I wrote a Letter to the Editor about the conduct of the anti-transparency candidates in connection with the November election. I’ll publish it here, because it summarizes the issues that I’ve raised below.
Eric Haven kicked off his mayoral campaign on July 12th. Compare his petition with the Catallo and Avery petitions that are posted separately, and you’ll see a lot of the same names on all three. It was almost as though many of these people were at the same place at the same time. David Marsh signed Haven’s petition on 7/12, so he was clearly aware that Haven’s resignation would create a one-year council member opening, an opportunity that he later seized on before anyone else became aware of it.
Sharron Catallo’s petitions are attached.
Catallo Nominating Petitions 2018
Al Avery’s petitions are attached.
Avery Nominating Petitions 2018
Only the people involved know for certain if they were in the same place at the same time, but here are all the July 12th petition signers in list form (and in alphabetical order to make the patterns easier to see).
7/12 Haven petition signers:
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- Arkwright, Stephen
- Avery, Alfred
- Catallo, Sharron
- Coleman, Kim
- Eberhardt, Carol
- Haven, Nancy
- Kniesc, Jason
- Luginski, Melissa
- Marsh, David
- Nantau, John
- Radcliff, Jennifer
- Schoebel, Frank
7/12 Catallo petition signers:
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- Arkwright, Stephen
- Avery, Alfred
- Coleman, Kim
- Luginski, Melissa
- Marsh, David
- Nantau, John
- Radcliff, Jennifer
- Schoebel, Frank
7/12 Avery petition signers:
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- Arkwright, Stephen
- Haven, Eric
- Kniesc, Jason
- Luginski, Melissa
- Marsh, David
- Nantau, John
- Radcliff, Jennifer
- Schoebel, Frank
Here is Eric Haven’s Affidavit of Identity, signed on July 13th. He was required by the charter to resign before beginning his campaign for mayor, but he ignored that requirement. In this document, Eric Haven affirmed that his campaign for MAYOR complied with Michigan campaign finance law as of the July 13th, seven days before he resigned from his city council position.
Eric Haven could have resigned at any time, but he held back his resignation until Friday, July 20th. This created a one year opening on city council that needed to be filled.
Only a small group of insiders were aware of Haven’s resignation. The general public wasn’t told until the evening of Monday, July 23rd at the city council meeting. Petitions were due the next day.
David Marsh was one of the few insiders who knew about Haven’s resignation, and he immediately began collecting petition signatures (the first signature was “coincidentally” collected on July 20th).
Jason Kniesc and Sharron Catallo, current council members and fellow insiders, were also aware of Eric Haven’s resignation on the 20th. They each quickly circulated a petition for David Marsh over the next two days (over the weekend), enabling Marsh to appear on the ballot as an unopposed candidate for the one-year council opening. (You’ll note the Kniesc and Catallo signatures on the bottom right of two of the Marsh petitions.)
I filed an election complaint asking that Mr. Haven’s and Mr. Marsh’s petitions be disqualified, which I’ve posted here.
My position was straightforward. The Charter required that Mr. Haven resign from city council before beginning his campaign for mayor and he did not do so. Mr. Haven began collecting signatures on July 12th, and he signed an affidavit swearing that his campaign for mayor was in compliance with campaign finance law on July 13th. He withheld his resignation until July 20th, which benefited Mr. Marsh. Since Mr. Haven did not have a sufficient number of signatures collected after his resignation date to qualify as a candidate, I asked that his petition be disqualified. I also asked that Mr. Marsh’s petition be disqualified because the one-year council position was not posted for a minimum of seven days as required by the Charter.
The city attorney agreed with my position. The signatures that Mr. Haven collected prior to his resignation were deemed invalid. Additional notice was given so that others could express an interest in running. Mr. Haven had sufficient time to be able to collect the necessary signatures to qualify for the November ballot, and he now has an opponent. Because of the additional notice, Mr. Marsh’s original petition was now valid. Others were now given a fair opportunity to express an interest in running for that one-year opening, and Mr. Marsh now has an opponent.