Good-Bye, Mr. Mayor (I Won’t Miss You)

As you have no doubt heard, Mayor Eric Haven packed up his marbles and resigned last Monday, a week after he had his butt handed to him by his fellow council members for overstepping his nonexistent authority to act on his personal desire to ruin our tiny Depot Park by stuffing crap into every nook and cranny. Lights! Arches! Fountains! Music! Pavillions! A band shell – with changing and storage rooms! More bathrooms! A million-dollar boardwalk through the swamp! Oh, you have children who love to run and play, and you’d like to picnic on a blanket in one of the large open areas? Too bad, so sad for you. Depot Park needs all the things! We don’t need no stinkin’ quiet park-like stuff. That’s so yesterday!

At the September 25, 2023, city council meeting, the council voted against adding lighting to Depot Park. It was obvious the lighting issue was going to fail when Haven had trouble getting a “second” to Laura Rodgers’s motion to purchase the lighting, something that is necessary for the discussion to occur on an agenda item. Even though the initial cost of the lighting would have been paid by a generous donation from the Clarkston Area Optimist Club, there were several reasons why the majority of city council members voted against it – including the cost to maintain it, the light pollution generated by it, the lack of warranty in the bid documents, and extending the hours for vandalism opportunities, for example.

Ah, but Haven really wanted that lighting, darn it! So did councilmember Rodgers, but that’s because she wants park lighting for her pet (and only) project, the once-a-year Christmas Market – and the heck with the other 364 days. In fact, Rodgers has been Haven’s only advocate on the recent Depot Park issues. Maybe it’s because Haven gave her so much support in the 2021 election. Only she knows for sure.

Haven did some pretty fishy things in the run up to the 2021 election to push Rodgers’s (and Bruce Fuller’s) candidacy. I wrote about them here and here. There were a number of rather odd things that occurred in connection with these candidates, including a “magic copier” that fixed Rodgers’s and Fuller’s election paperwork and Haven’s questionable use of taxpayer-funded vehicles to boost their candidacies. Even the way the ballots were counted was unusual and frankly, suspicious. (I wrote about that here.)

Haven is used to getting what he wants no matter what, and pushing candidates he likely believes will support the same things he wants is just one example. Here are some others:

• • When Haven first ran for mayor, the city charter required that he resign his city council seat before running (colloquially referred to as the “resign to run” requirement). He didn’t do that. Instead, he ran a stealth campaign to get his name on the ballot for mayor. Hiding his campaign and filing his petitions at the last minute on the Friday before the filing deadline the following Tuesday had the effect of allowing Haven to choose his successor, because two other council members with inside knowledge of Haven’s secret campaign quickly circulated petitions over the weekend to help a preferred candidate get on the ballot as Haven’s replacement – with no one running against him because no one else even knew that Haven was vacating his council seat. After I filed an election complaint, Haven was forced to do things the right – and public – way by recirculating his petitions. (I wrote about that here.)

• • One of the first things Haven did after he was elected was to start the process for a charter change to eliminate the “resign to run” requirement – and he eventually got his way. (I wrote about that here.)

• • Shortly after he was elected, Haven nominated someone to fill a mid-term vacancy in the Historic District Commission, presenting this person as a take it or leave it proposition to the other council members. He refused to provide the other council members with a resume, insisting that only he was entitled to see nominee qualifications. Another example of Haven’s way or the highway. (I wrote about that here.)

• • You can thank Haven, in part, if you’re unhappy with the increased sewage disposal fees coming your way in the near future. Haven and the rest of the council at the time voted to “borrow” money that was taken from taxpayers expressly for sewer repair and use it toward the hundreds of thousands of dollars it cost for renovation and repair to the city hall/Department of Public Works building. This has left taxpayers in a situation where the city claims it has to increase fees because sewer repairs are anticipated, and we don’t have enough reserve money to pay for them – because our money was used for the building project. This boondoggle was approved over strenuous resident objections – expressed to the council in the form of a petition drive and lawn sign campaign from residents – demanding the city not spend taxpayer money in this way. The project was approved anyway, even though the city manager told the council that basic city hall repairs and a security upgrade would cost less than $50,000. I obtained a 10-20-2015 email from Haven that said he would be OK spending up to $600,000 for the city hall project. I wrote about that here, here, and here. To appreciate how insanely irresponsible spending $600,000 would be, please note the city reported that its entire, actual revenue for the 2014-2015 fiscal year was $684,251. (This information can be found on page 35 of the 05-16-2016 city council meeting packet. Even though our revenues have increased over the years, $600,000 would still be an outrageous number in 2023.)

• • Haven represents anti-transparency at its finest. In comments made to the Clarkston News, Haven defended the city’s decision to hide records from me prompting a lawsuit that took five years to work its way to the Michigan Supreme Court. After the city lost, Haven claimed the city was authorized by the lower court to withhold the records I’d requested (even though the city’s withholding preceded the court challenge). He claimed the records were withheld on “principle,” not content, though I would note the principle Haven and the city were trying to protect was the ability to hide records in secret, off-site files in the city attorney’s office. Haven’s statements sounded suspiciously similar to comments made in an anonymous letter sent by a group identifying themselves as “your friends and neighbors promoting a positive Clarkston,” something I wrote about here.

• • Speaking of anti-transparency, Haven (and other council members) engaged in email deliberations in violation of the Open Meetings Act. Some of those emails were circulated while my husband’s Open Meetings Act lawsuit over the city’s unlawful public meeting closure was pending. In one email string, council members objected to my husband (a city council member at the time), posting what the council was later forced to admit were public records when they settled my husband’s lawsuit. One of Haven’s emails asked the city manager to put my husband’s actions on the city council agenda and to circulate a copy of the city’s ethics policy for review prior to the meeting, clearly inferring that keeping the public informed by posting public documents the city would have preferred to keep secret was some sort of an ethics violation (it wasn’t).  (I wrote about that here.)

• • Haven also tried to enlist the city attorney’s assistance to shut me up for posting Laura Rodgers’s public candidate filings after I questioned whether she was legally able to run as a city council candidate under the city’s charter because she wasn’t living in the city. Haven wanted to know when “harassment” becomes a legal issue. (Haven emails linked here.) Apparently Rodgers – who has an unsecured public blog that includes images of her home; her street address; photos of herself and family members; and a description of her professional certification and the place she’s employed (“Level 1 Trauma Center in Southeast Michigan”) – believed the mandatory information she provided on public campaign documents shouldn’t actually be made available to the public because she was concerned about privacy. (Her blog posts are containing her personal information are still available and can be found here and here.) Rodgers apparently complained to Haven that people had sent her texts about the election – even though she’d written a letter to the Clarkston News literally inviting “concerned citizens” to call her if they had questions about her eligibility to run for a seat on council. (I guess she didn’t really mean that. 😂) The city attorney wisely declined to take any action against me, and I also didn’t find a legal services billing entry for Haven’s attempt to punish me for first amendment activity (also a wise move on the city attorney’s part).

•  Getting back to the Depot Park issue.

Haven knows full well that the Clarkston mayor has a very limited role outside of city council meetings. In fact, Haven read these charter requirements out loud at the November 12, 2018, city council meeting, right after he was sworn in. (If you’d like to hear him recite this charter section, you can find it here at the 0:02:00 time mark.)

Other members of the city council – and many members of the public who expressed opinions to these other council members – don’t share Haven’s “vision” for Depot Park. This is a problem for someone who always gets his way.

So, Haven did what he always does – he tried to foster an undercurrent of public opinion in his preferred direction and against his fellow council members. He initially did this by soliciting input on social media. Those results were contaminated by the fact that the people expressing opinions on social media weren’t necessarily all Clarkston residents, but I suspect Haven knew that would be the case.

Haven is also part of a committee called the Friends of Depot Park. This is the group that submitted to the city council the plans to stuff all the “amenities” I described above into Depot Park. They have no official role in Clarkston government. They receive no funding and can take no action unless the city council approves it. After the city council voted the lighting down, Haven made arrangements for two “informational” meetings at the Clarkston Independence District Library. Admittedly, the “Friends” can have all the public meetings they want in the library, and they can advertise them on Facebook – just as you can.

So why were there fireworks at the October 9^th city council meeting? Because the two library meetings were advertised on the Clarkston government Facebook page, giving the impression they had the approval of the city, and Haven didn’t bother to let the other six council members know the meetings had been scheduled. Haven also promoted the meetings on his “Mayor Eric Haven” Facebook page. Although other council members objected to Haven’s actions in organizing and publicizing these meetings without first discussing it with the council, it is understandable that Haven went behind the council’s back since a supermajority had just rejected his night lighting proposal. I suspect Haven presented himself as the mayor of Clarkston at the first library meeting, also adding a patina of government approval to the presentations, but since I wasn’t there – and the meeting wasn’t recorded – I don’t know that for certain. According to councilmember Wylie, Haven didn’t bother to say anything about the library meetings until she challenged him – after she learned about the meetings by seeing the Facebook posting. These meetings were not limited to residents, even though non-resident feedback doesn’t matter a whit when it comes to things funded and owned by Clarkston taxpayers.

The October 9^th discussion started with an agenda item involving a survey Haven wanted to send to Clarkston households. While asking for council approval is a step in the right direction, the survey included an option for residents to vote for park lighting – even though a majority of council members had just voted against park lighting – because that’s what Haven wanted. Rodgers let the figurative cat out of the bag with regard to Haven’s underlying goal for his Depot Park campaign when she challenged the council members if they would change their mind if people “voted” for Depot Park lighting, even though this unscientific vote wouldn’t provide any of the reasoning from the other council members why lighting in Depot Park might be a bad idea. Other council members viewed these meetings as an “end run” around the council’s previous decision not to install night lighting in the park.

No doubt it became clear to Haven after the October 9^th city council meeting that he wasn’t going to be able to strong-arm his colleagues with a groundswell of public opinion against them. So, he sent a resignation letter to the city manager (not the clerk, as required by the city charter), stating:

Because it has become apparent to me, increasingly and recently, that my vision for Clarkston differs significantly from that of several on city council, for that reason and to enable harmony, I believe it is best I step aside from the mayorship. So, effective immediately, after five enjoyable years as mayor and many more on village and city council, I tender my resignation.

Good Lord. Cry me a river. Haven is a glorified city council member, possessing just one vote of seven on any given issue. Being mayor primarily means he gets to chair meetings. He knows it and all the other council members know it. So, here’s a handy dandy translation of the resignation letter – I can’t convince my fellow council members to agree with me, and they aren’t going to be bullied by the “community input” campaign I’ve shaped to give me what I want, so buh-bye!

Whatever, drama queen. Glad you didn’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out. If Depot Park were a sentient being, I’m sure it would join me in thanking you for that small blessing.