(WXYZ) — Warren politics are never dull. In 2020, nearly 68% of the voters in Warren passed term limit reform for the mayor and the city council.
Because that proposal passed, that means all elected city officials have the same limit of 3 terms.
Those new term limit rules mean Mayor Jim Fouts can’t run again in 2023 after his current term is up. He’s been in office since 2007.
Despite that message from the voters in 2020, some tried get those rules changed recently, and it’s how they went about it that’s raising eyebrows.
On two hot July days this summer, Warren residents trickled into a cool banquet hall with the promise of free lunch and free gas cards.
But prizes and pasta were not the only things on the menu.
“We’re also circulating a petition today. This is for term limit reform for our Warren elected officials. This is to place term limit reform on the ballot for November,” said Sean Clark, Warren’s Senior Housing Director of Administration, from the petition-signing table at the front door of the event.
Our undercover cameras were rolling inside the public events on July 20 and July 21, after we got a tip that Warren city employees were helping to gather signatures for a new ballot proposal. That proposal aimed to extend term limits for the mayor, clerk and treasurer, potentially allowing current Mayor Jim Fouts to stay in office longer than 16 years. The new effort would overturn what voters last decided in 2020: to limit the mayor’s years allowed in office.
“It’s just to get it on the ballot, so all the residents can vote whether they’re for it or not,” said Gail Dietz at the petition table in July. Dietz works in the Mayor’s office.
Next to her at the petition table was Clark. Also at the event: some city blight inspectors, and the supervisor of the city’s Property Maintenance Division, Robert Scott. Warren Economic Development Director Tom Bommarito was also seen leaving the luncheon.
“Hello everybody! Our property maintenance we feel is second to none,” said Scott from the stage, as he talked about the city’s maintenance program.
Mayor Fouts was the featured speaker at the event, where he spoke about Warren’s city services, his fire and police commissioners, and how he likes to respond to resident phone calls.
“All of you are my bosses, the city council is not my boss,” said Fouts from the stage.
It’s no secret Fouts and the city council have been at odds lately. They’ve taken each other to court at least 7 times.
“They’re high-level people in City Hall,” said Warren City Council President Patrick Green as he watched the video of the city employees at the event.
“There's a line — that should be bright — between government work and campaigning. And they've done their best to erase it,” said Green.
Michigan election law prohibits city employees from campaigning on city time.
The 7 Investigators requested the timecards for the 8 employees we saw at the petition drive.
They all asked for the day off, but several of the approvals were handwritten with no computerized date stamp to determine whether the employees put in for time before the event or after we requested the information.
“A time and attendance system are to control the accountability of everyone. And for these appointees — I’m concerned this by all appearances looks like it was filled out after the fact,” said Green as he reviewed the time sheets.
Beyond the use of city employees, there are questions about the group funding this petition drive.
According to newspaper ads and mailers sent out to Warren residents, a group called Citizens Alliance of Michigan hosted the events.
State of Michigan business records show Citizens Alliance is registered as a 501c4, which is a non-profit that doesn’t have to disclose who gives them money.
"501c4 organizations become that black box that can obscure this origin of money… They're generally actually the primary source of dark money that gets into our elections," said Simon Schuster, the former Michigan Campaign Finance Network Director. “Because there's no transparency in this situation, we don't know exactly who's benefiting from the donations given to it and even who's contributing to the nonprofit in the first place.”
Even though we can’t see who’s donating to the Citizens Alliance of Michigan, we can see where they’ve been spending their money. In late June, they gave $10,000 to the Ballot Question Committee called Citizens for Term Limit Reform.
And that’s not all.
The directors of Citizens Alliance are all City of Warren employees. Senior housing director of administration Sean Clark is the Secretary, Warren Public Service Director Gus Ghanam is the group’s Treasurer, and their President is Cecil St. Pierre. The former Warren City Council President and probate lawyer is no stranger to the 7 Investigators. He was a key lawyer in a series of investigations into questionable real estate and probate practices in Macomb County. After that was exposed by the 7 Investigators, then-Attorney General Bill Schuette suspended St. Pierre as a Public Administrator. St. Pierre later resigned, but the probate practice we exposed prompted changes to the law.
Now members of the current city council say they are questioning St. Pierre’s non-profit’s financial contributions to the term limits effort that were recorded in campaign records just days before St. Pierre was hired as an assistant city attorney with the City of Warren this summer.
“If you give $10,000 on a Friday and you get hired on a Monday, and then in that same week on the Thursday, the six-month probation that's required for a new hire is waived, it just it looks like corruption,” said Green.
“Did this administration break the civil service and union rules to hire Cecil St. Pierre as a payback for his dark money fundraising,” asked Warren City Council Member Jonathan Lafferty at the July 12 meeting.
Fouts maintains he did not personally hire St. Pierre as an assistant city attorney; he said St. Pierre was hired through civil service rules. A union grievance has been filed over St. Pierre's hiring.
According to the IRS, non-profits like Citizens Alliance of Michigan are required to have their tax forms on site for the public to inspect.
But when the 7 Investigators visited the non-profit’s address to request those tax forms, St. Pierre and his files were gone.
In an email, St. Pierre later told us he changed the address for Citizens Alliance, but state records show that wasn’t done until four days after we went showed up at his (now former) office.
St. Pierre would not talk to us on camera, but did release this statement:
"Citizens Alliance was formed to foster communication about important issues in our state among members of our community, and to promote social welfare. Our spaghetti luncheons did exactly that, connecting various elected officials and candidates with members of the public. This grassroots organization is driven by unpaid volunteers, who help on their personal time. Citizens Alliance remains on watch, to hold accountable those elected officials who do not put the public's interest first."
We have requested the IRS forms from the non-profit again (multiple times in writing and in person) but so far St. Pierre has not provided them, despite IRS rules that require them to be available to the public.
The city employees who were at the luncheon have not returned our phone calls or emails asking for comment.
Ultimately, the petition drive did not gather enough signatures in time so the new term limits question did not make it onto the ballot. But questions still remain about who donated to the non-profit and why.
“Transparency in government is enormously important,” said Schuster. “We really have no insight into how that money is being spent.”
The 7 Investigators did talk to Mayor Fouts by phone. He was asked at least five times to talk to us on camera about this, but would not grant us on interview. He did say he doesn’t know much about the non-profit group, even though he’s spoken at several of their events. He also said as long as his employees took the day off, he’s fine with them working at the Citizens Alliance event.
Fouts did also make a public Facebook post in late June saying he supported the Citizens for Term Limits Reform effort to change the term limits.