Clawson City Council postpones decision on who will fill its empty seat

CLAWSON — The Clawson City Council is facing a decision on who will be appointed to fill its open seat after finding out that its top candidate had an unpaid water bill.

The City Council did a ranking system to determine which of the four finalists would fill the empty seat until the November election. Richard Scott received three votes, Alexander Aprile and Andrea LaLonde received two votes, and Lauren Mattar received one vote.

Scott, a 29-year resident of Clawson, was chosen by the council July 1 to fill the vacancy on City Council left by Matthew Binkowski’s resignation, but now it is up in the air if he will be the new council member due to the unpaid water bill.

The interviews of the finalists took place June 30, and the council made its decision in favor of Scott on July 1.

“I wrote so many things on what people said yesterday, and I was inspired by everyone,” Mayor Paula Millan said July 1. “I think it’s really hopeful that we have people of the caliber who came forth and submitted the information and then took their time to come out and speak with us.”

Millan said that her personal decision was on who might be best at this time, and who has the most background knowledge on Clawson.

“With Mr. Scott, my reasoning was he has worked on the Planning Commission for the last year or two and planning is like the best ground-laying education system you can get in this community if you want to figure out how to do what we do,” Millan said.

Mayor Pro Tem Susan Moffitt said that she was hoping to get new people on the council who have not already been friends of council members.

“I hope those people will decide to run and we will see them in November and onward and upward,” Moffitt said.

Council member Bruce Anderson said he liked all four candidates, addressing the three who did not get chosen, saying that they should run in the November election.

Following the vote, City Manager Joe Rheker mentioned the unpaid water bill. The council had the information about the unpaid water bill before the June 30 interviews, Moffitt said, but the council was concentrating on its prepared questions for all candidates.

Section 4.31 in the city charter in regard to defaulters not qualified to hold office says that “no person who has been convicted of theft, misuse, or appropriation of public funds or is in default to the city or any other governmental subdivision of the state of Michigan or who has been convicted of a felony shall be elected or appointed to any office of the city,” Rheker said.

According to Rheker, Scott’s last water bill was due on June 23 and he still owed $245.

Moffitt did not think that the council should go forward with appointing Scott because of the unpaid bill and wanted to stand by the rules of the charter.

The council went back and forth trying to determine the definition of “default” in terms of the charter but was unable to figure out what exactly qualifies as default.

“The criteria for the charter says that if someone is in default that they’ve explained several times it’s more than just this current past due bill, so that’s a minimum standard that we’ve set for people to sit on this dais, and I think that we have an obligation to uphold the charter,” Moffitt said. “We have a playing field of really great candidates, so we should look at the next viable candidate based on this information.”

“Yes, and if you hadn’t selected this candidate as your No. 4 choice, you would probably rally a little,” Millan replied.

“That’s absolutely not true; I believe in upholding the charter,” Moffitt said. “That’s what the people voted on. That’s the standard they wanted us to govern by.”

Millan said that she would have fought for this regardless of who the frontrunner was.

“I feel a default is when it goes to your tax roll. I do not believe a default is because you were late. I don’t think it’s the same thing,” Millan said. “I am 100% with following our charter, but I personally do not feel that being a week late on a bill makes you a defaulter.”

Council member Glenn Shepard agreed with Millan.

“The fact that it’s paid or not paid I don’t feel, again, it’s opinion, but that’s the reason why I am looking for someone else that defines what ‘default’ means,” Shepard said. “Is it (a default) because if it’s malice? I mean, I don’t think there is malice involved.”

“The motion is that we do not proceed with this, this evening, until we have an opinion by an attorney that shows us where in our community we use the word ‘default’ and that we look at our past due water bills and see at what point do we consider it default,” Millan said.

The next City Council meeting is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. July 15 at City Hall.

For more information, visit cityofclawson.com.