As you probably know, my husband and I are recent targets of a personal attack campaign from those I not-so-affectionately think of as “the Clarkston crazies.” Why? Because we had the temerity to suggest a charter amendment that will make the Historic District Commission (HDC) accountable to the city council and provide protections to residents against HDC abuse, something that’s been a problem in Clarkston for a long, long time – and everyone knows it.
Rather than making arguments against the amendment, the Clarkston crazies think the better way to approach the matter is to accuse my husband and me of conspiring with council member Peg Roth. (Or maybe the claim is that Roth is using us for some reason. I seriously can’t keep up.) It doesn’t matter that I’ve repeatedly said we did not work with Peg Roth on the charter amendment (and hello! I would be in a position to know). Oh, and then there’s the one about the Roths and the Bisios being “bad” people because we’ve sued the city. Therefore, as they say in law school, res ipsa loquitur (the thing speaks for itself). I guess the logic is we’re bad . . . so the HDC charter proposal must be bad . . . because we’ve sued the city. Or something. (The missed irony in all this is the people who are accusing us of bad things are objectively not very nice people, but you’re not supposed to notice that.) I guess the Clarkston crazies gotta crazy. 🤪
The truth is neither Peg Roth nor her husband Robert Roth have sued Clarkston (you can look it up for yourself on the Oakland County court explorer website). I can’t speak for any businesses Robert Roth may own or how he owns them (don’t know, don’t care), but businesses are different than individuals and husbands are separate from wives. Weird that city council didn’t bat an eye when Sharron Catallo refused to recuse herself from parking votes that directly benefitted her son Curt’s multiple restaurant businesses in town, even though she was a corporate officer for one of the corporations that owned some of those restaurants at the time of those votes, something that actually was a conflict of interest. Apparently, the Clarkston crazies are OK considering Sharron Catallo to be separate from her son’s businesses – despite being a corporate officer – but Peg Roth is not separate from her husband’s businesses. Sounds like a double standard to me, but consistency isn’t something the Clarkston crazies care much about.
But it doesn’t matter, because Peg Roth didn’t draft the charter amendment – my husband did. And we didn’t ask her for input because we didn’t need to. We’ve lived here since 2002. And we’re lawyers. With eyes. And ears. And neighbors. And a subscription to the Clarkston News. We know what the HDC has been doing to people. It’s not a secret.
My husband and I have sued Clarkston, but if you are mad about our lawsuits, then you apparently must also be in favor of the city’s violation of state transparency laws because our three lawsuits were limited to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Open Meetings Act (OMA). In all three cases, the city had every opportunity to follow the law and refused. The OMA and second FOIA case settled with the city admitting it had violated state law, and the first FOIA case went to the Michigan Supreme Court who determined the city had violated state law. (Hmmm. Maybe if the city would stop violating state law, they would have fewer lawsuits from us? Fair question.)
The truth behind the HDC charter proposal is my husband and I were tired of seeing years of HDC abuse and the last straw for us was the HDC’s attempt to get the city council to give them the authority to fine people up to $5,000 for purported rule violations this last April – even though the council hadn’t requested such an ordinance amendment or authorized the legal expense to draft it. We think the HDC has strayed far away from where they’re supposed to be, the city will be a better place if the HDC treats people fairly and are limited to what they are allowed to do under the state law that created them, and we happen to have the skills and ability to do something about the problem.
Want an example? The HDC has no authority under state or federal law to involve themselves in home repair that doesn’t change the external appearance of a home and ordinary maintenance issues, yet they demand historic district residents seek pre-approval for home repair and ordinary maintenance. They regularly violate the OMA because they’re too lazy to hold additional meetings to address the problem they’ve created for themselves by demanding they be involved in things like emergency roof repairs. Rather than following the OMA, they illegally meet in sub-quorum groups and make decisions outside of the public’s view.
Huh. Guess we could have sued them to force these changes, especially since the Clarkston crazies think suing is all we do, right? For now, our preference is to take the more positive approach of a charter amendment.
One thing I haven’t discussed much under the umbrella of HDC abuse is HDC favoritism. This is where people the HDC likes are held to different standards or aren’t required to jump through the same hoops as everyone else. For example, the HDC claims it has the authority to approve tree and shrubbery removal, yet my neighbor Sharron Catallo didn’t seek pre-approval when she recently cut down a very large and old tree next to her house (that was almost as tall as her giant old church home). Who is Sharron? Well in addition to her involvement in her son’s restaurant businesses in town, she’s a former village president, former mayor, former council member, Zoning Board of Appeals member, and tree committee member. Sharron lives across the street from her daughter Cara Catallo.
You know Cara Catallo – she wears sunglasses indoors, has green or blue hair (that she apparently colors herself), is always obsessed with someone or something, often yells insults at city officials or heckles others from the back of meeting rooms (when she’s not busy taking copious notes), and she’s made a career out of attending every city meeting and function (and I mean that literally – if she has a regular job, I’m unaware of it).
Lately, Catallo has been screaming about how awful the proposed HDC charter amendment is (and how awful the Bisios and and council member Peg Roth are). What she’d like you to overlook (or forget) is she was a former HDC chair and responsible for some of the abuse the proposed charter amendment is trying to address. For example, while serving as HDC chair, Catallo asked for a stop work order from the city’s contract building department to prevent private property owners from cutting down trees on their own property – even though she had no authority to ask for a stop work order and even though there were no structures on the property, historic or otherwise. It was a vacant lot and the trees weren’t “old,” but Catallo chose to force her personal preferences on the owners because she apparently liked the trees. Catallo’s asinine overreach forced the city and the property owners to pay legal fees, and when the matter settled, she petulantly refused to sign the settlement agreement. But when her mother cut down that large tree next to her own house, neither Cara nor Sharron said a word or asked for permission. (I know this because I sent a FOIA request asking for records regarding an HDC application to remove the tree and there were none.)
Got that? Tree removals are subject to HDC oversight and stop work orders – unless you are a special snowflake, in which case you can do whatever the heck you want.
Melissa Luginski is also apparently one of those special snowflakes. She should have resigned from the HDC months ago and hasn’t done so because her official residence is in Independence Township, not the City of the Village of Clarkston (COVOC).
On September 5, I wrote a letter to the Clarkston City Council asking them to address Luginski’s continued membership on the HDC based on her residency status. As is usually the case, the council didn’t act on my letter. This isn’t surprising. There are many on the council who are just fine with the HDC abuse because they haven’t personally experienced it or they live outside of the historic district. Keep an eye on council member Ted Quisenberry if you’d like to see the best examples of what I’m talking about. Quisenberry recently had the nerve to say reports of HDC abuse are simply “hearsay” and arrogantly dismissed them. (Remember that when he asks you to vote for him next time.)
Since the council has failed to act on Luginski’s HDC appointment, I’ll share what I told them with you, so you understand why I don’t think Luginski is eligible to continue to serve as an HDC member. Unfortunately, there’s a real risk that Luginski’s narcissistic refusal to resign has jeopardized any HDC decision where her vote was a deciding factor because she’s not qualified to be on the HDC due to her residency status.
Clarkston ordinance 152.06 and MCL 399.204 of the Local Historic Districts Act (the state law that authorizes our historic district) requires each member of the HDC to “reside” in the city. The words “reside,” “residence,” and “resident” are not defined in our ordinance, our charter, or in the Local Historic Districts Act.
In 2021, the city adopted what I refer to as the “Rodgers test” for deciding where a person resides. At the time, Laura Rodgers was a candidate for city council and a favorite of then mayor Eric Haven. (Haven supported Rodgers and Bruce Fuller as write-in candidates over Dr. Steve McLean and Dr. Chris Moore who were motivated to run and seek change because they’d suffered their own HDC abuse – Haven couldn’t have that!) It wasn’t a secret that Rodgers hadn’t physically lived in the city for more than a year when she ran for office; she extensively blogged about the fact her Main Street home was undergoing extensive renovations that forced her and her husband to relocate outside of the COVOC, she posted photos of the ongoing work, and she admitted she’d packed up her entire household in September 2020 so the work could proceed.
Our city charter requires candidates for city office to be residents of the COVOC during the year immediately before the election. We asked whether Rodgers was eligible to be a candidate since she admittedly didn’t meet the charter requirement. In response, city attorney Tom Ryan opined that “residence” is where a person’s intention to live is – even if the person isn’t currently living in the intended place. Ryan said Rodger’s intention to be a resident of the COVOC could be discerned by using the following three factors:
1. Where she was registered to vote
2. Where her principal residence exemption was
3. The address on her driver’s license
Since Rodgers could answer “the COVOC” to all three, Ryan determined Rodgers was eligible to run for city council – even though she hadn’t actually lived in the COVOC for more than a year before the election.
I became aware Luginski was not a registered voter in Clarkston when I saw her name had been removed from the Erica Jones petitions for city council. FYI, Jones is the only person whose name will be printed on the November election ballot, even though her petitions contained the same types of small errors the other six candidates made on their affidavits of identity. The others are required to run as write-ins, yet Jones is not. If you want to know why, I guess you’re going to have to take that up with deputy clerk Evelyn Bihl, since she ignored our inquiry about the Jones petition errors (and coincidentally was also one of Jones’ petition signers).
When reviewing Jones’ petition signatures, our former clerk placed an “r” next to Luginski’s name, which I presume was her shorthand for “registration.” When I met with the former clerk on the day she resigned, and during a discussion of petition signatures generally and our HDC charter proposal signatures specifically, our former clerk briefly mentioned that Melissa Luginski’s name was the only name she’d removed from any petition because Luginski wasn’t registered to vote in the COVOC.
That begged the question – where exactly was Luginski registered to vote? It’s pretty easy to find out, and I learned Luginski changed her voter registration to 8220 Reece Road on April 1, 2024. This address is not in the COVOC; it’s in Independence Township. Luginski’s husband Joseph (former mayor and former city council member) changed his voter registration to 8220 Reece Road on July 1, 2024. (I’ve attached an excerpt from the Independence Township voter list showing both registrations here.) In order to be placed in the qualified voter file (which is where voter registration information is kept), Luginski would likely have completed a form that would have looked something like this and stated her residence address is 8220 Reece Road, which is not in the COVOC. Please note the form requires the person completing it to certify, under penalty of perjury, that all statements made on the form are true and correct. Luginski fails factor #1 of the Rodgers test.
What about the principal residence exemption? Both Melissa and Joseph Luginski used 81 North Main Street as their address when they signed Jones’ petition (and neither were registered COVOC voters at the time they signed the petition, but since it was so close in time, it’s possible Joseph Luginski’s paperwork hadn’t yet caught up with him in the state’s database for the former clerk to see it). On information and belief, the Luginskis don’t own the home at 81 North Main Street. They used to own the big white home at 71 North Main Street, but they sold it on February 12, 2024. The deed was recorded on February 20, 2024, and I’ve attached it here. They purchased their 8220 Reece Road residence on April 8, 2022. That deed was recorded on June 23, 2022, and I’ve attached it here. (Note that the 8220 Reece Road deed indicates a copy of the recorded deed and all future tax bills should be directed to the 8220 Reece Road address, which demonstrates the Luginskis are also receiving mail in Independence Township.)
Independence Township makes it easy to search for tax information. If you do a name search for “Luginski” on the BSA online website, you’ll see Melissa and Joseph Luginski have claimed a 100% principal residence exemption for 8220 Reece Road since February 26, 2024. What is a principal residence? It’s “the dwelling that you own and occupy as your permanent home.” It’s clear the Luginskis own the 8220 Reece Road residence because of the deed information I linked to above, but what does the state mean when it uses the word “occupy” in connection with an address? It means that 8220 Reece Road is the place that the Luginskis’ reside in as their permanent residence, and if absent, where they intend to return. What is a principal residence exemption? It’s a property tax break given to homeowners to excuse up to 18 mills of property taxes on a principal residence. In order to obtain the principal residence exemption for 8220 Reece Road, the Luginskis had to complete a form and certify under penalty of perjury that they owned and occupied 8220 Reece Road as a principal residence. Luginski fails factor #2 of the Rodgers test.
While I can’t provide you with a copy of Luginski’s driver’s license, I can infer that her driver’s license address is at 8220 Reece Road. The principal residence exemption application form instructions state the address for the home one occupies “should be the address that appears on your driver’s license and voter registration card.” Should Luginski try to vote in Independence Township, she may have difficultly if she didn’t change her driver’s license address to match her voter’s registration, and the form she would likely have completed to change her voter registration warns that: “Michigan law requires that the same address be used for voter registration and driver’s license purposes.”
For those reasons, I’m willing to bet Luginski changed the address on her driver’s license and her voter registration at the same time. Given that Luginski failed parts #1 and #2 of the Rodgers test, and the information I’ve already provided shows her clear intention is to live in Independence Township, the burden should be on Luginski to show her current driver’s license to the city if she wants to claim she’s still a COVOC resident (and to explain why her principal residence exemption and voter’s registration are in Independence Township, not the COVOC).
I think it’s pretty clear Melissa Luginski is not a resident of the COVOC, so I have questions:
-
- Why hasn’t Melissa Luginski resigned from the HDC?
- If Luginski is refusing to resign, why hasn’t the city council taken steps to remove her?
- Will this be a case of the city changing the rules for determining residency because Luginski has friends in city hall?
At this point, I think there’s enough evidence that Luginski has to go, and the only remaining question is why she hasn’t left yet. If you have the same question, let city council know. If you have an issue pending before the HDC, you may want to pay attention to the vote count because if Luginski isn’t eligible to be on the HDC because of her residency issues, then her deciding votes are likely invalid.
(And if you’re tired of HDC abuse and favoritism, then please consider voting yes on the proposed HDC charter amendment on November 5! And because I’ve just said that and even though I haven’t spent any money, I’m going to add the following text though I’m not sure I have to:
Paid for by Susan Bisio, P.O. Box 1303, Clarkston, MI 48347 with regulated funds.)