I’ve been waiting for a campaign finance report from the “Charming” group. Before now, all we knew was that it was organized by Joe Luginski. Joe and his wife Melissa bought a home in Independence Township, claim Independence Township as their permanent residence, receive mail in Independence Township, and both are registered to vote in Independence Township, but they are temporarily renting a home in Clarkston giving them a Clarkston address to use. In other words, a guy who no longer makes a permanent home in the City of the Village of Clarkston, who has a wife who is improperly on the Historic District Commission (HDC) because she doesn’t reside in the city based on the city’s standards for residency, and who can’t even vote on the charter proposal because he’s registered in Independence Township has organized the campaign to purportedly “save” the city based on a web of lies.
That sounds about right for the Clarkston old guard.
This list of contributors proves what I’ve been saying all along – what you have been seeing in the Clarkston News’ letters to the editor campaign and many of the comments at public meetings and on social media have not been spontaneous utterances from concerned neighbors. Instead, it’s all been part of an organized campaign of lies about what’s in the charter proposal that has been designed to trick Clarkston voters into thinking they’re hearing from people who are independent of the anti-HDC charter proposal campaign.
Before I give you names and contribution amounts (so far), I want to remind you of the bold-faced lies this group has published about the charter proposal. They’ve falsely claimed the HDC charter proposal will:
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- Harm the city’s place on the National Register of Historic Places
- Cause a 4-lane Main Street
- Decrease your home value
- Gut the historic district ordinance
- Gut the current system
- Remove “real authority” over historic district decisions from the HDC and State Historic Preservation Office
- Provide no savings for taxpayers
- Provide scant protection for the city against costly lawsuits
- Make the HDC an advisory board
- Provide few requirements for new buildings
- Destroy the historic district
- Result in the loss of tax credits for individuals
- Result in the loss of grant opportunities for the city
- Change the appeals process
- Place unrealistic and onerous requirements on HDC commissioners
- Manipulate and severely limit the “accepted meaning” of open spaces allowing for an “anything goes” vibe
- Hurt Clarkston’s character
- Allow developers to tear down historic buildings
- Allow generic commercial buildings to be built downtown
They’ve also falsely claimed the HDC charter proposal is:
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- Misleading and in conflict with state law
- Inconsistent with the “local historic district law” and the “home rule city law”
- Doesn’t “pass legal muster”
Responding to all this cr*p has increased our time and expenses exponentially. As I’ve said on multiple occasions, a lie can travel around the world before Truth can put her sneakers on. That has certainly been the case here.
When this whole thing started, we knew we needed to pay for a lawyer to review the petition, and I planned to send a letter to voters. I would have had no objection if the “Charming” group made objectively true statements that reflected an honest difference of opinion. After all, reasonable minds can differ on just about everything. But that’s not what happened here. Every one of those bullet point statements is false, and the “Charming” group and its supporters wrapped these lies up in a slick campaign designed to scare people into voting “no” on the charter proposal.
Before I begin, I want to note what the list of names and contributions in Luginski’s report does not include. It doesn’t include independent contributions (if someone paid for something independent of the ballot committee on their own). It also doesn’t include “in kind” contributions, such as the time spent to design postcards, flyers, and the website; to print and stick labels onto mailings; to push people to take a lawn sign and to deliver them; or the time spent to walk around the city and put flyers on doors, for example. My comments in this post are limited to the report filed by Joe Luginski disclosing the anti-HDC ballot proposal committee’s contributions and expenses from 9/8/24 through 10/20/24, and I’ve attached a complete copy here. I’ll update you if they file more reports.
The report reveals that three of the contributors are HDC commissioners, and one of them is the city-council-appointed chair of the Clarkston historic district survey committee. Not all the contributors live in the historic district. The report appears to be incomplete to the extent that it doesn’t list the occupations, employers, and business addresses of people who probably have jobs, but those are omissions for the Secretary of State and Attorney General to prosecute if they choose to do so. While not everyone on the list had an active hand in creating the postcards, newspaper ad, flyers, or the website, they also apparently didn’t ask for their money back and/or disavow their participation even after they saw what the “Charming group was doing.
Let’s have a peek at who the people are who funded all those campaign lies, shall we?
Cara Catallo, 10 Buffalo, donated $59 for website fees on 9/10/24. Catallo is the ex-wife of Derek Werner (listed further down) and a former HDC chair who inappropriately obtained a stop work order to prevent property owners from complying with a previously issued city order to clean up their empty lot. This resulted in thousands of dollars in legal costs to both the city and the property owners. Catallo has made multiple false claims about the charter proposal, as has the official website she established.
Steve Hargis, 55 North Main Street, donated $100 on 10/7/24.
Eric Haven, 62 Robertson Court – donated $100 on 10/7/24. Haven also signed the “four former mayors” letter to the Clarkston editor.
Mary Himburg, 88 North Holcomb, donated $100 on 9/13/24.
Kevin Knapp, 62 North Main Street, donated $250 on 9/18/24.
Joe Luginski, 81 North Main Street (temporary address), donated $200 on 9/8/24. Organized the anti-HDC charter proposal ballot committee and signed the “four former mayors” letter to the Clarkston News editor.
Melissa Luginski, 81 North Main Street (temporary address) – donated $50 on 10/7/24 and $84.80 for printing on 10/17/24 for a total of $134.80. Current HDC commissioner who refuses to resign even though her official permanent residency is in Independence Township. I’ve been advised Melissa Luginski has been instrumental in the “Charming” group’s lawn sign campaign, and she’s pushed its agenda on social media and in public comment at the special city council meeting where the ballot proposal was discussed.
James Markwalder, 91 North Main Street, donated $200 on 9/17/24 and $135 on 9/23/04 for printing for a total of $335. Wrote a letter to the Clarkston News editor complaining the HDC charter proposal just has too many words. The letter falsely claimed the charter proposal “micromanages social behaviors” and attempts to legislate personal and subjective conduct such as kindness.
Scott Meyland, 180 North Main Street, donated $100 on 10/1/24. Former mayor Haven’s first mayoral campaign violated the “resign to run” provision of the charter. He wanted that language removed so it wouldn’t bother him in the future, so Meyland’s charter committee was initiated with a goal of creating a charter amendment that would benefit only seven elected officials. Meyland wrote a letter to the Clarkston News editor claiming the citizen-initiated HDC charter proposal should have followed the same procedure as the city-initiated charter proposals he worked on. Meyland made the same claims at the special city council meeting, and his comments were dutifully transcribed onto the “Charming” group’s website.
Nancy Moon, 80 North Main Street, donated $200 on 9/8/24. Moon is the chair of Clarkston’s historic district survey committee and was appointed to that position by the city council. In the course of conducting city business, Moon communicated with the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) with the subject line “Promotional Material to Stop the Petition.” Moon presented an anti-charter advocacy statement to the HDC purportedly from SHPO at the 8/13/24 HDC meeting. The statement was inserted into the 8/13/24 HDC minutes by her husband, Michael Moon, current HDC commissioner and HDC secretary. The statement was false because it suggested the HDC charter proposal would change the HDC appeals process and affect tax credits. The HDC charter proposal doesn’t even mention appeals, and SHPO expressly told Moon that tax credits would not be affected by the charter proposal before the final minutes were approved. HDC commissioners Lisa Paterscak, Michael Moon, Jennifer Radcliff, and Rob Hauxwell (HDC chair) approved the official minutes containing the false advocacy statement, which is still posted online. (We’ve asked the Michigan Secretary of State to review the HDC’s actions and Moon’s conduct on behalf of the city because we believe it violated the Michigan Campaign Finance Act.)
Lisa Paterscak, 68 Buffalo Street, donated $300 on 9/26/24 and $17.49 for labels on 9/15/24 for a total of $317.49. Current HDC commissioner who falsely claimed on social media that the charter proposal would allow development at the corner of Waldon and Main without HDC involvement.
Ted Quisenberry, 29 South Holcomb, donated $200 on 9/8/24. Quisenberry’s campaign to oust mayor Sue Wylie from office appears to be in large part based on false claims about the HDC charter proposal. His campaign interview in the Clarkston News claimed the HDC charter proposal would “gut” the HDC and eliminate “the legal authority we have to preserve our history.” Neither of those things are true.
Jennifer Radcliff, 33 North Main Street, donated $100 on 10/20/24. Current HDC commissioner.
Margaret Sans, 76 North Main Street, donated $1,127 on 9/19/24 for a Clarkston News advertisement. Sans and city council candidate Erica Jones live at the same address.
Frank Schoebel, 22 North Holcomb Road, donated $100 on 10/7/24, $200 on 9/16/24, and $91.71 for printing on 10/4/24 for a total of $391.71.
Robert Sowles, 38 North Holcomb, donated $100 on 9/13/24.
Diane Wayne, 49 North Main Street, donated $200 on 9/8/24.
Derek Werner, 3 North Holcomb, donated $32 on 9/8/24 for a P.O. box and $7.91 on 9/13/24 for office supplies for a total of $39.91. Despite signing a petition to change the Clarkston charter to allow two marijuana dispensaries inside historic homes in residential neighborhoods that could operate from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., Werner wrote a letter to the Clarkston News editor suggesting the charter should not be changed because it was originally drafted by wise people. Werner falsely claimed the protections in the HDC charter proposal are already present in state law and the city’s historic district ordinance and that the charter proposal would somehow “irreparably damage” the historic district.
Nancy Wint, 6101 Overlook, donated $50 on 9/13/24.
That’s it for now. It’s nice to know who has been behind the campaign of lies, don’t you think? I’ll let you know if they publish any additional financial information.
And, in the interest of full disclosure, here is a list of our expenses so far:
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- $962.50 in legal fees to have the petition reviewed before anyone signed it.
- $ 4.08 in petition copying fees
- $ 226.70 in legal fees to force the city to certify the ballot language
- $ 463.75 for lawn signs
- $ 608.75 to mail a two-page letter to voters
- $1,032.00 to run two half-page ads in the Clarkston News
These expenses were fully paid by my husband and me. We knew there would be legal fees to review the petition, and we anticipated sending a letter to voters. We did not expect to have to sue the city to force it to do something as simple as canvass the petition signatures and certify the ballot language to the Oakland County Clerk’s Office. We likely wouldn’t have purchased lawn signs or run the ads in the Clarkston News, but we decided it was necessary to combat the false, misleading, and deceptive information being pushed out to the public by the inaptly named “Keep Clarkston Charming” group who have run a thoroughly negative and ugly campaign that completely failed to engage in any good-faith exchange of ideas.
We love questions! Unlike our opponents, we’ll give you honest answers with lots of evidence to back up what we say. Feel free to send questions to: ClarkstonCharterProposal@gmail.com.
(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.)