I confess I was as repulsed as everyone else to learn that former Historic District Commission (HDC) Chair Jim Meloche has been accused of manipulating pornographic images of adults and superimposing the faces of children he personally knew onto those images. If he’s found guilty of what he’s been accused of, he will die in prison given his age. I don’t have a problem with that, and I’m glad the criminal law has caught up with technology.
I never liked Meloche because of the way he treated people within the historic district. I also never liked the way former mayor Eric Haven always sprang immediately to Meloche’s defense whenever anyone objected to that mistreatment.
Meloche was instrumental in getting an unlawful stop work order against us when we were doing perfectly lawful repair work on our home that didn’t require interference from the HDC – and then tried to suck up to us and offer his assistance after it was obvious we were doing allowed like-for-like repairs and painting (thanks but no thanks, jerk). Meloche reportedly used to prowl the neighborhoods looking for ordinance violations and even threatened a resident over her supposed destruction of historic materials. He suggested the HDC might try to force her to remove all her new windows and replace them with more expensive fabulous fake windows that looked more “historic” than the ones she’d already paid for. Meloche’s abuse of Clarkston residents formed the basis for a lot of the protections we tried to put in place through the historic district charter proposal that failed last November.
In short, I always thought Meloche was an a$$hole but didn’t know he was also allegedly a fan of custom-made child pornography, something that makes me want to vomit.
A Fox2 Detroit media report states that a stack of papers belonging to Meloche was discovered the day after an October 2023 HDC meeting, and those papers included sexual images of children along with agendas and copies of emails. In 2023, the HDC had a regular meeting on October 10 and a special meeting on October 12, but I guess we’ll have to rely on future court filings to learn the exact date the discovery was made, who made the discovery, and what happened after that.
Following Meloche’s sudden resignation from the HDC, I sent a FOIA request asking for his resignation letter along with other related materials. In particular, my first paragraph asked for “[a]ll communications in any form to, from, copied, blind copied, or forwarded that include any current or former Clarkston official, appointee, contractor, employee, or agent relating to Jim Meloche’s resignation from the Historic District Commission (HDC), as announced in the city manager’s 11/2/23 ‘City of the Village of Clarkston Weekly Communication Letter.’” I now wonder whether that FOIA response was complete in light of the recent media reports. The city is allowed not to disclose information if there’s a FOIA exemption that allows for it, but the city is not allowed to refuse to acknowledge the existence of records it would prefer not to make a FOIA requester aware of.
Meloche’s resignation email is dated Friday, October 27, 2023, and he stated he was resigning “[d]ue to continuing medical conditions and recent personal issues . . . ” (Yeah, I’ll bet.) Meloche endorsed Lisa Patercsak as his replacement. (Patercsak is a current HDC commissioner.)
Though city manager Jonathan Smith was no doubt aware of the pornographic images (and is listed as a witness on the criminal complaint), Smith made a conscious decision to profusely thank Meloche in a reply email in response to his resignation, stating “on behalf of the City Council and administrative staff, your service and dedication to the City is greatly appreciated.” I think now that we all know today what Smith knew back then, less effusiveness would have been more appropriate. This is true not just in the way Smith privately responded to Meloche’s emailed resignation but also in his public announcement in his November 2, 2023, “City of the Village of Clarkston Weekly Communication Letter” blasted out to the community where Smith stated, “[t]he City extends its gratitude and appreciation to Jim for his years of dedicated service to the City.” I’m sure the parents of the involved children probably don’t feel much in the way of “gratitude and appreciation,” don’t you agree? I’ve attached Meloche’s resignation email, Smith’s emailed response, and his Weekly Communication letter here. (The purple highlights are mine; the yellow highlights were made by the city.)
I’m going to post things that interest me about Meloche’s criminal case on this website as they arise. As of this afternoon, the only thing of interest in the court file is the criminal complaint that I’ve attached here. You’ll see the complaint doesn’t provide much more information than has been disclosed in the many media reports available online, but the court file may contain more documents following Meloche’s April 24 probable cause conference and his May 1 preliminary examination. Unless there is a plea or some reason for delay, the case will probably be moved to Oakland County Circuit Court after the preliminary exam, which is a hearing in which the prosecution must prove there is probable cause to charge Meloche with the nine counts in the criminal complaint. In the meantime, Meloche was able to post a $100,000 bond and was released from the Oakland County jail.
Please be advised that I will not post Meloche’s personal information (such as a home or email address) and I plan to remove that information from any document I publish on this website. You can easily find out where he lives if you want to, but that information won’t come from me because I’m concerned about some casual discussion I’ve seen online suggesting that vigilantism might be appropriate. It’s not. The accusations are disgusting, but they should be hashed out in court, not anywhere else. The system may be slow, but it does work.