Stephen Miller's resignation letter

Royal Oak City Commissioner Stephen Miller tendered his resignation at 11:32 a.m. June 3 in an e-mail to City Attorney David Gillam. Below is the text of the e-mail, obtained by the through the Freedom of Information Act.

Mr. Gillam,

I am sick to death of people lying about me, threatening me with litigation and fighting EVERY attempt I have made these last 3 1/2 years to fix the city’s worsening financial crisis.

I have found over 3.22 million dollars in additional revenue for the cities (sic) General Fund (soon to be even more when (Interim City Manager/Finance Director Don) Johnson finishes the work-papers for the retro and current refund to the Gen’l Fund from the Solid Waste Fund that I uncovered) and I think it’s time for the others to find their share.

As I reported to you on March 16th, (Zoning Board of Appeals member and attorney for Bordine Nursery) Jim Rasor contacted me on March 16th, at 1:34 p.m. and threatened that if I didn’t do something to overturn the ZBA decision against Bordines (sic) he would litigate against me and make Royal Oak pay. When I told him that a Commission could not overturn a ZBA decision he threatened that he would not only litigate against me as a sitting City Commissioner he would see to it that a further lawsuit would be filed against me personally.

I reported this to you immediately after these threats and I took copious notes about these threats. The threats were real and I was intimidated.

I do not have the funds to hire an Attorney and defend myself personally for something I had nothing to do with, even though I would ultimately prevail. The fact that Mr. Rasor was willing to lie about me and events in several legal documents proves to me that there are people who will do anything to further their own agendas.

It is because of this that I am tendering my resignation — effective immediately.

Myself nor my family should not ever be subjected to these kind of threats and especially since all I ever wanted to do was to work as hard as I could, to apply my municipal financial expertise to solve the City’s structural deficit — and do that WITHOUT a tax increase to Royal Oak residents and businesses.

Again, I have found over 3.22 million dollars to help my city out of this financial mess — the challange (sic) is can any of the others even come close to matching that.

Stephen F. Miller