There is a group of three candidates who are apparently running on a “charm” campaign to save Clarkston . . . from stuff they made up. They are receiving a boost from an obviously related website claiming a desire that Clarkston remain “charming.” (See what they did there?) The website is connected to a ballot committee by the same name and was registered by former mayor and councilmember Joe Luginski. Luginski’s permanent home is in Independence Township, not Clarkston. I suspect the next step in this very slick and extremely well-funded campaign will be to send you a postcard that might include a disturbing photo of a dilapidated neighborhood to suggest that’s what’s in store for Clarkston if you vote for the proposed Historic District Commission (HDC) charter proposal.
Proving once again that a lie can travel ‘round the world before truth can put her shoes on, these people want you to be afraid, Clarkston.
Because they claim the proposed HDC charter amendment is awful. They say it’s dark. And dangerous. And destructive.
Scary, so scary! And like really, really bad. So bad that you will unleash the hounds of hell if you fill in the yes circle and vote to adopt the proposed HDC charter amendment. 😱
Intelligent people can provide facts and detailed arguments for or against an issue. People who think you aren’t intelligent will use words like dark, dangerous, destructive and hope you don’t ask too many questions.
There is a loosely formed group of people who always come out of the woodwork with political claims that someone or something they oppose is dark and bad, and it’s always in connection with an election. Several years ago, they ran the “Clarkston Matters” campaign formed by the city manager’s son-in-law that trashed their opponents (and me for filing a FOIA lawsuit). More recently, people crawled up through the floorboards to run an anti-marijuana proposal campaign. I remember getting a postcard that suggested Clarkston would turn into a drug-infested slum if the marijuana proposal passed. Hysteria, much?
The current campaign is about the HDC charter proposal and is designed to create a campaign vehicle for Ted Quisenberry (who wants to remove our long-serving, well-loved mayor Sue Wylie from office!), Amanda Forte, and Al Avery. Rather than running a positive campaign, these three are hoping to get elected on a platform of lies and scare tactics suggesting that if you vote for them, Clarkston will remain . . . “charming.” Frankly, I hope you choose to vote “yes” on the HDC charter proposal. But even if you choose to vote “no,” then I hope you don’t vote for Quisenberry, Forte, and Avery. People who run campaigns based on lies and fear should not be rewarded, and they really don’t belong on the city council or as mayor.
I’m going to give you the highlights of the HDC charter proposal, and then I’m going to go through the garbage that’s on the opposition’s website.
Here is what the HDC charter proposal would actually do and what the Quisenberry/Avery/Forte/“Charming” group are against:
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- Reasonable, publicly available policies and procedures
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- Publicly available recordings of HDC meetings
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- Publicly available, detailed meeting minutes that explain why a decision was made
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- Meeting minutes that are posted within the time required by the Open Meetings Act
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- Eliminating secret deliberations and decisions
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- Applications and decision notes kept as city records
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- Not discouraging people from attending meetings
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- Preferring informal dispute resolution before enforcement action is taken
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- Limiting the HDC’s authority to only those things permitted by the Local Historic Districts Act (the law that created Clarkston’s historic district)
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- Prohibiting onerous or unreasonable fines
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- Prohibiting orders imposing unreasonable financial burdens on property owners
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- Prohibiting threats of unreasonable sanctions
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- Treating residents courteously
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- Prohibiting entry on private property without permission
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- Having a resident complaint procedure that allows for removal of HDC members by city council where appropriate
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- Requiring council approval before tax dollars are expended
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- Requiring council approval before lawsuits are commenced
It’s really a bill of rights for Clarkston residents in the historic district and it protects against spending everyone’s tax dollars without the city council’s approval. These changes respond to past HDC abuse, and it’s kind of a head-scratcher that anyone would be against them. If I had to choose a slogan for the proposed HDC charter amendment, it would be “Make Clarkston Kind.” The proposed amendment isn’t dark, dangerous, or destructive. Overall, it’s about treating residents with kindness and respect. The Quisenberry/Avery/Forte/“Charming” group claims to “love this place,” but they apparently despise its people.
I enjoy casting sunshine on the shadows, and I’m not afraid to address the false claims made by the Quisenberry/Avery/Forte/“Charming” group. They don’t tell you how or why these purportedly terrible things will occur, despite spending the money to set up a whole website to do it. And, even though they’ve posted the proposed charter amendment, they really don’t want you to read it and think for yourself. They make you click on a button that says “it’s awful” if you want to see it. 😂 The charter proposal has been posted on this website since June, and you can read it here.
The Quisenberry/Avery/Forte/“Charming” group claims that voting yes on the HDC charter proposal, sorry, the {{{dangerous}}} HDC charter proposal would:
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- Allow the Michigan Department of Transportation to widen M15
- “Negate” the historic district ordinance – so no tax credits, grant opportunities, and a “fair, legitimate appeals process”
- “Overrides” the historic district ordinance
- Places purportedly “onerous” requirements on HDC commissioners in favor of untrained, biased, and potentially financially motivated politicians
- Is designed to favor some (unnamed) friends of mine so they can do anything they want
- Urges you not to let (unnamed) “special interests” take the historic district away
- “Meddles” with the charter to serve one (unnamed) special interest
- Strips Clarkston of protection in favor of (unnamed) special interests who only care about themselves, not the community.
- Allows (unnamed) “developers” to tear down historic buildings
It’s pretty hard to square this steaming hot cow manure with what the proposed charter amendment actually does, and their claims don’t even pass what I think of as the “really” test. Here’s how that works. Say out loud – “even though they’ve repeatedly said the reason they worked on the HDC charter proposal was to protect residents from HDC abuse that has actually happened in the past, the Bisios’ super-secret goal is really to run a highway through the center of town and turn Clarkston into some version of Potterville . . . Really?”
I’m not going to substantively address all their insane statements in this post because it would be so long that no one would read it. I’m just noting them for topics that I’ll respond to. So, stay tuned.
I do want to point out that at least half of the Quisenberry/Avery/Forte/“Charming” claims relate to some unnamed developers, some (all?) of whom are purportedly friends of mine. The “friends of mine” part is new, but the shadowy developer references are not. Let me restate what they’re trying to say, because this is the golden Clarkston rule and apparently what they fear since they’ve devoted so many talking points to it: “The City of the Village of Clarkston is only allowed to support Curt Catallo’s businesses. Any other ‘developer’ or ‘business’ is bad.”
As I’ve said repeatedly, any claim that we wanted to do anything other than protect residents from historic HDC abuse are lies, and lies don’t become truth just because some really angry people repeat them over and over. I’m not sure how unnamed developers would use the proposed HDC charter amendment to their benefit. And I would really like to know who all my developer friends are and whether the reason the Quisenberry/Avery/Forte/“Charming” group didn’t name names is because they’re worried about being sued for libel.
Here’s something that immediately jumped out at me because I’ve started writing an as-of-yet unpublished post about it. The Quisenberry/Avery/Forte/“Charming” group includes an altered a quote on their website (without attribution) that originally said: “Changing the appeals process in Clarkston’s historic district ordinance would not be with consequence.” (FYI, the HDC charter amendment does not change the appeals process and I’ll explain why that is in a separate post.) This sentence was taken from the HDC’s August 13, 2024, final minutes and was purportedly provided by Nancy Moon, chair of the Historic District Study Committee, based on a conversation she supposedly had with the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), a State of Michigan entity that is subject to Michigan’s campaign finance act. The quote was dutifully recorded by Nancy Moon’s husband Michael (the HDC secretary) and inserted into the draft minutes. Michael Moon and three other HDC commissioners voted to approve the quote as written in their final minutes.
To say that something would “not be with consequence” means the speaker was telling Nancy Moon the proposed changes wouldn’t have any consequences. Yet the Quisenberry/Avery/Forte/“Charming” group changed the quote so it reads the opposite way and says, “it will not be without consequence” – even though no one said that (except perhaps Quisenberry/Avery/Forte and their “Charming” supporters.) I’ll talk about why I think the act of putting that quote into official minutes was a campaign finance violation in a separate post.
Then the Quisenberry/Avery/Forte/“Charming” group added some purportedly “supportive” statements to the website:
The Mayors Letter:
This is a lengthier version of the coordinated hit piece that made its debut as a recent letter to the editor. The four former mayors are:
Steve Arkwright – a guy who loves Clarkston so much he and his wife have made their home elsewhere. His wife was part of the Clarkston Matters smear group that purportedly claimed to be pro-Clarkston but was actually designed to support a slate of candidates running on a fear campaign, just like the Quisenberry/Avery/Forte/“Charming” group.
Joe Luginski – another guy who loves Clarkston so much he’s made his permanent home elsewhere and yes, the same guy who’s registered the “Charming” group. It’s apparently going to require a lawsuit to force his wife off the HDC since she no longer qualifies as a resident of Clarkston as has been defined by the city attorney. Thus far, she’s failed to tender her resignation to allow the city council to replace her with someone who cares enough about the community to live here permanently.
Eric Haven – Weirdly, Haven has apparently developed a new-found respect for the charter. He could not have cared less about the charter provision that required him to resign his city council seat before running for mayor the first time. Instead, he ran a secret, stealth campaign and timed his resignation in a way that allowed him to choose a successor for his vacated council seat. (He would have gotten away with it if an election complaint hadn’t been filed.) One of his first acts as mayor was to support a charter commission to revise the charter to eliminate the “resign to run” provision so it wouldn’t bother him again. Last year, Haven resigned in a snit when he figured out the residents weren’t going to allow him to trash Depot Park by filling it with kitschy garbage, and his actions caused the city to lose the Optimists grant. When he was mayor, Haven ignored resident complaints and supported reappointing abusive people to the HDC. And did I mention he doesn’t live in the historic district?
Sharron Catallo – Catallo regularly refused to recuse herself from parking votes that favored her son Curt’s businesses while sitting on the corporate board of a company that owned some of the businesses, which I’m pretty sure made her a biased, financially motivated politician, something the Quisenberry/Avery/Forte/“Charming” group is supposedly against. (Now does the reference to non-Catallo “developers” make sense?). Catallo has zero respect for the HDC rules she wants others to live by, and a recent example is her refusal to apply to the HDC for permission to take down a large tree next to her home. (Why should she care how the HDC treats residents? She’s a special snowflake.)
Janet Kruger, Michigan Historic Preservation Network:
The Quisenberry/Avery/Forte/“Charming” group posted a letter from Kruger containing hundreds of words in multiple paragraphs expressing how much she likes our historic district. Kruger ended her letter with one vague sentence in the last paragraph suggesting the HDC charter proposal is bad without saying why. You’d think someone who founded the organization 45 years ago should have been able to say something more specific – unless the only point of the obviously solicited letter was to provide a soundbite for the “dark, dangerous, and destructive” scare campaign.
The Quisenberry/Avery/Forte/“Charming” group promises “more to come.” Can’t wait. Because who doesn’t need more vacuous, false statements at election time, huh?
As I said, wading through all the cr*p is best done one step at a time (with high boots), and I’ll regularly be posting responses.
(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.)