Feb 2010
Two Shores Councilmen Resign in Face of Successful Petition Drive
February/28/2010 21:38
Even before the adequacy of the Shores recall petitions was certified by Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett, two of the affected Shores council members apparently saw the handwriting on the wall, and resigned. Rather than carry out the duties of their office and let the democratic process mandated by the over 500 Shores residents who signed the recall petitions evolve to a definitive conclusion, Brian Hunt and Fred Minturn chose to quit.
In a letter he sent to Shores residents, Minturn writes of his “concern that our unique way of life in the Shores and throughout the Grosse Pointes is threatened when public service subjects individuals to vicious accusations and retribution for the mere reason they made tough decisions.” What vicious accusations and retribution is Fred talking about? The fact of the matter is that the issues involved in the recall are all a matter of public record, as objectively documented in the city’s own source documents, and articles from the local press as documented elsewhere on this web site. If Fred can point out any vicious accusations on this web site, all he has to do is let me know. Fred likely is a regular visitor to the recall web site, based on the number of hits from msxi.com, his corporate network.
Fred writes he feels “clearly under attack by some who cannot accept our traditional way of life and history of respectful, well organized self – governance.” Watch the video clips of Fred and his fellow incumbents in action as posted on the Video Clips. Do you call it respectful the way you see Fred chastise a fellow council member Ted Kedzierski- who was ultimately proved correct in the issue at hand? How about the way citizens are ejected from a public meeting?
Please review the video of the current council meeting playing now on Cable channel 12. Was Dan Schulte treated with respect when he made the wise suggestion that in order to bridge the current divide that the council consider making any appointment of replacement council members unanimous? Was it professional the way that Fred asked one of the city employees to move from her seat so that he could stare down several of the local newspaper reporters and rant and rail against for their coverage of Grosse Pointe Shores issues? Watch the replays of the meeting and make your own judgment – but in my opinion the local papers have provide fair and balanced coverage of the problems in the Shores.
Fred’s letter includes the fiscal facts he discussed at the last council meeting. While the Shores may have had $2.5 million in the bank the day he penned the letter, how much of that are the winter tax dollars just collected, most of which do not remain in our city? While Fred proclaims the Shores net assets are 11 million dollars, the vast majority of this sum are investments in capital assets the city owns (park, harbor, city hall, streets, and equipment), not funds available to reduce our substantial long term debts and obligations which are in the range of 30 million dollars,based on the latest figures available to me. No wonder the State has the Shores under fiscal watch based on an objective reporting method that assesses the fiscal health of all municipalities across Michigan.
Fred includes his closing comments from the last council meeting: ”The lead recall spokesperson challenged us in the last regular council meeting with the admonition ‘... if you want to keep your positions’…I thought that was strange because we shouldn't be doing anything to keep our positions.”
Maybe not doing anything in terms of developing a long-range plan to deal with the fiscal crisis that has been brewing for several years is why citizens feel the need for change. And whom does Fred mean by “lead recall spokesman?” The fact is that the Shores recall movement has over 500 spokespeople all speaking with equal authority; the voters whose signatures on public record demonstrate that they are clearly not happy with the way things have been handled at city hall.
But rather than be specific about whom he is talking, Fred chooses to cast a nebulous aspersion. If I recall, the gentleman who made that comment has no official connection with the loosely affiliated group of Shores citizens that banded together to circulate the petitions. I have deliberately chosen not to make any direct recall related comments at the council meetings, for the reason that a recall is a process directed against individuals, not against our government as a whole.
As such, I am puzzled why Mayor Cooper has used his time and energy to make the recall an issue at the recent meetings. He has done so even when it was clearly not proper, specifically at the last finance committee meeting when he asked for a vote to fund having the city attorney look into what would happen if all the incumbents were recalled. Watch the video replay on cable of when I asked Mayor Cooper and Mayor McInerney why they acted to strike the record of this vote from the public record of the meeting minutes. Do they provide a satisfactory answer to the question? Is this than example of “well organized self – governance?” Are you comfortable with civic officials that chastise the press for doing their job, or try to rewrite history?
By resigning from office in the face of the successful petition drive Fred Minturn and Brian Hunt have subverted the democratic right the voters would have had to choose their successors. I would hope to see the replacement process will include a special open meeting where all interested in serving have the opportunity to come and make a public statement of their interest and vision, and have the opportunity to be questioned and vetted by all council members and citizens of our community.
Councilman Schulte’s sage suggestion that the replacements be consensus candidates acceptable to all would be a good means of trying to bridge the divide. I hope Mayor Cooper does not handle this process like he has prior appointments. If the replacement of the two council members who quit is not open and inclusive, then Mayor Cooper will be giving voters yet another very good reason to recall him at the polls.
On a bright note, the good thing is that with Ted Kedzierski as our new mayor pro-tem, there will be no doubt as to who the next leader of our city will be if the Shores recall election is as successful recall as the petition drive. While you can expect the incumbents to inject more fear and uncertainty into the public arena as we get closer to the May 4th recall election, Shores voters now know what their clear alternative is to sitting back and letting Mayor Cooper continue with business as usual!
Contingency Planning
February/14/2010 15:51
The February 11th edition of the Grosse Pointe News reports on the “Contingency planning underway” at Shores city hall. Mayor Cooper is quoted as saying "We need answers because we need to run the city … if we're all recalled and there's no city government, what happens? Who makes the appointments? ... If we have no government after May 4, there is nobody to make a decision.”
First, Mayor Cooper, you can rest assured that not all of the council will be recalled. The two new council members who were not part of your anointed slate and who kept their promise of fiscal responsibility to those who elected them by voting not to raise taxes will be around to serve out the duration of their terms.
It seems to me that rather than being overly concerned about trying to anticipate the outcome of the recall process, that Mayor Cooper and his incumbents would better serve the people by staying focused on the task to trying to dig the city out from the deep financial hole they have created. However, self-preservation and a last ditch attempt to keep their council seats clearly seems to be their primary focus at this stage
I am surprised that the incumbents feel the need to vote to hire expensive ($220 an hour) legal help. Don’t they have confidence in the very provisions of the new city charter that they foisted on the populace, along with its new higher 20 mil property tax limit? Look at the specific charter section (Section 3.15 Filling Vacancy in Council) that deals with filling vacancies, it seems pretty clear to me:
“ A vacancy in the Council resulting from a member’s death, resignation, forfeiture of office, or removal from office, or from the Mayor pro tem becoming the Mayor under Section 3.8, shall be filled by a qualified person upon the majority vote of the remaining members of Council.”
Mayor Cooper’s assertion that there would be “no government” if all the incumbents were recalled smacks of elitism, and is an obvious desperation scare tactic. His statement is simply not true. State law and our local charter provide for filling any vacancies that may be created by the recall.
Exactly how these temporary council members will be appointed is another smokescreen issue. Those appointed to fill any vacancy created by a May recall would serve only until a special election is held in September. How these temporary vacancies may be filled is far from being the most critical issue facing the Shores.
Whether if appointed by the remaining council members, or by the governor, or by the Wayne County Elections commission, or even if we drew lots from the names of any interested Shores residents who desired to serve, all Shores voters should answer the following question: Regardless of the manner of selection, could we do any worse than what the incumbents have given us?
When you look at the incumbents’ collective legacy of hollow promises about transparency, higher property taxes, unprecedented deficit spending, unsustainable municipal employee salaries and benefits, and the Shores being placed under fiscal watch by the state, I sincerely believe the answer to the question is no.
Council votes to investigate recall procedures
February/07/2010 12:35
An unprecedented chain of events in Grosse Pointe Shores politics occurred last week. On Tuesday evening, a special meeting of the city council was called upon short notice to occur before the finance committee “of the whole”. The agenda circulated prior to the special council meeting indicated the purpose was to consider the deposit policy for those boaters wishing to obtain wells at the city marina.
At this council meeting, Mayor Cooper broadened the agenda, indicating that he wanted the council to authorize the city attorney to look into what would happen if the incumbent council members were recalled. The fact that Mayor Cooper chose to proceed with this unannounced agenda item provides yet another flagrant example that his promise that the city government would operate under an air of increasing transparency rings hollow. Should not an issue of this magnitude have been posted on the agenda so that all interested Shores residents could have known to attend? What was so urgent about this situation that it could not have waited until the regular February council meeting?
While council members Schulte and Kedzierski objected to taking action on this item and voted to table the motion, Mayor Cooper and the incumbents went on to out vote them. Mayor Cooper and council members Boyce and Graziani (members Hunt and Minturn were absent) voted to approve spending more of your tax dollars to have Mr. McInerney, the city attorney, go ahead and look into what may happen if the move to recall the 5 tax raising incumbents of the council succeeds.
One has to wonder what the exigency of this matter was. At this stage Shores city manager Brian Vick was and still is reviewing the petition sheets to determine how many of the over 500 signatures submitted to recall Mayor Cooper and his slate of four incumbents he plans to challenge. Until the county gets the petitions back from Mr. Vick we don’t even know yet if a recall election will occur. This should occur by February 10th.
Could it be that Mayor Cooper and his incumbent cronies felt the need to act because they already had inside information that there are sufficient valid signatures to insure that a recall election in May will come to fruition? One certainly hopes that this is not the case, as while Wayne County election officials advised that recall supporters could have observers present during the petition validation stage, those observers who were present during this activity were not permitted to see the tally sheet to learn how many residents’ signatures that Mr. Vick is prepared to challenge.
Now that the propriety of the city council action has been called into question, Mayor Cooper has gone on record with the Detroit News in an article entitled “Grosse Pointe Shores mayor looks into recall protocol.” Reporter Maureen Feighan quotes Mayor Cooper as saying that “he doesn't need council approval, but he'll bring it up at the next regular meeting…” Why is Mayor Cooper backpedaling about an agenda item that was already brought up, voted on, and passed by the incumbents at the special meeting?
Read further into the Detroit News article for the perspective of Leon Drolet, former state representative, and chairman of the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance. Being involved in prior recalls, he shares the observation that questions as to the recall process can usually be answered quickly, but are oftentimes used as a “scare tactic.” You don’t think the incumbents would let this happen here in Grosse Pointe Shores, do you?
The reason why Mayor Cooper needs to spend more city tax dollars to involve the city attorney who bills the Shores at a rate of $220 an hour to investigate this matter is not clear. Interested citizens can readily go to the Michigan State Legislature web site and review the statutes related to the recall laws for themselves. In terms of filling vacancies created by a recall, state law clearly defers to local rules, as this relevant excerpt indicates.
Guidelines for our city can be found by reviewing the new city charter on the Grosse Pointe Shores web site. If there is a mayoral vacancy, the charter indicates that it will be filled by the mayor pro-tem. If there are council vacancies, the Shores charter clearly specifies that the remaining council members will fill them. Note that our charter does not specify that a quorum is needed, but says explicitly that vacancies will be filled “upon the majority vote of the remaining members of Council.”
When the incumbents claim that the recall movement has them paralyzed and unable to act effectively one must wonder why. If these public servants were primarily concerned about fulfilling their obligations to the populace, should not they be carrying out their duties without being overly concerned as to how the citizens they are supposed to be serving may vote in a future recall election? When elected officials are more concerned about preserving their hides than fulfilling their responsibilities with propriety, it is clearly time for a change.
If Shores voters still have any uncertainty as to why Mayor Cooper and his incumbent slate need to go, the happenings of last week should provide those sitting on the fence ample reason. All Shores residents are encouraged to call city hall, and ask for a DVD copy of the special council meeting in order to review things for themselves. It is doubtful that you will see this video replayed on cable channel 12 for all to see. In fact the action of Mayor Cooper to take the key financial deliberations away from the televised regular city council meeting is yet another clear violation of the promise that there will be more transparency in the way the Shores conducts its business.
You can bet the next city council meeting to be held on Tuesday, February 16th at 7:00 PM will be noteworthy. Plan on being at city hall that night for the meeting. Show up and let the incumbents know that the citizens of our city will not idly sit back if they attempt to circumvent the recall process!