Now Playing at the Theater of the Absurd: The Ann Arbor Witch Trials Starring Tituba Taylor and Mercy Grand

Updated: CM Ali Ramlawi (D-Ward 5) issued a statement in which he withdrew his support for the actions of the Mayor, CMs Grand and Eyer.

“The truth always arrive too late, because it walks slower than lies. Truth crawls at a snail’s pace.” –Arthur Miller, The Crucible

Historians say that the Salem Witch Trials were not about witchcraft, but rather about personal independence and real estate. Independent women whose property neighboring landowners coveted were accused of witchcraft, tried, convicted and murdered. The victims’ parcels of land were then subsequently sold off to accusers’ families. Mayor Chris Taylor and Mayor Pro Tem Julie Grand want some real estate: they want the Ward 1 City Council seat occupied by Jeff Hayner to go to someone who will go along and get along. Someone who won’t push the City Administrator to cut the budget, push for robust services, or nag in public about the poisoning of Ann Arbor’s groundwater by the Gelman Plume. In short, Taylor and Grand want another Lisa Disch, well, maybe someone without Disch’s embarrassing propensity to constantly put her highly-educated foot in her mouth.

What better way to try to get Hayner’s Council seat in 2022 than a good old fashioned 17th-century witch trial?

At the City Council Administrative Committee meeting, in secret, Mercy Grand whispered the accusation: “I accuse Goodman Hayner of something worse than Zachary Ackerman’s hiding the crime of super-drunk driving from his constituents, worse than enabling the sexual harassment of a dozen women, like Jen Eyer. Worse than telling city staff to hide things from the public and break Michigan law, like Lisa Disch. I accuse Goodman Hayner of something heinous, as evil as calling for the assassination of elected officials. I accuse the holder of the Ward 1 Council real estate of wantonly misusing a literary quotation in public.”

Tituba Taylor went into convulsions and fell to the floor, under the spell of the words uttered by Raoul Duke in Hunter S. Thompson’s 50-year-old novel “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” Frothing at the mouth, Taylor, arms and legs flailing, screamed, “Burn him, burn him, burn Goodman Hayner.”

Thus ends life is stranger than fiction you can’t make this stuff up. On to the reality of the you can’t make this stuff up April 13 Council Administrative Committee meeting.

Council member Kathy Griswold (D-Ward 2) said she showed up to the April 13 City Council Administration Committee meeting and hoped to discuss a number of issues critical to the running of the City, including her efforts aimed at pedestrian safety and the remediation of the Gelman Plume. The Administrative Committee, Taylor, Griswold, Julie Grand (D-Ward 3), Jen Eyer (D-Ward 4) and Ali Ramlawi (D-Ward 5), shapes Council meeting agendas and, of late, spends most of its time overseeing the political food fights between all of its members whom the Mayor is singularly incapable of leading and helping to work as an effective group. The Administrative Committee also oversees the discipline of Council members via its own Council Rules.

What Griswold was asked to do at the April 13 meeting, instead of tending to the business of the public, was to discuss a complaint against Jeff Hayner (D-Ward 1) brought by Julie Grand. Grand complained about Hayner’s use of a quote from a Hunter S. Thompson novel in a social media post. Hayner was not present at the meeting, had no idea he was going to be the topic of discussion, and had no opportunity to respond to Grand’s allegations. Grand’s complaint wasn’t in writing. Grand’s complaint had not been provided to any members of the Administrative Committee beforehand, or to Hayner. Instead, the five members of the committee discussed Grand’s “complaint” and then, Griswold says, were expected to vote on a proposal, again, not presented to the group in writing, to strip Hayner of his board and committee appointments as punishment for not breaking a single one of Council’s 12 ethics rules, or any state or federal law.

Welcome to Salem on the Huron, where, in secret, elected officials will lodge spurious accusations against fellow elected officials. Where they will vote on punishments they have no authority to impose—all without the mess of transparency or due process.

Mayor Taylor is a lawyer at Hooper Hathaway, and a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School. Mayor Pro Tempore Grand is married to United States District Court Magistrate David R. Grand. Taylor, himself, is now the subject of a complaint which accuses him of being a pathological liar on social media. Grand’s greatest hits include threatening the Palestinian member of Council with “destruction,” calling her own constituents “children,” and threatening the Media and the City Administrator in a public social media post because she was angry the man had adhered to Michigan law and released a public record to requesters.

When Griswold objected that the discussion about Hayner and objected because the vote did not adhere to Council’s own rules, she was told that “the group” had decided to do to Hayner what the University of Michigan Regents recently decided to do to Regent Ron Weiser. Weiser was sanctioned for publicly suggesting the only way to get rid of named elected officials was assassination.

The Regents of the University of Michigan work under a set of rules of conduct which allow them to punish Weiser as they did. The actions of Taylor and Grand violated Council’s own Rules. Council members may be punished if they “repeatedly” violate Council Rules or the law. Council has 12 ethics rules.

Hayner violated good taste, he violated good judgement, he was utterly impolitic and his use of the Hunter S. Thompson quote shows he has the political instincts of someone who isn’t a politician. He did not, however, violate a single Council ethics rule in posting a quote from the book “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” nor did he violate any state or federal law:

Absent the repeated violation of one of the Council Ethics Rules, above, and absent repeated violations of the law, Julie Grand’s whispered complaint ought to have resulted in absolutely no action on the part of the Administrative Committee. That Jen Eyer Irwin took part in the farce to discipline Hayner is akin to Ghislaine Maxwell weighing in on the proper handling of sexual harassment complaints. Eyer stands accused by six women of enabling their victimization at the hands of a serial predator, actual repeated and alleged conduct which could land her in court on the receiving end of a nasty civil suit, right along with her long-time pal TJ Bucholtz.

Kathy Griswold was the only member of the Administrative Committee who voted no in response to the Taylor/Grand undemocratic conduct and 17th-century machinations.

At the meeting, Griswold brought up the need for an independent investigation of the City Attorney’s withholding of public records from MLive related to two 911 calls to the home of Jen Eyer Irwin and her husband Mitch Irwin. Hayner and Ramlawi, like Griswold, have called for an investigation of the City Attorney for his part in using governmental resources to cover up a crime to benefit Eyer Irwin, her husband and her husband’s son, Ann Arbor State Senator Jeff Irwin. Eyer Irwin called “point of order” to try end the discussion, and told her colleagues any talk of investigating governmental corruption was triggering. You can’t make this stuff up.

Council’s own rules of conduct and procedures show clearly that Taylor, Grand and their Administrative Committee have no jurisdiction in the matter of Jeff Hayner’s horrid choice of literary quotations, but evidently see themselves as having the power of persecution.

Alleged governmental corruption, the alleged cover-up of a serious crime by the City Attorney’s office, a pandemic, poisoned ground water, hunger, homelessness, domestic violence, a pending budget deficit, a mayor who undermines the Police Oversight Commission, sewage running in the streets. Instead of tending to the important business of the public, the Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem of Ann Arbor are dressing up in their best Puritan hats and playing Salem Witch Trials to benefit themselves and their friends, personally and politically. Taylor and Grand need a week in the stocks, where the public could pelt them with tales of functional leadership.