05/12/2024
Update on Charter Change Group’s
Violations of Campaign Finance Act
The group that attempted a takeover of our Board of Light and Power last fall has for months resisted disclosure of a major source of its funding. In addition to the obvious contempt for the rules of transparency and accountability, the receipt of those funds was an attempt to avoid disclosure of their early efforts plus violation of various other laws.
Months after being ordered by the Enforcement Division of the Michigan Department of State to disclosure their fund-raising the leaders finally filed numerous disclosure documents – 45 pages in all – just last week. All of their previous filings are shown to be bogus; and what is disclosed seems to raise more questions than it answers.
First the facts, at least as stated by the leaders of this group. They now say that their group was organized on January 9 of 2023, not on April 17 as previously claimed. Why is this important? There are several reasons.
First, it means that the funds they received earlier than April 17 must now be disclosed. We have suspected that this group had raised and spent $3,500.00 on attorney fees without any disclosure of the donor of the funds nor the source of the funds nor the recipient of the funds.
These newly filed documents confirm that fact: the leaders have copped to the receipt and expenditure of $3,501.00 on January 9 and its payment to an attorney on the following day.
The concealment of that fund-raising is a violation of the Campaign Finance Act.
According to what the leaders say in their disclosure, those funds came from eight active members of their coalition: Dennis Craun $625.00; Andrea Hendrick $500.00; Jon Jellema $495.00; John Kinch $500.00; Jeffrey Miller $300.00; Elizabeth Pell $250.00; Paul Pippin $195.00; and John Field Reichardt $636.00.
According to their disclosure, the attorney who received this $3,501.00 is Peter Letzman who is apparently a sole practitioner in the Grand Rapids area. There’s a lot to question about all of this information.
First is the fact that by all indications the $3,501.00 is payment for services rendered. It is not a retainer nor is it the nominal fee for an initial consultation. If Letzman submitted a specific bill to them, clearly his services had already been performed. When? It is improbable (that’s a euphemism) that he had been contacted by this group, had an initial consultation with them and performed 3,501.00 worth of services all in less than two days.
The facts seem to indicate that Letzman had been retained and performed those services over the weeks or even months before January 9. The Campaign Finance Act requires registration as a Ballot Question Committee and financial disclosures not just when funds are raised or expended but also when the Charter Change group incurs an obligation to pay those funds, in other words not just when the January 9 funds were collected or the January 10 payment was made.
If that’s the case then the leaders of this Charter Change group, according to the Campaign Finance Act, should be disclosing whatever money they received and spent prior to January 9-10 not just the funds they received and spent on those two days. It is clear from emails between members of this group that their activities to take over the Board of Light and Power were in full swing as early as late summer of 2022. The Act requires that they publicly disclosure the funds they spent during that period, which they have not done.
There are other violations perpetrated by the Charter Change group and its leaders, not just failure to disclose their finances. The Act requires funds to all be deposited into an approved bank account and handled by an identified, specific treasurer: the group and its leaders did not do that. The Act requires that contributions and receipts be recorded: the group and its leaders did not do that. The Act requires that contributions not be “bundled” and that the funds come from the persons identified as the contributors; the new campaign finance statements leave those questions unanswered.
This drama has not yet been played out. While it is gratifying that the Enforcement Division has required some disclosures from the Charter Change group it is disappointing that some of the violations listed above were not addressed. We are now awaiting action by the Ottawa County Clerk’s office as to whether the Charter Change group’s story about January 9-10, 2022, will go unquestioned. The Clerk’s office has previously said it is not prepared to do a “deep dive” into campaign finance statements but the suspicious nature of these filings calls out for inquiry. A reasonable suggestion is that the Clerk’s office request a copy of attorney Letzman’s time ledger or statement listing his services rendered and dates.
As our County Clerk has often said: trust is earned by transparency.
