Clawson settles lawsuit with former council member, fills vacant seat

CLAWSON — After more than a year, a conflict over a seat on the Clawson City Council has been resolved.

On Nov. 3, 2021 —  the last meeting of the outgoing council after Election Day was the day before — the outgoing mayor, Reese Scripture, asked outgoing Councilman George Georges to resign. He agreed, which passed in a 3-1 vote. Scripture then motioned to appoint Georges to an open seat, which also passed in a 3-1 vote, as there still was a vacancy on the council.

Georges had finished fourth in the recent election and did not secure a seat on the council. When the new council began its tenure at the next meeting, the group voted to let the seat remain vacant.

What followed has been a legal process between the city of Clawson and Georges for 14 months. At a special Jan. 11 meeting, the council announced that the lawsuit between the two had been settled.

“It went through mediation, and mediation was a couple weeks ago, and they came to a tentative agreement, both sides,” said City Manager Joseph Rheker. “It was something that I think everybody in the community is glad to finally be moving on.”

Rheker said what was called into play was what the previously elected administration attempted to do in seating Georges, as he was simultaneously not elected to a seat, but then appointed to one. Whether it was legal or not, he said, was never fully determined.

“They came to an agreement as far as settlement was concerned,” Rheker said. “I think the takeaway from most of this is if something comes down to what is legal, what is ethical, and what’s been thrown around too is just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do it. Legalities and ethics came to a crossroads and the only ones that lost in this were the taxpayers.”

Georges said he is glad the ordeal is over, but he is disappointed in the way that people interpreted the election.

“For the longest period of time, people would come up and say that because I wasn’t third in the election — there were two seats that were open at the time — the person that was third should have got it, but that’s not the case,” he said. “The election was for two seats, not three, and whoever lost, myself included, that was it. We had no right to anything because we lost, but people were saying because he was third he should have been the one that was seated at the seat, OK? And there’s no logical bearing to it.”

“The whole issue for a year was everybody was talking about the morality,” he continued. “It has nothing to do with morality. It’s just a fact of life. What was done was legal. There was nothing illegal about it.”

Georges said that had the lawsuit continued and went to court, he would have been seated, but by that time there wouldn’t be much of the term left, which ends in November. He felt that what the City Council did was wrong by not allowing him to be seated.

As part of the settlement, the city will cover Georges’ attorney fees of $14,000. He also received an apology from the City Council to him and his family. In return, Georges agreed to not accept appointment to the council and waived “any claims thereto,” the settlement language reads. The settlement agreement was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request from the city of Clawson.

Georges said he doesn’t know if he would run for council again in the future.

At its Jan. 17 meeting, the council discussed what to do with the open seat. The council ruled out holding a special election, as the body felt there was no time. Another option was to take applications for the vacancy and select a candidate within 30 days.

Mayor Paula Millan felt the council should take action by appointing the person who finished as the runner-up in the 2021 election, Scott Tinlin, as that’s what she felt the current council would have done in 2021.

“I’ve only spoken with him a few times … I asked him if he would be willing to serve on the Planning Commission mostly because I thought if he served on planning, he would get his feet wet, he would get to know the people in our community, how our business administration operates and get a good understanding of what we do should something like this ever transpire,” she said. “None of us knew what was going to happen. None of us predicted that 13 months later, we’d be sitting here and just resolving this issue.”

Councilman Louis Samson also suggested to appoint former Councilwoman Kathy Phillips to the open seat, but she declined and withdrew her name from consideration.

“I don’t want to see this go through the whole rigmarole again,” she said. “I just want to see the city move forward, and if that means Mr. Tinlin, that’s fine and I’m going to withdraw my name from this process and just know that I’m there for anything else that you guys need.”

Tinlin was unanimously approved by council that evening for the vacant seat. He expressed his gratitude for the opportunity during the meeting.

“I’d like to thank you for the honor. I’m always very persistent so this was what I was hoping to happen. I wasn’t expecting tonight though,” he said. “I do promise to give service back to the community. That’s what I had promised during my campaign. So I’m very excited about sitting in the seat and hopefully contributing as best as I can. So thanks everyone for the support I’ve had over the last 13 months as well.”