The Petitions for the Historic District Commission Charter Amendment Have Been Submitted to the City Clerk – What’s Next?

My husband hand-delivered the petitions to put the proposed Historic District Commission (HDC) charter addition on the November ballot on Tuesday, July 2^nd. More registered Clarkston voters than necessary signed the petitions. The cover letter advises city officials we are willing to go to court over any attempt by the city to keep the proposal off the ballot. This is unfortunately necessary because the city did just that in 2022 with a medical marijuana charter proposal.

So, what happened in 2022?

City officials were apparently not pleased when the medical marijuana charter proposal petitions were filed with the Clarkston clerk on July 1, 2022. After receiving the petitions, Jennifer Speagle (the city clerk at the time) was required to “canvass” them, which means crosschecking the names of the petition signers with the registered voter list and eyeball-comparing (new phrase!) the signatures on the petition with the signatures on file with the State of Michigan. Petition signers who aren’t registered voters or whose signatures don’t match can be ignored and don’t count toward the required minimum number of signatures, which is 5% of the registered voters on Clarkston’s very bloated registered voter list. I use the word “bloated” because our state resists removing people from our voter rolls who have died or moved (and I’ll let you hypothesize why they might not remove them). I can tell you that as of June 5, 2024, Clarkston had a whopping 818 registered voters based on the list I received from the Oakland County Elections Division. Sure, we do. In a town that had 928 total residents in the 2020 census. 🙄

There are a lot of timing requirements in state law. After her canvass, the clerk must certify whether the petitions are sufficient or insufficient within 45 days of receiving them (she can do it in one day if she wants, but she has no more than 45 days). She also must certify the ballot wording to the county clerk by the 12^th Tuesday before the election.

After the clerk finished her canvass of the 2022 medical marijuana petition, there were enough valid signatures remaining to achieve the 5% signature number requirement. They had 88 valid signatures out of 803 registered Clarkston voters, meaning almost 11% of Clarkston’s registered voters signed a petition to put this proposal on the ballot. (There were a lot more signatures than that on the petition, but most of the disqualified signatures were from Independence Township voters who are not allowed to sign petitions for Clarkston charter amendments.) This meant the clerk was required to certify the ballot language to the Oakland County Elections Division so it could be added to the ballot for the next state election. (The ballot language is the few sentences that you see on your ballot, because there isn’t room for pages and pages of the charter proposal.) The medical marijuana proposal should have been cleared to be on the ballot for the November 2022 election – whether the city officials personally approved of the content of the charter proposal or not. But that’s not what happened, and I’ve taken the following details from the court filings in the case.

On July 13, 2022, Speagle told the attorney handling the medical marijuana petition she was finished with her canvass, had forwarded everything to the city attorney (Tom Ryan), and Ryan would contact the attorney the next day. That didn’t happen, and additional calls and emails to Speagle were either met with a claim Ryan was still reviewing or were not answered at all. The city clerk delayed sending her certification letter, apparently written by Ryan at a cost to the city taxpayers of $142.50, until August 11, 2022. The letter admitted there were a sufficient number of signatures but claimed the clerk had to forward the petition to the city council to be placed on an agenda “in the near future,” and then she had to send the petition to the governor and attorney general for review and wait to get that back, and gee whiz, because of all those required reviews, the petitions received on July 1^st were unfortunately submitted too late to add to the November 8^th election ballot. (Too bad, so sad for you, suckers!)

Clarkston wasn’t the only municipality who’d received a marijuana charter proposal amendment, and the people behind these petitions (likely funded by the marijuana industry in the state) had the money to go to court and argue about the city’s refusal to put their proposal on the November 2022 ballot. They filed their lawsuit the day after receiving Speagle’s letter and asked for a court order forcing the city clerk to certify the ballot wording to the Oakland County clerk. In the circuit court, Ryan made the same arguments that were in Speagle’s letter, claiming there was a conflict within Michigan law and Ryan’s interpretation of the law should prevail.

Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Chabot made some interesting comments at the hearing. (I’ve attached the whole transcript here so you can see the comments in context.) Judge Chabot said:

• • And why can’t they put it on the ballot? Let the voters decide.

• • You want to know what I think? I think that it’s possible that they don’t want marijuana in their city. They don’t want to amend the charter. They don’t want the marijuana. And so they drag their feet on a petition until the last minute when it’s too late to like scramble to pull it all together.

• • I think it’s politics. I think it’s all manipulation by the city council, and anyone else . . .

Amazing that Judge Chabot was able to quite accurately suss out what was really happening in Clarkston without attending any city council meetings. 😂

Unconvinced by Ryan’s interpretation of the applicable state law and seeing the city’s gamesmanship for what it was, Judge Chabot ordered the city to certify the ballot question to the Oakland County clerk by August 16^th so the issue could be placed on the ballot for the November 8, 2022, election.

Undeterred by the loss in the circuit court, the city council authorized Ryan to appeal Judge Chabot’s decision to the Michigan Court of Appeals. Alas, the court of appeals found Ryan’s argument to be unpersuasive and “not supported by the plain language of the relevant statutes.” The Court of Appeals also noted Judge Chabot’s finding that Speagle “had apparently delayed her decision until the last minute in order to prevent timely certification.” So, the city lost again. (The city’s motion asking the court of appeals to reconsider its decision was also denied.)

Want to know how many tax dollars were spent to try to keep you from democratically voting on a properly submitted proposed medical marijuana charter amendment? Just under $6,300. (Wonder how many sidewalk slabs could be repaired for that amount. 🤔)

After going down in flames in court, a group of concerned citizens worked very hard to convince a majority of Clarkston voters to vote “no” on the proposed medical marijuana charter amendment. (If you’d like to know who they were, I’ve linked to their campaign finance reports here and here.) The proposal was soundly defeated with 82% of the residents voting no. For the record, though I honestly do not care whether or not a marijuana provisioning center ever hangs a shingle on Main Street, I also voted “no” on the charter proposal. I shared on this website why I thought the charter language was awful because, among other things, it would have allowed two medical marijuana dispensaries in residential neighborhoods where they don’t belong. I’ve often wondered if the proposal would have fared better if the charter amendment language itself wasn’t so awful. But I digress.

Because of the history with the medical marijuana charter proposal, it should surprise no one that we stand ready to go to court if the city attorney invents some new form of lawfare to try to keep our proposed HDC charter amendment off the ballot this November. We think people should have a chance to decide for themselves, but we won’t be surprised if some on the city council would rather not hear what you have to say at the ballot box. (Or perhaps I’ll be pleasantly surprised, and things will go smoothly. Time will tell.)

I want to sincerely thank the people who circulated petitions for us. This was a gift of incredible kindness to me because I have been unable to walk very much the last month and a half due to a foot injury. I would also like to thank every person who signed the petition. We are grateful that you also believe the people of Clarkston should simply have an opportunity to consider these changes for themselves.

Did you know these basic democratic acts – signing and carrying a petition – require a measure of personal courage? There were people who reached out to tell me privately that they will vote for the charter amendment, but they don’t believe they can publicly express support for it, even to sign a petition. Why? Because they’re afraid they or their kids attending Clarkston schools will be attacked by people in the city who disagree with them – and some have been attacked by other residents in the past for merely expressing an opinion on some contentious city issue.

Let that sink in. There are people in this city who think they are entitled to bully others into silence about matters that affect everyone in the city. I would invite anyone who experiences any bullying to tell me about it at clarkstonsecrets1@gmail.com. I’ll be more than happy to name and shame the bullies publicly. I’ll also watch the city council meetings for similar conduct. There is nothing wrong with expressing an honest opinion about a matter of public interest. We can agree to disagree in a civil way without trying to hurt each other. But if those comments devolve into bullying and nastiness, I’ll write about it. But here’s a better idea – rather than trash talking people from the shadows or trying to shun someone who did nothing more than participate in a democratic process (as is their right as a citizen), perhaps you should consider sharing your concerns in a more adult way.

Note to all the bullies – no matter what you think, no one put us up to this. We’ve paid the expenses ourselves. The only “secret” meetings that occurred about approaching this issue with a charter amendment were between my husband and me at our own dinner table over the years. We perceived a problem with the way some HDC members have acted in the past, wielding their power to affect real economic harm on some people who live in the historic district. The absolute last straw for me personally was the city attorney’s draft resolution, presented on April 8, 2024, that would have allowed the HDC to fine residents up to $5,000 – something the city council hadn’t even authorized him to work on.

My husband and I have heard lots of complaints and horror stories, but no one seemed to know what to do about the problems, and the city council never seems to have enough members willing to address very legitimate complaints. We just happen to have a skill set that allows us to approach the problem this way, with a proposed charter amendment to give Clarkston voters an opportunity to shape the way the HDC relates to us, and us to them. When Clarkston residents get a chance to vote on the proposal, we’ll know whether a majority of them want the HDC to operate under more reasonable guidelines and receive more supervision by our elected city council members – or not.

So, what’s next for us?

Right now, we’re awaiting the result of the clerk’s canvass in the process I described earlier. Should she reject a signature on a petition, we’ll decide whether we want to challenge her decision. If we are left with the minimum number of signatures that will still allow the proposal to make it to the ballot, it’s probably not worth the expense to sue the city over it. At a minimum, I think any rejected signers need to be informed that the clerk rejected their signatures to allow them to discuss the matter with her personally if they wish to do so. After all, if the reason for rejection isn’t due to voter registration, then the clerk is essentially calling the petition signer – and the petition circulator who attested they witnessed that signature as it occurred – lying liars. It’s only fair that information is disclosed to the involved parties.

After that, the ballot language will be proposed to the Oakland County clerk. There is a governor and attorney general review, but as the city already knows, that review can’t be used as an excuse by our local clerk to delay. Since we enlisted the help of highly qualified attorneys to flyspeck the form of the petition, we don’t anticipate any problems from the attorney general (but stand ready to go to court to defend it).

I plan to send a letter to Clarkston residents who live inside and outside the historic district to ask for their support at some point closer to the election. I suspect most people living outside the historic district think this HDC charter amendment doesn’t affect them. Perhaps it doesn’t affect them today, but it could affect them in the future.

Did you know the city can modify the boundaries of the historic district, subjecting additional homes to the HDC’s jurisdiction?

It starts with the establishment of a local historic district committee. Guess what? The city council established a local historic district committee by resolution on December 9, 2019, to “update the existing Historic District inventory to reflect the current resources . . . ” The city council also directed the local historic district committee to “perform the duties and responsibilities as prescribed in Sections 3 and 14 of 1970 PA 1969 [the Local Historic Districts Act].” The committee was slowed down by COVID, but they’re still actively working.

Section 3 of the Local Historic Districts Act requires the local historic district committee to conduct a photographic inventory, do basic research of the historic resources (usually buildings and homes), determine the number of historic and nonhistoric resources, prepare a preliminary report that will be sent to the planning commission and multiple state agencies, make copies of the report available to the public, and hold a public hearing with notice to the affected properties. Within one year, they must submit a final report. (Note to local Freedom of Information Act devotees – records that are prepared, owned, used, in the possession of, or retained by the historic study committee in the performance of their work are public records that can be requested under the FOIA.)

After receiving the report from the local historic district committee, the city council can pass an ordinance that describes the properties within the historic district, and Section 14 of the Local Historic Districts Act gives the city council the authority to modify the historic district based on the report.

Did you notice what’s missing there? Your right to vote on whether your house is added to the inventory as a historic resource and whether the boundaries of the historic district should be changed to now include your house. A public hearing is required, and you can make a public comment, but that’s the extent of your involvement. Even if your home has been deemed to be a “nonhistoric resource” inside the historic district, you still are required to go through the double aggravation of getting a permit (if required) and securing approval of the HDC. That’s why this proposed charter amendment is important to everyone, not just the people living in the historic district.

I would encourage everyone to read the proposed charter amendment for themselves. You can find it here. We’ve published an annotated version here, along with a written summary here, and bullet points here.

And, if you have any questions, feel free to email me at clarkstonsecrets1@gmail.com. If you’d like me to answer them generally in a public post, I’d be glad to do that as well.