WARREN — A petition to recall Warren Mayor Lori Stone citing her delayed action to establish a land bank in the city was suspended Jan. 21.
“This decision comes after careful consideration of the systemic challenges in Michigan’s recall process, as well as the troubling issue of signature fraud that has cast a long shadow over legitimate efforts like mine,” Paul Kardasz, the Warren resident who started the petition, said in a statement.
Stone offered “no comment” about the suspended recall.
Kardasz’s petition was approved Dec. 30 by the Macomb County Election Commission in a 2-1 vote.
This was not Kardasz’s first attempt to recall Stone. In November, another petition he started was voted down by the Election Commission. That attempt was spurred by the mayor’s appointment of a resident to the Warren Historical Commission who was accused of anti-Islamic messaging on social media.
In his statement, Kardasz explained he started the petition to hold the mayor “accountable for her blatant failure to fulfill the duties of her office.” This stemmed from the mayor failing to act to establish a land bank after the Warren City Council’s unanimous approval in August.
Members of the council have said Stone’s delay left anywhere between $700,000 and $1 million in grant funding on the table.
Stone approved the land bank Dec. 10.
“Let me be clear: This failure was not just a matter of oversight ... it was an egregious dereliction of duty,” Kardasz stated.
Kardasz said he received a positive response on social media about the petition.
“This overwhelming support proves two things. First, Warren residents have seen through Mayor Stone’s incompetence,” he stated. “Second, being the mayor of Michigan’s third-largest city demands more than simply holding town hall meetings.”
The method to recall an elected official is flawed, according to Kardasz.
“From the inflated signature requirement of over 12,500 valid signatures in this case, which is more votes than Mayor Stone received to win office, to the complex and restrictive timing rules, the process is stacked against grassroots organizers,” he stated.
Kardasz also cited “signature fraud by professional petitioning firms” as having a “chilling effect” on the process. He called for state oversight to prevent this.
Kardasz called the recall system “broken” and called on state legislators to remedy the issue by amending the state’s constitution.
“This amendment could establish a more equitable framework for recall processes, such as implementing a tiered system for signature requirements based on the office in question,” he stated.
Despite the suspension, Kardasz isn’t giving up his fight against the mayor.
“When you do not meet your mayoral duties in the future, I will continue to file recall language that passes the necessary clarity and factual hearings unrelentingly,” he stated.
Councilman weighs in on mayor’s land bank comments
At the Warren City Council’s Jan. 14 meeting, Councilman Jonathan Lafferty weighed in on comments Stone made in a Dec. 30 Fox 2 News report.
“I was hoping for a quiet Dec. 30-31, and then Fox 2 rolled up in my driveway asking for comment on a news story relative to the land bank,” Lafferty said.
Lafferty said he was “surprised” by comments from the mayor in the report. He said that when re-watching the clip, he was struck by the “callous” response from the mayor.
“The reason I want to bring this up is to examine what happened here and what the true result was,” Lafferty said. “The fact of the matter is that the state of Michigan Land Bank had funding upwards of $1 million available to the city of Warren if they had an eligible land bank agreement.”
City Council passed its part of the agreement with the state land bank in its Aug. 27 meeting. Stone did not veto the agreement in the 96-hour window provided, according to Lafferty. The council addressed this inaction at its Nov. 26 meeting, unanimously approving to give the mayor 72 hours to sign the agreement. This deadline came and went without a signature.
The council filed a lawsuit in Macomb County Circuit Court Dec. 9 against the mayor over the issue. The lawsuit was filed at a cost of $175 and was dismissed and closed Dec. 12, according to previous reporting in the Warren Weekly.
Lafferty said that when that opportunity passed, so did the opportunity for economic revitalization, causing the city to “start over” for 2025 funding.
“She chose to let that agreement rot on her desk for over 100 days, signing it on Dec. 10,” he said about the inaction following the August vote. “But by that time it was too late. The eligibility period had ended, and the state funding, as far as Warren was concerned, evaporated.”
On Dec. 11, Stone said in a press release that she thought forming a land bank would be a burden on taxpayers to the tune of $200,000 to $300,000 per year. She hoped to work with the council to find a way to ease that tax burden.
Most troubling to Lafferty was Stone laughing when asked if her inaction cost the city $1 million during the Fox 2 News report before saying “absolutely not.”
He continued that the mayor had six months to ask questions about the land bank, when the council introduced the matter in March prior to its August approval.
Council President Angela Rogensues questioned where the $1 million figure came from in the first place. She then read a letter from Michigan State Land Bank Authority Director Joseph Rivet.
In the letter, Rivet stated that each municipal land bank received a minimum of $700,000 in grant funding from the state. Warren missed out, since it did not have a land bank established to receive the funds.
“While I agree with Mr. Lafferty, it is a shame that we’ve lost funding with this particular endeavor because we have waited so long. We were not guaranteed a particular pot of money,” Rogensues said.
The City Council unanimously approved a motion to receive and file Lafferty’s comments.
Lafferty and Warren City Council Secretary Mindy Moore were unanimously approved to serve on the city’s Land Bank Authority’s board of directors at the Jan. 14 meeting.