You may have heard the word “earmark” before. It’s how legislators play modern day Robin Hood, taking tax money from some taxpayers and beneficently bestowing it on other taxpayers, so the recipient taxpayers think these legislators are totally awesome and vote to reelect them. It’s a distasteful spoils system, and it’s alive and well in the state and federal government. Rather than taking from one taxpayer and giving to another or taking from all taxpayers and giving to a spendthrift government entity like Clarkston (that wastes every effing dollar it takes in and wants to raise taxes to waste even more), it would be nice if we could all send less of our money to the state rather than having to rely on the largess of one elected official to give some of it back.
But that’s not how things work in Washington or in Lansing. The justification for earmarks is always that everyone else is doing it, the money is there for the taking, and we may as well get some of that “free” money for ourselves.
And so, we did.
Using the services of a contract engineering firm (Fleis & Vandenbrink, also referred to as “F & V”) which isn’t actually our current contract engineering firm – that would be Hubbell, Roth & Clark, also referred to as “HRC” – the city manager made many applications for the “free” money and has been successful twice. The first was for a grant to repave Church Street; the second was for a grant to rip up all the sidewalks and driveways on Main Street to make things better for the downtown businesses.
At the May 27, 2025, city council meeting, our city manager said F & V would be working for us for “free” regarding a request for a grant from the Transportation Economic Development Fund Category B Program through the Michigan Department of Transportation to repave Church Street. The city manager claimed F & V would help us apply for the grant for free, and if the city received the grant, their engineering work would also be free (to us).
It’s true that F & V doesn’t get paid unless the project is approved, but it is very richly compensated if it is. Here’s a copy of the F & V contract agreement for the Church Street project they estimated would cost $235,400. This cost is before any engineering charges are added and this agreement doesn’t tell us exactly what F & V will charge – that was left for a later date. However, an F & V representative did tell us at the May 27, 2025, city council meeting that F & V anticipated charging a “standard” fee of 20%. I wonder if HRC would charge us as much to do the same work. The city manager promised to “look at” that exact issue but it’s not clear he ever did. Why would he? He wanted to work with F & V, and it doesn’t matter to him if that’s not the best option for the taxpayers.
On the Church Street grant that the city was recently awarded, the city is apparently on the hook to match 50% of the project cost PLUS the F & V engineering fee because the grant prohibits using grant money to pay engineering fees. At least that was what was discussed at the May 27, 2025, city council meeting. There is no publicly available grant document, city acceptance, or other document with the terms and conditions of the grant. Nor is there a publicly available contract with F & V for the project. The F & V contract for preparing the cost estimate for the grant application said “a scope of services and fee” would be provided if the grant was awarded. If it was, the city hasn’t made it public. So, there is no clear documentation of what the city will have to pay for this project. But we’ll assume it is 50% of the project cost plus the engineering fees, as discussed at the May 27, 2025, city council meeting.
What does F & V get? Twenty percent of the Church Street project cost. That cost is $217,777.80 based on the resolution the city council approved on June 22, 2026. No actual contract with either the winning bidder or F & V is publicly available. At the October 27, 2025, city council meeting, the city manager told us the grant was approved for $117,700 (total project cost of $235,400), and the lowest bidder came in at $217,777.80. Fifty percent of that project cost is $108,888.90, which means that the entire grant of $117,700 will not be used. The city will match 50% of the construction costs ($108,888.90) plus the 20% engineering fee to F & V ($43,555.56), for a total city cost of $152,444.46. That’s assuming there will be no cost overruns, which would increase those amounts. F & V’s contract says: “Engineer does not warrant the accuracy of any cost estimate.”
F & V also helped the city apply for several state and federal grants, including one from Michigan’s “Legislatively Directed Spending Item” program (LDSI) through representative Mike Harris’s office. There are a lot of earmarks (AKA “pork”) awarded through the LDSI – to the tune of millions and millions of dollars. The LDSI is described here. A list of 2026 recipients can be found here. Some of these grants are for millions of dollars. You’ll note there are penalties for improperly spending the grant money, so it’s important the public watches these projects like a hawk and reports any irregularities to the state. This is true especially in Clarkston where our city manager has zero experience overseeing large municipal construction projects and the city council never holds him responsible for anything.
Why is the city doing this? The city manager claims it’s “to replace aging sidewalks, curbing, and driveway aprons throughout the downtown, improving safety, accessibility, and walkability for residents and visitors alike.” It’s obvious that the real reason is that this is designed to primarily benefit the downtown businesses. Residents get zero city services and are always subordinate to the businesses – especially the restaurants – and this project is no exception.
And it’s an entirely unnecessary project. We have a sidewalk replacement program the city manager ignored for Main Street for all these years and any stated concerns about trips and falls rings hollow because they aren’t happening (based on the lack of claims and lawsuits). The city manager’s excuse for creating the entire project is there are seven driveway aprons that use brick pavers and some of them need to be replaced, which could be done for the cost of several dozen bricks. If we replace the pavers with concrete, then we have some grading issues under the Americans with Disabilities Act that makes things more expensive and complicated, but if we simply replaced the bad bricks, then it’s considered a repair and there isn’t any requirement that things be ripped out and re-graded.
The city manager admitted eliminating the pavers was “the primary focus” of the project at the December 8, 2025, city council meeting (under Item #11b discussing Congressionally Directed Spending Grants). Oh, and while we’re replacing driveway apron pavers, why not fix the sidewalks in front of the downtown businesses the city manager has been ignoring for over ten years so he could use the disrepair as leverage for this project. So, rather than buying replacement bricks for a small cost and doing his job to ensure sidewalks are repaired, we apparently need a project that costs more than a million taxpayer dollars. Clarkston math! This makes perfect sense coming from a city that spends every dime it gets and then some. At that December 8, 2025, city council meeting, we learned the cost estimate for just the construction portion of the city manager’s entire pipe dream was $1.7 MILLION DOLLARS, which is more than two years of property tax revenue.
The city hit the jackpot and Representative Harris announced Clarkston is eligible to receive $834,400 for the Main Street project. Under the terms of the grant, Clarkston must match 20% of the construction costs. It’s not clear whether F & V will charge the city another 20% for engineering services, since the project cost estimate in the grant application shows a 20% cost for “Design and Construction Engineering and Administration.” But previous city council discussions included an opinion from the former city attorney that a grant can’t be used for project engineering services. How that fits in with the project cost estimate in the grant application is unclear.
The city manager’s wife, who often acts as a conduit for the city manager on the Village of Clarkston Facebook page, wanted to make sure everyone knew that her husband researched and wrote the entire grant, working many late hours on it, and gosh darn it, he even drove to Lansing on his day off to present it to a government committee. Mrs. City Manager didn’t specify which “day off” it was, so it could have been any one of the 52 Fridays, 14 holidays, 15 vacation days, or 6 sick days our city manager receives as “days off.” And, given that our city manager held a figurative gun to the head of city council last year and demanded they give him a $13,000 raise or else he’d quit, neither he nor his wife should be heard to complain that he had to do something outside of his leisurely four-day work week, just like everyone else with a professional job is expected to do. And I question whether the city manager wrote the entire grant request on his own, particularly when compared to a previous grant he wrote while trying to get grant money to destroy historic Mill Street to create a place for restaurant patrons to hang out and drink cocktails while they wait for their restaurant table (I wrote about that here). There, as here, the focus of the improvement was on business owners and more specifically restaurants and restaurant patrons.
When someone writing under an anonymous name responded to Mrs. City Manager pointing out the city has done an extraordinarily bad job of managing its finances, broke a forever library millage promise to Clarkston taxpayers, and raised taxes to give giant raises and benefit increases to employees rather than paying for infrastructure – and also noting the city manager is paid a salary for weeks of work rather than days of work so he shouldn’t be whining about doing something on a “day off” – Mrs. City Manager said she refused to respond to someone “hid[ing] behind an anonymous name.” Thereafter, Mr. and Mrs. City Manager’s Ukrainian flag-waving fellow Clarkston Community Historical Society’s board member (and Independence Township resident) jumped in as she always does to make her usual insulting but always non-responsive retort to the anonymous commenter in support of Mrs. City Manager. (Note to Mrs. City Manager: It takes real chutzpah to criticize someone for commenting anonymously when you have done the same in your self-appointed role of policing and responding to every public criticism of the city on the Village of Clarkston Facebook page. Don’t you know that administrators can see the identity of everyone who uses a nom de plume? We find it amusing when you do it, even though we haven’t “outed” you (or anyone else). And FYI, even though I agree 100% with the anonymous commenter and have made the same statements here, the anonymous Facebook comments belonged to someone else who sees the same issues I do.)
So, we’re going to get $834,400 in “free” money. Exactly what are the terms of the grant? There’s no grant contract yet spelling out the award, so it’s not clear if Clarkston can use the grant money to pay the 20% F & V engineering fee, or if that’s something the city will be solely liable for. If this grant is like the Church Street grant, the answer is no, which means we have to pay 20% of the construction costs plus another 20% in engineering costs.
I’ve attached the grant application the city manager submitted here. This is the cost only for new sidewalks, curbing, and driveways. Notably, the cost estimate does not include the cost of “bump outs” (extensions of the sidewalk into the street to increase pedestrian visibility) or specialized signage because M-15 is a state highway, the city does not have permission to do these things, and it may never receive permission – even though the project purpose states that it does include bump outs. Most of the resident complaints brought to the city council concern pedestrian safety issues, and this project as it currently stands will not address those concerns.
I’ve highlighted some things of interest in the application. As you review the material, you see that the predominant goal of this project is to help the downtown businesses. (If the city cared about the residents, it would have been keeping up with its sidewalk repair obligations under state law.) The grant application estimates construction costs at $745,000 with a 20% construction “contingency” of $149,000 (an additional fudge factor in case the engineers to whom we’re paying the equivalent of 20% of the construction costs guessed incorrectly), which brings the construction estimate up to $894,000. The 20% fee for the engineers ($149,000) is calculated on the lower construction cost estimate ($745,000) and is added on top of that. (I wonder if the final engineering fee is calculated at the lower beginning construction cost estimate or calculated at the end on the actual cost of construction. If it’s based on the actual cost at the end, that seems like a perverse incentive not to avoid cost overruns. I honestly don’t know the answer.)
Adding the construction cost, 20% construction cost contingency, and the 20% engineering cost together, the city estimated a total project cost of $1,043,000. The city asked for (and received) 80% of that total cost ($834,400) and is required to match – based on the estimate – 20% of that cost ($208,600). And that’s only if the estimate is accurate and the city can use grant money to pay the engineering fees. If not, then the city’s costs will actually be 40% of the construction costs (20% for the grant match and 20% for the engineering fee).
What are the construction costs? Well, they are estimated to be as low as $745,000 or as high as $894,000.
Assuming the project comes in at the lowest estimated cost ($745,000), and the city is allowed to pay for engineering fees ($149,000) with grant money (and that’s not certain), then the total project cost would be $894,000. The city would pay 80% ($715,200) of that with grant money and 20% ($178,800) of that with taxpayer funds. If the city cannot pass off the engineering costs to the grant, then the city’s cost would increase by $149,000 to a total of $327,800.
Assuming the project comes in at the highest estimated cost ($894,000), and the city is allowed to pay for engineering fees with grant money ($149,000, if they are fixed at 20% of the lowest estimated cost), then the total project cost would be $1,043,000, which is the amount the city submitted to Mike Harris’s office. The city would pay 80% ($834,400) of that with grant money and 20% ($208,600) of that with taxpayer funds. If the city cannot pass off the engineering costs to the grant, then the city’s cost would increase by $149,000 to a total of $357,600. At least, that’s the best we can guess, given the limited documentation available.
The uncertainty in the amount results from not having documentation of an actual grant award with all conditions specified and no contract with F & V.
The F & V cost estimate, on page 7 of the application, does not include the cost of constructing bump outs. The $25,000 allocated for “traffic control” is likely the cost of temporary traffic control for the duration of a construction project on Main Street, not any permanent specialized pedestrian signage to protect us from speeding cars, trucks, and inattentive drivers. The remainder of the pages are photos of the deterioration the city manager allowed to happen during his ten-plus year tenure along with letters in favor of the project, primarily from people supporting the business owners and restaurants. There are also photos of the infamous driveway pavers, and you can see how easy it would have been to buy extra bricks rather than spending over a million dollars – no matter where the money comes from.
The city manager and city council have lately been “pleading poverty” and claiming they desperately need to raise our taxes. Yet if we take the city’s own statements at face value, the city apparently has $361,044.46 lying around to pay our part of the grant obligations for the Main Street and Church Street projects ($208,600 the city told Mike Roger’s office it could pay for the Main Street project on the grant application and $152,444.46 for the Church Street project).
Clearly, the city has enough money if it can cough up a little under half of all the property taxes the city rakes in every year. Therefore, none of us need to pay a tax increase.
But that’s exactly what the city wants to do.
And the way it is going to present it to us is incredibly scammy.
Rather than being forthright and admitting it just wants to waste more of your hard-earned money, the city wants to put a “public safety millage” on the ballot. As the request for more taxes gets closer in time, the city council has been making a big show of not approving small, unnecessary expenditures in an attempt to fool you into thinking they’re trying to be fiscally responsible. Yet if you look at the city council’s track record, it rarely says “no” to any city manager request for money, no matter how stupid the request is.
In short, the “public safety millage” the city manager and finance committee have been discussing is really a “give us more general fund money” millage.
The city wants to shift all or part of the cost we currently pay for police and fire from the general fund to a special millage. It won’t be reducing your regular taxes in exchange; it will just take the extra tax you will be paying for this new millage and spend the general fund money it would have otherwise used for police and fire services on something else. It’s not clear how much additional millage the city will ask for at this point, but the finance committee thinks residents should be giving the city an additional $250,000 a year for the city manager to waste.
And by calling it a “public safety millage,” city officials are hopeful you’ll stupidly vote yes because gosh, golly, gee, everyone loves public safety!
I’ll be writing more on that scam later. For now, just keep in mind that a city claiming to be broke can manage to find over $361,000 to pay for projects that will undoubtedly cost more than that. So, when they ask you to pay more in taxes for the scam “public safety millage,” you can – and should – answer that request with a resounding HELL NO and vote “no” to the scammy “public safety millage.”
Excellent summary, Sue.