Time to make some arrests to fix Flint Twp politics
Discipline needed for lawyer, arrests need to be made of board members
Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 Column
Last week after (and during) Wednesday's Morning Gazette Radio Show, several scoffed at my investigative reporter wisdom. They left nasty messages and sent texts to tell me to stop trying to invent stories.
The callers apparently wanted to be on the air but I was rambling along too hot and heavy to notice the phone lines being lit up. After 50 years of dealing with shady politicians, my investigative antennas go up when stuff just does not add up.
My hunch was that something odd was in the water at Flint Township. They went to lots of trouble during the City of Flint's awful water crisis to shout to the county how their restaurants had good water. Some of Flint Township's politicians and lawyers are obviously getting bad water, in my humble opinion. It's causing them to be stupid. That's the only explanation I can come up with for Flint Township's current political climate — excluding Flint Township Supervisor Karyn Miller and Trustee Barb Vert. They've both been at the board table for 16 years.
It wasn't until two years ago that "stupidity" started appearing at their board table.
The ignorance and erroneous reasoning exhibited often over these past few years against common sense positions of Miller and Vert could be classified as comical, except they've created real life consequences. It started with former Clerk Kathy Funk, former Treasurer Lisa Anderson, former Trustee Deb Campbell and out-going current Trustee Carol Pfaff-Dahl. Add in Tom Klee once he was appointed to be Treasurer about a year ago when I chased Lisa Anderson out of town. Or wait, she already was living in Atlanta, Georgia. I just started hollering how she needed to be in handcuffs and should return a chunk of the $63,000 in annual salary she was pulling in along with benefits despite not living in Flint Township anymore. She first said she was elected by residents and would complete her four-year term which would not have been up until after the upcoming November election.
But I digress.
Back to last week's hunch about Flint Township's current board members.
They called a special meeting last week. A community activist was asked to leave because an attorney told him it was a closed session.
Jerry Roberts said he never heard anything on the record about a reason to go into closed session. Not odd since I was at their first of now four executive sessions when no reason to go behind closed doors was given to the public. The attorneys there apparently don't understand the law. But we will get to that in a minute.
Witnesses were around after board members emerged from behind closed doors following the first three closed executive sessions. All we know is that the agenda item listed each time by Township Clerk Monya Triplett tells the public it was to discuss "complaints against elected officials (possible closed session)" and that's all we get to know. Forget what the Michigan Opens Meeting Act says about going on record with a reason why the meeting needs to be closed.
When Roberts revealed to me that he didn't stick around to find out if they emerged from behind closed doors to put anything on the record last Monday, my suspicions were elevated to high alert. He said he knew of no witnesses being around to see what happened. Time to investigate.
A call was put in to Clerk Triplett. No return call. She won't answer a simple question? Maybe it's time to call my friends in Lansing and let them know I'm writing a letter to ask Big Gretch to exercise her powers to remove an elected official for not doing her job. Only the Governor can do that unless citizens rise up to mount a recall campaign. That takes too much energy and effort. One swipe of the pen by Governor Whitmer and Monya Triplett is out as what I'm gonna classify as an absolute fraud of a clerk.
But again, back to my investigation.
A check of the township's web site for a video of the public portion of the meeting directed me to YouTube and Vimeo pages where there was no video available for Sept. 19, 2024. Triplett had published no minutes of the meeting on the township's web site.
Yeah, ok. My investigative reporter instincts that have won me state and national awards immediately kicked into high gear and I subsequently told my listeners about it when the next morning rolled around with a microphone in front of me. My prediction was that something happened. My guess was that with nobody around, they put something on the record about embattled Treasurer Tom Klee.
The board members seem to like him. My guess was they wanted to shield him from further embarrassment and scold him with nobody around by putting a few disciplinary resolutions on reccord to satisfy the union.
I was wrong on that one as you can see from today's front page story below about the board voting to ask the Michigan State Police to investigate alleged criminal wrongdoing by Township Supervisor Karyn. The township's labor attorney, Chad Karsten from the Lansing law firm of Fahey, Schultz Burzych Rhodes LLC, followed up on the vote earlier this week by making a complaint at the Flint Township post of the Michigan State Police on Corunna Road.
So here's the deal. These crazy board members (I'm guessing it was a 5-2 vote with Miller and Vert in the minority position) want State Police to investigate how Klee was allowed to be embarrassed.
That's where we turn back to Yours Truly.
They will come calling to ask me how I obtained documents related to all these closed executive sessions to talk about inappropriate behavior toward office staff by Treasurer Klee.
Let me save them some time. My sources are confidential. United State Supreme Court rulings are on my side to keep the names secret of who gave them to me. I will say, however, that I didn't get them from Supervisor Miller or anybody else on the board who should are required to keep such information private. That's the law for them.
State law holds that any member of public bodies for boards, commissions or committee are prohibited from sharing any information discussed in an executive session. Doing so "intentionally" can subject a public official to face civil and criminal penalties. On a first offense, it's a misdemeanor crime. If convicted, a public official who intentionally violates the Michigan Open Meetings Act can be fined up to $1,000. If the violation is a second offense within the same term, the penalty can increase to a fine of up to $2,000 and rise to a felony status with up to one year in prison, or both.
But here's where this whole situation turns hysterical.
They want criminal actions taken against Supervisor Miller for writing a letter to Treasurer Klee that was shared with an employee who had lodged complaints against him with her union. The e-mails to them are subject to FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests by a media member or any citizen. So color her guilty of violating the law.
But when State Police take a peek behind the curtain and read up on the Michigan Open Meetings Act of 1976, they will find out that NO ACTION CAN BE TAKEN IN A CLOSED SESSION. Board members are required to come back in front of the public and put any resolutions on the record before voting on them. They are prohibited by law from taking actions in executive session.
The township's labor attorney (Chad Karsten from the Lansing law firm of Fahey, Schultz Burzych Rhodes LLC) must not have any experience with how to comply with the Michigan Open Meetings Act.
Otherwise, he would not have allowed any actions to take place behind closed doors in the first place.
The Miller letter to Klee and a staff member that was obtained by The Morning Gazette Radio Show clearly details decisions made about Klee needing to move his office to the back of thebuilding to avoid contact with employees as well as reminding that he had agreed to take sensitivity training for other allegations against him by the staff member. Such decisions subject every board member to possible criminal prosecution. The lawyer? Well, he may get a slap on the wrist by having his license suspended for 30 to 90 days by the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission.
But as to holding him accountable for getting criminal charges for following his legal advice? Well, board members would be out of luck on that one. Just ask some of the inmates on death row around the USA who had bad lawyers via the public defender system.
As to Treasurer Klee, he would already be fired if he worked for my business. Documents we obtained detail allegations that he plays touchy, feely with female employees, uses disgustingly awful foul language around the office, made a racial slur and is on video making mocking gestures at an employee who has Tourette's Syndrome. She says in her complaint that he was stuttering to mock her, too. The fact that this employee with Tourette's Syndrome has two children with the same disease makes his behavior extra disgusting.
And yes, you read that item correctly about the "complaint" saying it because The Morning Gazette Radio Show obtained documents related to why the special meetings were called to discuss Treasurer Klee's behavior toward office staff. (See related column about it published on Aug. 19, 2024 that is contained within The Daily Gazette's Special Section with my "Most Read" recent Editor's Notebook columns)
I'm sure State Police can find some criminal activity in the documents we obtained. Maybe detectives can investigate all that after they're finished reading up on the Michigan Open Meetings Act.
-----------------------------------------------------
Mike Killbreath appears on Metro Flint News/Talk Radio via The Morning Gazette Radio Show weekday mornings from 8 am until 9:30 am. He's an award-winning newspaper columnist and investigative reporter who is the former long-time owner of the local Metro Flint area chain of 14 community newspapers. This fall will be his 50th year as a journalist. He also hosts a new weekly national TV show known as The American Crusaders on cable TV and various OTT TV live streaming platforms.
