Mayoral Candidate Briere: Donations and Comportment Trigger Questions

Sabra Briere: Campaigning as “works with everyone”: Has the endorsement of no current Council members. Four current Council members have endorsed against her.

POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST: Marijuana entrepreneurs gave over 15 percent of her total donations. Marijuana dispensary operating permits distributed by city oversight committee on which Briere sits prior to several large donations by marijuana entrepreneurs who received permits. Briere is not employed by U-M and neither is her spouse.

PLEASE NOTE: The following comes from a trio of articles published in The Ann Arbor Independent.

IN HER 2013 City Council race, almost half of Ward 1 Council member Sabra Briere’s 2013 campaign funds came from money donated by the owners of medical marijuana dispensaries. The owner of a local dispensary held a fundraiser for Briere that was attended by dispensary owners from across metro-Detroit. She accepted campaign donations in amounts ranging from $50 to $500 from dispensary owners in Redford, Ferndale, Macomb, Canton and New Buffalo, Michigan.

The sale of marijuana is illegal according to federal law. Michigan’s Marijuana Law, clarified by the Michigan Supreme Court in a February 2013 decision, prohibits dispensaries and restricts sales of the drug, as well. Local marijuana entrepreneurs hope a City Council member will introduce an ordinance to protect their businesses in the city.

Ward 4 Council member Jack Eaton, a labor lawyer, turned down a proffered donation from a local dispensary owner during the August 2013 Democratic primary election. “That’s drug money and drugs are illegal,” said Eaton.

Most banks remain leery of accepting deposits from marijuana dispensaries for fear that such banks could lose their charters, attract unwanted attention from regulators or even risk prosecution.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. recently told the media that lawful marijuana businesses should have access to the American banking system and that the government would soon offer rules to help them gain it. The rules are not expected to give banks a green light to accept deposits and provide other services, but would tell prosecutors not to prioritize cases involving legal marijuana businesses that use banks.

In June 2011, City Council passed a resolution that outlined where medical marijuana businesses could be located. In September 2011, Council members voted a 10-0 vote to appoint four individuals, including one Council member, to the city’s new Ann Arbor Medical Marijuana Advisory Board.

One month later, Briere accepted a $500 campaign donation from Mark Passerini, a University of Michigan graduate and co-founder of the OM of Medicine (medical marijuana) dispensary on Main Street. Passerini’s was one of the largest legal donations she received in 2011.

In October 2013, at a fundraiser held at Om of Medicine, half a dozen of the marijuana entrepreneurs to whom Briere had voted to give licenses made maximum amount donations ($500) to her campaign for City Council. Half of Briere’s campaign spending in her 2013 re-election bid came from money donated by medical marijuana dispensary owners.

Local elected officials in cities across the country are passing rules that forbid campaign donations from marijuana dispensary owners.

Despite Email Scandal Lawsuit, Sending Private Electronic Communications During Open Meetings

At the December 2, 2013 Council meeting, Ward 1 Council member Sabra Briere also violated Council rules concerning electronic communications. Briere sits on the Council Rules Committee, and helped craft Council Rule  #8 which states: “During Council meetings, members shall not send electronic communication to persons other than City Staff; provided however, that members may send draft motions, resolutions, and amendments to all members. Members shall not respond to member-distributed draft language via electronic communication. All draft language sent by electronic communication during Council meetings shall be read into the record prior to discussion by Council.”

Ward 1 Council member Sumi Kailasapathy has a Twitter account, but never Tweets during public meetings. She was succinct in her comments: “We have Council rules and we need to abide by them.” She then pointed out that City Council had gone through an “email fiasco” in 2009 and concluded by saying, “I think using Twitter during meetings violates Council Rule #8.”

Council member Petersen commented via email: “Unless it’s an emergency or otherwise urgent situation…no one should be communicating electronically to anyone except City Staff and Council during the time between the Call to Order and Adjournment of the meeting, inclusive of breaks.”

Petersen also pointed out that: “Not having a Council Rule that specifically addresses electronic communications during breaks exposes us to the same e-mail debacle that created the need for much of the content  of Rule #8. I expect the Council Rules committee will take this on.” It did not.

The use of social media, including Twitter, has gotten elected officials into legal hot water. In the 2013 City of Champaign v. Lisa Madigan decision, a unanimous panel of Illinois’s fourth district appellate court held that a municipality is required to disclose electronic communications between aldermen during a city council meeting if those texts, tweets, or emails were about city business.

“Open For Suggestions”

Emails exchanged between November 2012 and April 2013 reveal AnnArborChronicle.com Publisher Mary Morgan and Editor David Askins editing and rewriting Sabra Briere’s constituent communications, including surveys.

Morgan then Tweeted about the surveys and posted the surveys to the AnnArborChronicle.com site—all without ever revealing that the site’s editor and publisher had helped Briere shape the survey questions.

On November 30, 2012 Sabra Briere writes in an email to Askins: “I created this survey…open for suggestions.”

In a December 1, 2012 email, obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, Askins extensively revises Briere’s survey text, “‘construction downtown’ could become ‘quality of new downtown construction projects’” and “‘A new park for downtown’ might become ‘amount of public open space downtown.’ ”

Askins did the same in a widely-reported survey Briere did about public art after Ann Arbor citizens rejected a millage to fund the unpopular Percent for Art program.

In a December 1, 2012 email Briere sends Askins her survey statements and asks for his feedback. Briere writes: “Public art helps improve the economic and cultural climate of Ann Arbor.”

The same day, Askins responds via email: “REVISED Public art – however it’s paid for – helps improve the economic and cultural climate of Ann Arbor.”

Askins’s revised language is what appears in Briere’s constituent survey.

December 2, 2012, Mary Morgan posted this to her Twitter account: “Online survey about Ann Arbor public art funding – city councilmember @sabriere seeking input.”

Morgan neglects to mention that she and her husband had already taken advantage of an opportunity to give “input.”

On December 17, 2012, the results of Briere’s survey were “chronicled” by Askins in a lengthy write-up. Nowhere in his December 17, 2012 piece does Askins mention the fact that several of the survey statements were crafted by him, that Briere asked him to revise her survey statements, or that he and the publisher of the AnnArborChronicle.com had inserted themselves into the news they were claiming to objectively “chronicle.”

On December 30, 2012, Briere sent an email to Askins in which she writes, “I’ve attached a (very) draft memo that I intend to send to Tom Crawford tomorrow. I’ll bet you and Mary could add to it and I’d be grateful if you tried.”

On December 31, 2012 Askins responded: “You’ve done a decent job trying to elicit the information that’s needed in order to move ahead….Cheers, Dave.”

In March 2013, as City Council members struggled with the decision whether to listen to the City Attorney’s “advice” delivered in private, and vote in favor of a development at 413 E. Huron, Briere and Askins emailed back and forth about whether other Council members would vote to waive privilege and force the City Attorney to issue a written opinion on the matter.

At 6:45 a.m. on March 19, 2013 Briere writes: “Please don’t tell anyone <grin>. I barely remember last night. I do remember John Floyd speaking. What did he recommend? (I know he repeated himself a couple of times just to bring home the message.”)

Campaign Finance (Click here to see records.)

As of the close of recordkeeping July 20, Sabra Briere had raised $27,180 in cash, plus $5,000 from her Council campaign (including large donations from marijuana entrepreneurs). Accepted largest donations from: philanthropist, real estate developers, marijuana entrepreneurs.

Briere Key Legislation

2011

Resolution to Direct the City Administrator and City Attorney to Present Ordinance Amendments Changing the Retirement (co-sponsor)

Resolution Directing Staff to Negotiate “Hybrid” Contract Amendment with RecycleRewards

An Ordinance to Amend Sections 1:832 through 1:835 of Chapter 24, Title I (Public Art) of the Code of the City of Ann Arbor (Ordinance No. ORD-11-23) (Restricted use of capital improvement funds for public art)

Resolution to Provide Supplementary Funding for the Warming Center at the Delonis Center ($25,000.00)

An Ordinance to Amend Section 10:148 of Chapter 126, Traffic, Title X, of the Code of the City of Ann Arbor (Ordinance No. ORD-11-22) (Pedestrian Crosswalk Ordinance, co-sponsor)

2012

Resolution Requiring City Attorney Written Opinion on Legality of Transferring Voter Approved Street Millage Funds to Public Art Fund (Defeated)

An Ordinance to Amend Sections 4:58 and 4:59 of Chapter 49 (Sidewalks) of Title IV (Streets and Sidewalks) of the Code of the City Relative to Responsibility for the Repair of Adjacent Sidewalk (Ordinance No. ORD-12-20) (Sidewalk repair ordinance)

Resolution to Order Election and to Determine Ballot Question for Charter Amendment Requiring Voter Approval of Long-Term Non-Park or Non-Recreational Uses of Park Land (Defeated)

Resolution to Order Election and to Determine Ballot Question for Charter Amendment for the 2013 Art in Public Places Millage (Resolution to put a 1 mill tax increase on the ballot to pay for public art)

Resolution to Provide Local Match Funding for the Ann Arbor Station Project (Allocation of money for Fuller Road train station not yet approved by voters)

2013

An Ordinance to Amend Section 9:266 of Chapter 115 (Weapons and Explosives) of Title IX of the Code of the City of Ann Arbor (Ordinance No. ORD-13-14) (Reduce the cost of connecting new contruction to city water)

2014

Resolution to Remove All References to Past Felony Convictions on the City of Ann Arbor Employment Application