The following is an email statement from Grand Haven Mayor Catherine McNally to the residents of Grand Haven. She asks residents to share this message with others in the community.
MAYOR’S PERSPECTIVE UPON LEAVING OFFICE
I’ve never been comfortable with self-promotion and couldn’t bring myself to run a negative campaign. But there are things I think the people of Grand Haven should know before they vote, and since being bumped out in the primary, disseminating them publicly seems much less self-serving.
I’ve provided some facts in this piece and they are accurate to the best of my knowledge. But this is mainly an opinion piece, based on what I’ve experienced and conclusions I’ve drawn in my two years as Mayor. I apologize for the length of the message and ask you to plow through it. I think it’s important for our City. If you agree after you’ve read it, I ask you to forward this email to local friends and family. I’ve broken my concerns down into four basic points.
The first is that three members of the current Council are already much too closely affiliated; electing their ally (and arguably their leader) Andrea Hendrick to the Office of Mayor will give the group a powerful and dangerous super-majority.
Checks and balances are critical elements of every effective democracy. The Grand Haven City Council has broad legislative authority, and few checks on it except the integrity and good will of the people who serve. Grand Haven’s elections are deliberately non-partisan. Our City Council has for decades been served by well-intentioned, honorable individuals, largely self-funded or funded with small local contributions. Certainly, some were more personally liberal, some more conservative, and some may have aligned more naturally with others on specific issues. But it was the individual nature of Council service, unencumbered by party loyalty, rigid political affiliation or larger political agendas that helped our Council forge a balanced policy that put our citizens first and served our small town.
Individual governance on City Council has not been the norm since 2021, and if Andrea Hendrick and Ryan Cummins are elected in November, the situation will get much worse. Hendrick, Cummins, McLaughlin and Lowe are connected and collaborating in ways that are not healthy for our City government, and Hendrick—in particular—has received campaign funding that calls into question her independence from other Council members, and from outside and partisan political influences.
The Grand Haven Tribune published campaign finance information from the August mayoral primary’s pre-election report. In disclosing campaign contributions, Andrea Hendrick identified $250 each from current Council Members McLaughlin and Lowe, $250 from McLaughlin’s domestic partner, Elizabeth Pell, and $250 from Lowe’s husband, Michael Lowe. It is highly unusual (and I would argue undesirable) for sitting Council members to underwrite other Council candidates’ campaigns. Campaign filings also indicate Council Member Lowe is serving as Treasurer of Hendrick’s campaign committee, a position traditionally reserved for a trusted friend. Of the first nearly $10,000 raised by Hendrick for her campaign, roughly two-thirds came from outside our community: 25% from the Grand Rapids area, 15.5% from the Detroit area, 6% from PACs in Hudsonville and Muskegon, and 17% from individuals in communities across the state: Ypsilanti, Muskegon, East Lansing, West Olive, Newaygo, Zeeland, Flint, Holt, Holland, etc. One-quarter of these contributions came from current or former Michigan Democrat Party officials, elected Democrat office holders or Democrat Party operatives.
Council Member Cummins and BLP Director Hendrick are close friends and long-time political allies who share political ideals and affiliations and communicate frequently and privately on City and BLP policy. Cummins and McLaughlin served together on the Advisory Committee for the discredited Beyond the Pier Waterfront Master Plan, relying on inverted survey data to develop a plan to build privately-owned, multi-story buildings on five City-owned downtown parking lots. McLaughlin and Hendrick served briefly on the Planning Commission together: though Hendrick claims City Planning Commission experience, she left after only nine months, with 21 of her 30-month term left unserved. McLaughlin and Lowe campaigned together and have remained closely aligned since election. All four have drawn significant support in the Grand Haven political arena through the same channel: the Grand Haven Energy Organization, a grass-roots sustainable-energy advocacy group that has since morphed into the organization advocating dissolution of our Board of Light and Power. With very few exceptions, Cummins, McLaughlin, and Lowe have voted as a block on City Council for the last two years, with Cummins generally setting the direction. Their three votes have controlled Council decisions.
The second is that Andrea Hendrick arguably had a vested interest in City Council’s decision last year to permit and “fast-track” recreational marijuana sales.
I ran into a buzz saw as Mayor about three weeks after I was sworn in because I challenged the plan Council Members Cummins and McLaughlin introduced to permit the sale of recreational marijuana in the City. I’m not a fan of marijuana personally and didn’t think most people in town would support recreational sales. But I was more troubled by the process by which the three moved this issue forward than I was about the plan itself. It took me a long time to sort out their motive. The three fiercely opposed my decision to schedule an early public legal briefing at a Council meeting by the cannabis law expert in our City Attorney’s firm. It seemed clear to me from the outset they were intent on shepherding the four business owners who held City medicinal-sales permits into what they expected would be a small, protected class of recreational-sales permit-holders. It was also clear they were getting advice from someone associated with the cannabis industry on how to accomplish this. I initially thought the cannabis advice was coming from Aaron Smith of New Standard, the licensed medicinal cannabis seller from whom McLaughlin accepted a $500 campaign contribution. What I couldn’t figure out was why all three would be so tightly wound up in a relationship with Smith that they insisted on pushing this decision through Council without adequate public input or a thorough examination of risk. The City had originally issued four medicinal-sales permits through a lottery process in September 2020. I recently went back to sort out who held the other three City medicinal-sales permits Cummins, McLaughlin and Lowe seemed intent on shepherding into recreational-sales permits. Andrea Hendrick, operating as a sole proprietor under the business name “Queen Leaf, LLC,” was 33-percent owner of two. In my opinion, this explains who was providing them advice on cannabis permitting behind the scenes, why they fiercely resisted an open legal briefing by our own City Attorney’s expert, and why they were so adamant about pushing recreational cannabis sales forward quickly. After an initial non-refundable application fee investment of $10,000, Hendrick’s medicinal permits had lain dormant for more than a year. I believe she was struggling to secure cannabis-industry financing. (Cannabis businesses are not generally eligible for conventional bank loans because marijuana remains a prohibited Schedule I controlled substance under federal law.) Transitioning her medicinal-sales permits to the far more lucrative recreational-sales permits would have made her enterprise significantly more attractive to prospective investors. In fairness, I should report the Hendrick permits had languished so long they may no longer have been viable under City rules, though I could find no evidence in the file that they had been formally canceled.
The third is that Karen Lowe continues to sit on our City Council because Cummins and McLaughlin voted with her to bury the issue of her residency.
In June 2022, seven months after I took office and as the Council marijuana battle raged, I challenged Karen Lowe’s right to sit on our City Council. Numerous voters told me she did not reside most of the year in the historic Highland Park cottage she claimed as her legal residence. If the allegations were true, the voters were entitled to know and, frankly, Council was ethically obligated to act. It was relatively simple to find out whether Lowe physically resided in the Highland Park cottage she claimed as her legal residence and, despite Lowe’s claims to the contrary, physical residence is an essential component of legal residence in the State of Michigan. I pulled the public water records in early June and learned only negligible amounts of water had been consumed in the cottage between mid-September 2021, while Lowe was still campaigning for office, and late May 2022, more than six into her Council term. Eight consecutive months physically residing somewhere else, and a similar seasonal-use pattern for years. I brought this information to City Council for review and resolution, recommending we declare Lowe’s office vacant under a City Charter provision that declared “A city office shall become vacant upon the occurrence of any of the following events: …. (5) Ceasing to be an inhabitant of the City.” The City Attorney made no judgment and gave no substantive advice regarding Lowe’s legal residency because no one got a chance to ask him. He provided an opinion that Council didn’t have authority to declare Lowe’s office vacant under the Charter provision (as I’d recommended) because, if Lowe maintained she was a legal resident, she was entitled to the due process afforded by a formal hearing if we sought to remove her. Cummins and McLaughlin immediately brought a motion to remove my residency challenge from the Council agenda, and then voted with Lowe (despite her blatant conflict of interest) to do so. Their votes effectively blocked any substantive discussion or action by the City to address Lowe’s residency status and right to hold office. Though the City Attorney was present at the meeting, Cummins and McLaughlin asked no questions about the requirements of legal residency, the significance of physically residing outside the City for 8 consecutive months, or the City’s options or obligations regarding investigation. I believe Cummins and McLaughlin knew, at least after reviewing the materials I’d provided, that Lowe resided outside our City most of the year and there was a serious question about her right to hold office. They weren’t very happy with her, but her third vote on a Council of five was more important than an inquiry that would ensure the integrity of our governance. They showed who they are and what they value. Contrast their actions with what’s just taken place in Portage, Michigan, as the Portage City Council examined a similar claim that a current Council member didn’t live in the City. Criminal investigators (State Police assisted by the State Attorney General’s office) are looking at whether the Council Member committed perjury when she filed an affidavit claiming to be a City resident. (All candidates for public office, including Lowe, file just such an affidavit.) The Portage City Council required a sworn statement from its Member detailing where she physically resided since assuming office, and when she lived there. The challenged Portage Council Member tendered her resignation rather than submit her proofs. In Grand Haven, Cummins and McLaughlin cooperated with Lowe to ensure our Council buried its head in the sand.
The last is that, in my opinion, Hendrick, Cummins, McLaughlin and Lowe have not honored their oaths to support the Grand Haven Charter.
The four allies have enjoyed significant political support from the Grand Haven Energy Organization, a citizen-driven sustainable-energy advocacy group. In the past, this group opposed replacing the Simms Plant on Harbor Island with a smaller gas-powered peaker plant, arguing fossil fuel technology was becoming obsolete, a major City investment in fossil fuel technology was unwise, and the City shouldn’t use our waterfront for power generation. Many people, myself included, agreed with them.
But the four have gone on since—while serving as public officials—to conduct an unprincipled and shameful hatchet job on the Grand Haven Board of Light and Power.
All Council Members and BLP Directors swear an oath to support the City Charter as they assume office. Shortly after I was elected, I asked our City Attorney two questions to help clarify the organizational relationships between City Council and the Board of Light and Power. “If we don’t like actions the BLP takes, can we remove the elected trustees?” and “Can we spend their money without their permission?” The answer to both questions was “no,” which signaled to me that the City Charter deliberately gave the BLP a significant measure of autonomy.
I concluded Council and the BLP needed to work cooperatively, particularly in relation to Harbor Island remediation, and approached my relationship with the BLP with respect. Cummins, McLaughlin and Lowe seemed to draw the opposite conclusion, and wanted to impose their will on the BLP. For the last two years, they have done everything possible to undermine the working relationship between Council and the BLP. They’ve made public, gratuitous, disparaging remarks at Council meetings. They’ve embraced the most one-sided version of “Council Good/BLP Bad” sanctimony, with no room for honest disagreement and no interest in good faith discussion or compromise. They’ve openly criticized the BLP’s Executive Director, blocked him from speaking at Council meetings and refused to attend other meetings if he participated. Elizabeth Pell, McLaughlin’s domestic partner, filed a human relations complaint about the BLP’s treatment of Hendrick; the City’s Human Relations Commission found Pell’s charge of gender-based discrimination unproved, but saw plenty of discord among BLP Directors and between the BLP and Council, and recommended remedial measures for both.
I’m not saying the BLP has always been right or has been entirely blameless in the conduct of its affairs. I’m not even saying there aren’t legitimate arguments that support dissolving the BLP, though I think it would be a mistake to do so. I am saying, from what I’ve observed, that Hendrick, Cummins, McLaughlin, and Lowe have cooperated in a years-long public BLP-bashing exercise that is mean-spirited and unfair. And not calculated to inspire cooperation, honestly inform the public or advance City interests. In my opinion, the four were intent on breaking and re-shaping our current system as they took office, despite their oaths to uphold our Charter. Also, in my opinion, they have not rationally considered what will happen if the Charter Change passes. As I write this, Dave Walters, the BLP’s Executive Director, a highly dedicated and gifted manager and a nationally recognized expert in the power industry, has just announced his retirement, having been the particular target of their rancor. It is quite possible the remaining BLP senior management will also depart, rather than stay on to work for a City Council that has unfairly maligned them and the organization they serve. Our current City management staff is small, over-extended, relatively new in its roles, and working diligently to operate within its means and meet its many responsibilities. No one at the City is prepared to step in to run our electric utility. The Michigan power industry is small and its engineers are greatly in demand. One has to ask what caliber of candidates we will attract to Grand Haven to fill BLP vacancies, after publicly humiliating the public servants who have run a model operation.
Conclusion: I know many voters in our City have been alarmed by the ongoing political battle to control the Ottawa County Commission. I think about Ottawa Impact’s far-right agenda and steps they’ve taken to advance it: conducting campaigns financed with outside money, meeting behind closed doors to make decisions, vilifying dedicated employees personally and trivializing their professional expertise, frightening our public workforce and causing employee morale to plummet, ignoring ethical obligations, fast-tracking friends’ issues and dealing in political favors. And it all sounds familiar, though this Grand Haven alliance operates at the opposite end of the political spectrum.
It’s not good for our City. And voters have a chance in this election to fix it.
Council Members McLaughlin and Lowe have two years remaining on their four-year terms. The only effective way to break up the Cummins/McLaughlin/Lowe triangle and begin restoring independent, individual-driven decision-making to our City government is to replace Cummins with one of the other current City Council candidates, and elect Bob Monetza as Mayor. Bob has a servant heart, treats people with civility and respect, and is a good listener. Given our current choices, he gets my vote.
If you’ve made it to the end of this letter, you are a rock star and I thank you sincerely. If it raises questions that I can help answer, feel free to give me a call at (616)402-0368. And please consider forwarding this email widely.
Very respectfully,
Catherine M. McNally
Captain, U.S. Coast Guard (ret.)
Mayor, City of Grand Haven