorge.

Ms. DeLorge is correct that she’s not an elected official, but she is an officer under the Clarkston charter along with the city manager, treasurer, city attorney, and others. She’s never been “slandered” that I’m aware of, but if she thinks I’ve done so, then she should go ahead and sue me – but good luck with that since my criticisms are factually based and relate to my opinions about the conduct of charter-appointed government officers, not anyone’s conduct as an individual person outside of their official roles. In fact, I explicitly excluded Ms. DeLorge from much of public blame for the city’s actions leading up to my second FOIA lawsuit, even though she was extensively involved and her last email to me alleged she was too busy to respond further (which turned into being too busy to respond – ever). I did publish our email discussions once I brought the city council into the matter, so I suppose she could perceive that as an additional public criticism. I later learned she – and the city council – were apparently persuaded to act on horrendously bad advice from the city attorney who told them to just ignore my FOIA requests and give no further response. Sending me a “too busy” email and then never responding afterward was unprofessional, but I had no way of knowing the actual unprofessional in that scenario was the city attorney, not Ms. DeLorge – until the city attorney answered my lawsuit complaint.

I am truly sorry if Ms. DeLorge’s feelings were hurt over my most recent blog post. I really think she’s a nice person. I was misled by the Smith’s statements to the city council and public at budget time when he told us that the purpose for the increased legal services budget was to hire someone who could be called in to handle complicated FOIA requests the city’s small staff couldn’t handle, and I think the resolution itself was inexcusably sloppy. But Ms. DeLorge is 100% wrong in her claim that I’ve constantly criticized her. I looked back at my blog posts, and this is what I’ve said about her:

• • “I don’t fault our new clerk (who is also the FOIA Coordinator) for this, but I do blame the city manager and city attorney.” (Link here.)

• • “I do not intend to dump on our clerk, who also happens to be the FOIA coordinator and responsible for answering FOIA requests. She’s new, and she only knows what she’s been told with regard to which records are available and where they might be found. However, I do fault the city manager and the city attorney (who are administrative officers appointed under the Clarkston charter, both serving at the pleasure of city council).” (Link here.)

• • “As far as I can tell, the city clerk is doing an excellent job.” (Link here.)

• • “I want to say – as loudly and as explicitly as I can – that my interactions with our new city clerk have been great.” (Link here.)

• • “In addition to whining about the city attorney’s email address, the city [attorney] threw the clerk under the bus – she was new, she didn’t know how to write an extension letter (because the city manager didn’t train her?), the city staff is small and part-time, and the city manager and city attorney were on vacation for part of February. . . . I like the clerk, knew that she was new, understand that people go on vacation, and I know they work 32 hours a week. But if I hadn’t sued the city, I would still be waiting for an answer today, since the city attorney told the city not to respond further – which is a violation of FOIA.” (Link here.)

I’m not sure where Ms. DeLorge (or her friends) get the notion I’ve constantly attacked her. That belief doesn’t match reality.

Ms. DeLorge did in fact receive four FOIA requests from me the night of the election. I’d intended to send some of them earlier, but as a courtesy, I held them back until the election was essentially over. I was aware it was Ms. DeLorge’s first general election, and I assumed she would be experiencing a lot of stress. Since that courtesy wasn’t appreciated, I’ll send any future requests when they’re ready without regard for how busy I know Ms. DeLorge may be at the time.

Ms. DeLorge said she’s received FOIA training and has almost a year’s experience at this point. That means she knows the FOIA requests I sent by email on election night weren’t even legally “received” by the city until the next day, she had five business days to respond, and she could have extended the time to provide a final response for an additional ten business days. There was no need to mention the number of requests I sent or the time they came in, unless the point was to achieve a dramatic effect during the council meeting.

Just how awful were these requests? They were so awful that Ms. DeLorge managed to finish her election duties and send an answer to all four requests within five business days without exercising her right to take a ten-business day extension of time. I will need to get back to her because it appears there are missing records. Normally, I wouldn’t mention omissions publicly, but as Smith and Ms. DeLorge (and Cara Catallo) have made these requests a public issue, I guess that also means I should publicly mention any deficiencies I believe exist so far.

As a result of one of those FOIA requests, I learned the city has blocked three people from accessing the Clarkston government’s Facebook page, something I believe is a clear first amendment violation. I’m acquainted with two of the three injured parties – Cory and Robyn Johnston (a frequent city critic and his wife) – as well as someone named Scott Weldon.

You remember Cory, right? He was the one the Clarkston Matters website ridiculed as “The Man of La Wompole,” a post that Melissa Luginski tried to boost. Mr. Johnston has mentioned several times over many years that he’s unable to access the Clarkston government Facebook page, and now we know why.

I’ve shared the city’s admission with the Johnstons to enable them to take whatever action they see fit. I think at least an apology is in order, along with an immediate unblock, because violating a person’s constitutional rights is legally actionable misconduct.

Ms. DeLorge said she wasn’t responsible for the blocks. I believe her but also wonder if the unprofessional and unlawful block began during the short-lived existence of the Clarkston Matters website and PAC. (If someone sues, I suppose they could ask Facebook for information about who did it and when.)  I note Ms. DeLorge hasn’t removed the block on Mr. Johnston (or at least she hasn’t as of my last check-in with him). Ms. DeLorge said the city attorney reviews all her responses before they go out. It’s shocking that he wouldn’t have recognized the first amendment issue and advised her to immediately remove the blocks.

Cara Catallo:

I want to devote a portion of this post to Cara Catallo. Ms. Catallo chose to make comments about me at the 11/13/23 city council meeting because she was in city hall when “all of this transpired” (referring to my FOIA requests). 🙄 And, when it comes to discussions about civility, Ms. Catallo really should be the first to offer an opinion, given that she’s such a shining example of it. 😂

I loved Ms. Catallo’s hyperbolic suggestion that four FOIA requests sent three minutes before the polls closed were very deliberately timed and intended to “cause some more friction with our elections” which is a “serious thing.” If we’re going to engage in full on crazy talk, why stop there? Tell me, Ms. Catallo, did the emailed FOIA requests I sent to the clerk, not you, strike at the very heart of our democracy? Could sending emails to the city official designated to receive them also be interpreted as an insurrection? An attempted coup?

Call the FBI to investigate!

After all, I darn well should have known the city was trying to deal with an intense nonpartisan election consisting of three people running for three city council openings and all were guaranteed to win. I’m sure those emails that I sent to the clerk, not you, distracted you (and the other two paid election workers) from your laser focus on the 36 people who showed up for in-person voting over a 12-hour period, amounting to a staggering average of three people per hour, or one person per poll worker per hour (if we don’t count the clerk). One wonders how you were able to bravely stay on task after someone sent four emails to the clerk, not you, that she could have ignored for an entire week before getting around to sending a ten-business day extension letter? Your heroic efforts in such difficult circumstances are to be commended. It’s nothing less than a demonstration of raw fortitude that, in spite of all the chaos caused by three people voting per hour, the clerk managed to find the time to read my emails and discuss non-election related city business with you and probably others.

Ms. Catallo, your suggestion that I intended to cause “friction” in the election by making requests for public records is an insane comment that deserves to be soundly mocked – as do you for making it.

Speaking of election day, I have a question about the people who “helped” as poll workers and enjoyed the free food donated by Ms. Catallo’s brother’s Clarkston restaurant business. Everyone knows about the free food because he received a ton free advertising telling us all about it – his company name was mentioned on the city’s website, in the emailed news flash to subscribers, in the Clarkston News, in the city manager’s weekly email, in the city manager’s 11/13/23 city manager’s report, and at the 11/13/23 city council meeting. Going forward, will the city be giving an equivalent amount of free advertising to every Clarkston business owner who sends coffee, pastries, and lunch to people paid to work for the city?

Poll workers are paid per diem with tax dollars, and Ms. Catallo always seems to be one of them. Last year, we paid Ms. Catallo $210, Smith’s wife and the former clerk $270 each, $220 to the administrative assistant, and $100 each to two others (you’ll have to wait until December to see what everyone was paid this year). No doubt UAW workers trying to live off their paltry strike pay would have appreciated the opportunity to earn a couple hundred dollars to help feed their families in exchange for one long but incredibly easy day’s work. The Michigan Secretary of State encourages people to apply online or at the local clerk’s office, and it inspires community trust in local elections when there are different people doing these jobs every year. I don’t recall the clerk reaching out to the community for poll workers, but I apologize for not noticing if she did. And if she didn’t, and that’s why the same people were poll workers again this year, then I’ll borrow Ms. Catallo’s oft-repeated phrase and say, “it seems peculiar.”

I also find it “peculiar” that Ms. Catallo thought she should weigh in on a civility discussion. (Actually, I had more of a kind of rolling on the floor laughing reaction.) Ms. Catallo makes rude, insulting, and condescending comments at public meetings all the time.

The 10/24/22 city council meeting offers two examples of Ms. Catallo’s incivility. At the beginning of the meeting, Ms. Catallo made a public comment, delivering what appeared to be a prepared speech largely expressing her contempt for former mayor Eric Haven. Her speech seemed to be primarily focused on Haven’s one vote contribution to the unanimous city council decision to adopt paid parking in the Depot Road parking lot at the previous city council meeting (something that is contrary to her brother’s business interests), but her prewritten rant also referenced bizarrely unrelated issues that apparently also displeased her (such as an expensive cake and a recreational marijuana flier). Ms. Catallo claimed the city council, and Haven in particular, were “disgraceful” and “reckless” for voting the way they did. Haven supposedly ignored the public, misrepresented Smith’s comments, and couldn’t grasp how his single vote on a matter affects the community and potentially damages businesses. She also said Haven was “self-centered,” “lazy,” “ignorant,” and “selfish.” Despite being allowed to hurl insults at the mayor and city council for five straight minutes (when public comments are limited to three minutes), Ms. Catallo interrupted the proceedings with a childish outburst just over a minute after her rambling speech concluded because she wanted to be recognized to make a comment to another audience member, even though public comment at city council meetings is to be directed at city council members. Rather than respect the time of everyone there and privately talk to that audience member after the meeting, Ms. Catallo rudely yelled her comment from across the room, despite not being recognized to speak again. A recording of that city council meeting can be found here, Ms. Catallo’s public comments can be found here, and her later outburst can be found here.

And, who else but Ms. Catallo would have the chutzpah later in that same meeting to infer our former mayor is an anti-diversity bigot because three months earlier, he’d merely suggested Main Street Clarkston should work together with the Clarkston city officials who’d approved the $1,000 of the taxpayer money she’d begged for to allow her Main Street Clarkston organization to apply for a 501(c)(3) designation? The only thing Haven did was suggest Main Street Clarkston and the city should be on the same page, goal wise, but he used the word “diversity” while making that suggestion. There is more than one meaning for the word “diversity,” and its opposite, but Ms. Catallo decided that bigot was the one she was going with and had apparently been weirdly ruminating on this single word for three long months. Why? Because she simply can’t control herself when talking to people she doesn’t like. I wrote about that here.

I wonder if Ms. Catallo is currently campaigning to be appointed to the Historic District Commission again? If so, the public needs to understand – and the council needs to be reminded – how she acts when she doesn’t like something or someone.

Ms. Catallo’s claim that I “hide” behind my keyboard is risible. The city – and Ms. Catallo – know who I am and where I live. I say what I have to say publicly. I also don’t push candidates and issues that I think will favor my family’s business interests.

To borrow an old expression, it’s unwise to pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel. These days, the ink is free. That’s something our city government – and meeting junkie Cara Catallo – should keep in mind. If the city would like me to stop writing, then stop giving me things to write about. (And again, to the extent my previous blog post was unfairly critical to Ms. DeLorge, then please accept my public apology.)