The jokes about Clarkston write themselves. We can’t afford to be a city and yet we have jackass councilmembers spitting in the face of the heretofore quite benevolent Independence Township – not because the township board refused to bail the city out AGAIN, but because it didn’t bail the city out in the manner and to the extent that councilmember Erica Jones thought it should. To put Jones’s recent disgraceful conduct before the township board in context, let me first discuss the city’s history of irresponsible fiscal management.
Jones was an enthusiastic supporter of breaking an express and forever city council promise regarding the library millage rollback, raising our taxes by .691 mills and using anticipated increases in 2026-2027 property taxes to give raises to our six city employees, with most of the money going to three of them. It doesn’t matter that the city doesn’t directly provide us with most services. Party hearty at city hall!
I’m never going to stop talking about the broken library promise or the tax increase dollars that went primarily to clerk Angela Guillen, city manager Jonathan Smith, and treasurer Greg Coté. But whether you think that insanity was appropriate or not, consider how broke the city must be to have to raise taxes to the highest rate possible under the charter solely to give salary increases to six employees.
And consider how fiscally irresponsible it is for a city to let itself get to this point. Your finance committee and city council are talking about asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional taxes from all of us because none of them has ever met an expense they don’t like. I honestly can’t remember any expenditure Smith requested that wasn’t approved by the city council during the ten years or so I’ve been paying attention. Every possible dime is allocated to one or another Smith project with nothing saved for a rainy day. Even now, despite having no money, Smith is pursuing his personal pipe dream to rip up the entire downtown and install new sidewalks by asking for state and federal grants for a project that would benefit only the handful of businesses on Main Street. That money will come with a huge string – Clarkston taxpayers will have to match a percentage of the grant money to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars plus pay huge engineering fees on top of that. Alternatively, we could buy a few matching brick pavers to fix a half-dozen driveway aprons on Main Street, which is the excuse Smith is using to rip all the sidewalks up. But that wouldn’t be as flashy or fiscally responsible, would it?
The ugly truth is not only are Smith and city council spending every dime we take in – and would continue to do so if voters approve a tax increase – we’ve also been taking advantage of the taxpayers in Independence Township to keep this failed city experiment afloat. Not too long ago when the first unexpected expense arose for Oakland/Macomb Interceptor sewer repair, we had no money to pay for it. Independence Township paid both their share and ours out of its rainy-day fund and graciously allowed us to pay it back after the bill came due. (That first sewer bill surcharge you saw related to this expense.) Not only do we not have a rainy-day fund, we don’t even have a buffer in the sewer repair fund – because at Smith’s urging and over the objections of an organized taxpayer protest in the city – your city council took hundreds of thousands of dollars that we’d been paying into the water and sewer repair funds and spent it on a city hall/Department of Public Works expansion – and we didn’t even get to vote on it.
And yes, city council is still whining that Independence Township kept tens of thousands of dollars in police and fire overpayments that negligent Clarkston employees paid to the township over fourteen years because the township reimbursed us only as far back as the six-year statute of limitations period allowed once the billing issue was brought to its attention.
But how did we get there? Four times a year for each of those fourteen years, our negligent city employees paid invoices that contained a calculation error. Why was there an error? Because the Independence Township accounts receivable staff calculated the Clarkston rate the same way they calculated the rate the township charged its own residents, which was slightly different than the terms of the contract Clarkston had for these services. All Clarkston employees had to do was read the contract to realize it called for a different calculation. But how could city hall employees do that when they didn’t even keep a copy of the police and fire contracts at city hall? (I know this because I sent a FOIA request for the police contract and the then-current clerk told me she’d have to ask Independence Township for a copy because they didn’t have one at city hall.) For fourteen years(!), eight of those under Smith’s direction, negligent Clarkston employees rubber-stamped and paid every invoice without questioning anything. When my husband discovered the overpayments and pointed it out (after reading the contract – what a novel idea), Smith had the nerve to blame the township! According to Smith, those darned Independence Township meanies didn’t include a calculation sheet with the invoices. That meant that our poor city manager and his employees were left with no choice but to pay bills without backup because they were apparently incapable of double-checking the calculations or picking up the phone and asking for whatever backup they wanted. But even if they had the backup, they wouldn’t have known there was an issue because they never bothered to read the contract – that they didn’t keep a copy of. My husband did their job for them. And if it weren’t for my husband, the overpayment would have continued to this day.
Who did the city council blame for this debacle? Independence Township! Why? Because the township didn’t pay back all the money – that we sent to it. Yet had Independence Township done so, it would have breached its fiduciary duty to its own taxpayers by paying more than it was legally required to pay under the contract statute of limitations – which was six years of overpayments. And then the city council stupidly pinned their hopes on one loudmouth township board member who suggested if they waited, the township board just might agree to give us a full reimbursement for the overpayments after the November election. The reimbursement never happened. Nor was it ever going to happen. Any suggestion to the contrary was just hot air. No one was happy about this at the time, but I understand why the township did what it did.
Were any city employees reprimanded for this? Not a flipping chance. City council never holds any city employee responsible for anything. It’s just taxpayer money, which they view as no different than Monopoly money. (If you’re not familiar with the backstory on this issue, you can read it here.)
Chuck Phyle is the Independence Township supervisor, and our city council is super mad at him right now for being a fiscally responsible executive and calling for an end to Clarkston subsidies. I guess that’s because our city officials and employees wouldn’t recognize fiscal responsibility if it bit them in the derriere, so seeing it demonstrated by someone else is interpreted as just being mean to Clarkston.
In short, Phyle is trying to cut off the free ride Clarkston has received since the city was created. And why shouldn’t he? Clarkston officials apparently want to be a city but don’t want the financial responsibility of being a city, and if given the chance, I don’t think Clarkston taxpayers want to pay more than we’re already paying to get almost zero city services. And rather than being grateful to Independence Township taxpayers for helping us stay afloat, some of our city councilmembers continue to display the classic village arrogance and privileged attitude of entitlement that we’re locally famous for.
One of the latest kerfuffles involves Deer Lake beach. We can’t afford the thousands of dollars it costs to operate the beach but refuse to admit that’s the case. We lease the beach to Independence Township for the princely sum of $1.00 per year. The last lease ended on December 31, 2025. Under that lease and the previous multi-year leases, Independence Township operated and maintained the beach and Independence Township taxpayers absorbed all the cost through its parks and recreation budget. To listen to our councilmembers, this financially uneven relationship is totally fair because we’re “allowing” Independence Township to manage this currently run-down “jewel.” Note also that one of the benefits to the city of the previous leases is that city residents can use all township facilities on the same basis as township residents, including the senior center and participation in the many organized activities that the township parks and rec operates. Seems like the scales are a little uneven, doesn’t it?
At the March 23, 2026, city council meeting, supervisor Phyle provided some context for city council members who were apparently quite offended that the township might reconsider the lopsided deal it has with Clarkston to manage and maintain the beach. There are two aspects to running the beach – the boat launch and the beach itself. Independence Township even gives us lifeguards, something they don’t provide for their own beach! Phyle said the total revenue raised from both the boat launch and beach day passes is around $32,000. Approximately $14,000 of that comes from selling daily beach passes with the remainder coming from selling around 200 keys for the boat launch.
Is Independence Township making money on this “partnership”? No. Quite the contrary. On average, Independence Township taxpayers annually pay an additional $80,000 for the management and upkeep of Deer Lake beach, which includes the cost of hiring people to work the gate, manage ticketing, and paying the lifeguards. In addition, Independence Township taxpayers invested around $112,000 to build underwater rock pylons to address beach erosion in 2023. Clarkston got a free ride on this while Independence Township dealt with the cost and aggravation of getting state permits for the job, hiring the engineer ($7,922), bidding the project, and supervising it to completion. Independence Township taxpayers also spend around $3,000 a year dredging the lake in the spring around the boat launch (with a possible repeat dredge in the fall depending on the sediment accumulation). Oh, and Deer Lake is expected to eventually eat into the roadway in 30-40 years, so there’s that. (You can learn about that – and see the 100+ page contract for the $112,000 erosion project – by going to Item #11a of the May 8, 2023, city council meeting, linked here.)
You may have noticed the link I just provided takes you to Independence Television, which is another service Independence Township taxpayers subsidize for us since it undoubtedly costs more than the small amount of our annual allotment of Public, Educational, and Government (PEG) funds that we sign over to the township. What we get in exchange is their employees attending and recording 23 city council meetings per year and for other township employees to process, index, store, and make these council meeting recordings available to the public so we can have some transparency (since our own government prefers to operate in secret).
At the March 23, 2026, city council meeting, Phyle told the Clarkston city council that it will cost another $200-$400,000 to prevent continuing beach erosion and restore the beach to the way it was years ago. (There used to be room for two volleyball courts on the beach. Now there’s only room for one.) Yet there are only roughly 2,200 visitors to the beach annually, and Independence Township doesn’t track how many Independence Township versus Clarkston users there are. Clarkston and Independence Township residents pay $5 for a day pass to use the beach; all others pay $7. Phyle guessed that approximately 1,800 of the annual visitors are Independence Township residents.
Independence Township has its own fabulous parks to maintain in addition to Clarkston’s Deer Lake beach – Clintonwood, Bay Court, Sashabaw Plains, and McCord. Of those parks, Bay Court has its own beach with a swim-at-your-own-risk policy. Phyle told the council that he’d been considering suggesting that Independence Township tax dollars should be used for parks owned by Independence Township and in particular to develop the Bay Court beach. After all, does it really make sense for Independence Township to dump huge amounts of its tax dollars into Deer Lake beach, something the township doesn’t own, especially considering that while there are just under 40,000 Independence Township residents, only approximately 1,800 of them (4.5%) are Deer Lake beach visitors?
Phyle didn’t make his thoughts a secret – he’s apparently been discussing the Deer Lake beach funding issue with Smith and city attorney Gerry Fisher since last October. Yet our city council acted as though the lease renewal issue was a big, recent surprise. If it was, then shame on Smith and Fisher for not telling them. But I don’t believe for one minute Smith and Fisher didn’t relay Phyle’s concerns – I think council was very much aware of Phyle’s view and what he was going to recommend to the township board – and the council decided to ignore the problem and hope it went away.
Phyle simply doesn’t think the Deer Lake beach expense is justified given the current ownership structure and seemed to suggest that it would be fairer if Independence Township took ownership of the beach outright – since Clarkston obviously can’t afford to keep the beach in working order. Alternatively, Clarkston could just let the beach and boat launch fall into disrepair, post a swim-at-your-own-risk sign, and the beach and boat launch would be reduced to trash in short order because we can’t afford the upkeep. (Phyle made clear that he was speaking for himself and was but one vote on the Independence Township board.)
Councilmember Laura Rodgers appeared to be highly offended by Phyle’s fiscally responsible approach, being a good steward of tax dollars, and not wanting his own taxpayers to pay a fortune for something the township doesn’t own. Of course she was offended! Rodgers is no different than the mayor and the other five councilmembers – they’re not fiscally responsible and apparently think no one else should be.
Independence Township was scheduled to discuss the Deer Lake beach lease the very next day on March 24, and you can see that discussion here at item L7, “Request to Approve Contract: Deer Lake Beach Lease with City of the Village of Clarkston.” Councilmembers Rodgers, Ted Quisenberry, and Jones made public comments at the beginning of the agenda item at the board meeting extolling the virtues of teamwork, blah, blah, blah. During her comment, Jones even added a platitude – “if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Aww, how nice. Togetherness is such a great thing. Unless you don’t give Jones what she wants. Then all bets are off and she acts like a spoiled brat. (More on that later plus the promised video.)
There was disagreement among the township board members regarding whether and to what extent Independence Township taxpayers should be on the hook for Deer Lake beach maintenance, repair, and liability. In the end, the Deer Lake beach contract was renewed only until the end of the year with a capped cost of $20,000 for 2026 capital improvements (if needed). This gives Clarkston city council plenty of time to decide what it wants to do about the beach, though I’m sure they’ll wait until the last minute and whine some more about how mean Independence Township is. I suspect the city council really likes the idea of getting additional revenue from selling boat launch keys because they’ve never met a revenue dollar they don’t want to spend – but I also suspect it hasn’t considered that Clarkston will also be responsible for dredging the area at least once and possibly twice per year so the boat launch is usable.
The Independence Township board spent almost an hour and a half of a very long, five-plus hour meeting discussing Deer Lake beach, and I thought supervisor Phyle and the rest of the board were courteous to everyone. Unfortunately, Jones did not return that courtesy. I believe I heard her shout a comment during regular board discussion but can’t confirm that because the camera wasn’t on the audience at the time. What I can be sure of is the temper tantrum she had when the township board didn’t give Clarkston everything she thought the city was entitled to get from Independence Township taxpayers – as though we have any right to expect anything from them.
So, what happened?
An uninvited Jones stormed up to the board table at the end of the Deer Lake beach contract renewal discussion, threw five dollars on the table, and said “consider that toward the next five years.”
See for yourself:
How ignorant.
How uninformed.
And how disrespectful.
You’ve just witnessed a council member in her early 40’s acting like a toddler because she didn’t get the handout she wanted. This wasn’t a heat-of-the-moment decision – she had to think about what she was going to do and say, decide that throwing a five-dollar bill at the board was exactly what the moment called for, reach into her backpack and get out the money (or borrow it from another Clarkston councilmember), wait for the discussion item to end, walk up to the board table, throw the money at them, make her not-so-clever retort, and exit the room.
What an effing drama queen.
The Clarkston city council on which Jones sits would never permit someone to approach council table to rudely throw money at them but apparently, it’s OK to disrupt someone else’s meeting. And Jones wasn’t acting like a moron solely in her individual capacity. When Jones made her public comment at the beginning of the meeting, she identified herself to the world as a Clarkston resident and a member of the Clarkston city council.
Clarkston is the poor stepchild in this scenario and relies on the generosity of Independence Township to run Deer Lake beach. I’m sure Jones’s misconduct enamored the board even more toward Clarkston and certainly won’t be remembered when Clarkston approaches the board again to beg for a Deer Lake beach contact renewal, right?
Wrong.
Jones’s immature behavior undoubtedly hurt the city on this issue. And I’ll bet she doesn’t give one eff about it. Adults who act like children never do because they lack self-awareness and maturity.
You may remember that Jones isn’t on the city council because she was such a great candidate and bested the other candidates by getting more votes. Nope, that’s not at all what happened. Jones was elected because she was the only candidate without technical errors in her election paperwork and therefore the only one whose name was printed on the ballot, virtually guaranteeing her a win over the other candidates who either had to drop out or run a difficult write-in campaign.
I won because I filled out the form correctly.
What a claim to fame. 🙄
Way to go, Clarkston. Not only is our government run like a clown show, but we’ve also elected individual clowns who believe it’s their mission in life to go out and embarrass the community by interrupting and disrespecting another public body’s board meeting when they don’t get what they want.
Independence Township residents, Independence Township board members, and Clarkston residents shouldn’t hold their breath waiting for an apology from Jones for her abhorrent, unprofessional, and juvenile conduct because entitled brats never think they need to apologize. Nor should they wait for the city council to address or repudiate Jones’s misconduct and the injury it has caused to the city’s relationship with the township.
Just more evidence that Clarkston has no business being a city.