Former City Attorney to File Grievance With Michigan Bar–Alleges Mayor and City Attorney Engaged in “Unprofessional Conduct”

by P.D. Lesko

R. Bruce Laidlaw, the Ann Arbor City Attorney between 1978 and 1991 and an Assistant City Attorney for six years before that, sent an email on Feb. 25 to Ann Arbor’s Mayor Chris Taylor, City Attorney Stephen Postema and Jennifer Salvatore, a founding attorney at Salvatore Prescott Porter & Porter, PLLC, in which Laidlaw alleges the three engaged in “unprofessional conduct” in their handling of the investigation into anonymous complaints concerning the conduct of former City Administrator Tom Crawford. In his email to the Mayor, City Attorney Postema and Salvatore Laidlaw begins:

“When I was 13, I watched the Joe McCarthy hearings on television. When McCarthy tried to attack the reputation of a young lawyer. Attorney Joseph Welch said to him, “Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?” I ask you three now: Have you no sense of decency?”

Laidlaw put Taylor, Postema and Salvatore on notice that, “As a member of the State Bar, I feel I have a duty to report highly unprofessional conduct by attorneys. The efforts of the three of you to attack the reputation of Tom Crawford were unprofessional. If you cannot rationally explain those efforts, I intend to file a grievance with the State Bar.”

In Michigan, such a grievance would be investigated by the State’s Attorney Grievance Commission and the Attorney Discipline Board. Possible disciplinary actions for unprofessional conduct range from probation to disbarment. For Taylor, any disciplinary action against him by the Attorney Discipline Board could then be used to petition Michigan’s Gov. Whitmer to remove him from office.

When asked why he is planning to lodge a complaint, via email Laidlaw responded: “Briefly I will say:

• The City has treated a long time employee and city resident very badly.
• That mistreatment will make it hard to hire and retain qualified staff.
• The City no longer has a permanent City Administrator. It has a 11 month temporary administrator.”

Present temporary City Administrator Milton Dohoney, according to City Hall insiders, has told Council members he would like to be hired as Ann Arbor’s permanent City Administrator.

Since Christopher Taylor was elected Mayor in 2014, Ann Arbor city government has gone through almost yearly managerial upheavals among upper-level staff.

• The Mayor and City Council have gone through three City Administrators (Powers, Lazarus and Crawford).
• Ann Arbor has had three Chiefs of Police (Seto, Baird, Cox) and two Fire Chiefs.
• Seen criminal embezzlement charges brought against retired Fire Chief Chuck Hubbard.
• Seen the present Chief of Police suddenly, and without explanation, put on leave in 2020.
• Seen the firing of long-time HR Director Robyn Wilkerson for “joking” in text messages to another city staffer that she should “blow up City Hall” and “bring her 9mm gun to work.”
• 2021 brought the resignation of HR Director Tom Guajardo within one year of his hiring. Guajardo left his job shortly after he filed a formal racial harassment complaint against Assistant City Administrator John Fournier. Presently, Ann Arbor has no full-time, qualified HR Director and has not had one for 24 of the past 36 months.

There have been persistent and public questions about the City Attorney’s Office hiring of Jennifer Salvatore, “a local, politically-connected attorney” to conduct multiple internal investigations and to produce multiple reports.

According to experts, the hiring of an outside investigator in both the Guajardo and Crawford investigations was warranted. Timothy A. Dimoff, CPP, is the president of SACS Consulting & Investigative Services, in Ohio. He says, “When the investigation is complex, an outside investigator should be hired.” As an example, Dimoff says it’s appropriate to hire an “unbiased outside investigator when the allegations involve a member of the HR department or upper management.”

Critics point out that Salvatore and Christopher Taylor attended U-M Law School at the same time and both graduated in 1997. In addition, prior to founding her own firm, Salvatore was a Principal at Nacht, Roumel & Salvatore for eleven years. David Nacht is a long-time donor to Taylor’s campaigns, and Nacht was a mayoral appointee whom Taylor voted to appoint to the Board of AAATA.

Lisa Corrente is a member of the Association of Workplace Investigators. She is also a partner with the Employment and Labour Group at Torkin Manes LLP, in Toronto. She has written about the importance of impartiality in investigations such as those done by Salvatore. “Anyone scrutinizing the investigation will be less inclined to challenge its outcome if they feel that the investigation was unbiased. An impartial investigation (real or perceived) is more likely achieved where the investigator has no personal or other connection to the parties and can objectively consider the evidence.”

When asked about Laidlaw’s email to Taylor, Postema and Salvatore, Council member Kathy Griswold (D-Ward 2) said, “I do not remember ever meeting Attorney Bruce Laidlaw, but appreciate his efforts. I repeatedly raised concerns about this process, from before Attorney Jennifer Salvator was hired.”

Public records show that Salvatore has done work for Ann Arbor since she founded her firm in 2016. It was Salvatore whom Ann Arbor City Attorney Stephen Postema hired in 2021 to investigate the allegations of discrimination against the City’s Assistant Administration John Fournier made by HR Director Guajardo. Salvatore’s report exonerated Fournier.

While her firm’s website lists “investigations” as an area of practice, when asked if she had conducted investigations for other cities or businesses prior to her hiring by Ann Arbor’s City Attorney to investigate Guajardo’s allegations, Salvatore said in an email, “I stand behind my work product, my professionalism and my independence.” Salvatore also said, “I can assure you that I and my firm have conducted other investigations.” She declined to say how many.

Former City Administrator and, before that, long-time City CFO Tom Crawford resigned on Aug. 4, 2021 for allegedly engaging in inappropriate, sexist and racist speech with other City staff. Crawford vigorously denied several of the allegations presented to him in the investigatory report produced by Salvatore.

Of the June 2021 Salvatore report about Crawford’s alleged conversations with five, anonymous City staffers, Council member Elizabeth Nelson (D-Ward 4), a lawyer, said: “A majority of Council would like the community to believe that the decision to terminate Mr. Crawford’s employment was supported by facts, consistent with recommendations, and dictated by city policy. None of that is true. A majority of Council introduced the idea of termination, based on disputed reports from five people. A majority of Council intentionally ignored other available information and rejected specific recommendations to seek out more information.”

Read Salvatore’s report released to the public about her investigation of Crawford’s conduct:

Salvatore’s first “Crawford” report (above), which did not recommend terminating the City Administrator, was used by Mayor Taylor and his Council allies: Disch (D-Ward 1), Song (D-Ward 2), Grand and Radina (D-Ward 3), Eyer (D-Ward 4) and Briggs (D-Ward 5) to force Crawford to resign. In Salvatore’s first report, five City staffers, to whom Taylor and Postema promised anonymity to “protect them,” gave one-on-one conversation examples of Crawford’s insensitive comments. None of the individuals could corroborate the hearsay, and Salvatore’s report didn’t present any written evidence (text or email messages) to corroborate the individuals’ allegations.

“The report indicates that Salvatore considered 9 complaints, apparently brought by 5 employees. Although the imprecision of the report leaves some ambiguity, it appears that all the complaints involved a one-on-one conversation between the witness and Crawford, with one notable exception: there was apparently a meeting re policing. Although Crawford disputes that he made the statement alleged in that meeting, Salvatore apparently failed to even ask the witness who else was at the meeting, let alone interview those employees.”

Ann Arbor lawyer Ralph McKee in his July 2021 analysis of Salvatore’s June 2021 investigatory report into anonymous complaints about the conduct of former City Administrator Tom Crawford.

Council member Griswold said, “I voted against releasing the final Salvatore report due to factual errors that have not been corrected.”

Griswold recently brought a resolution to Council that called for what she says are the “errors and contradictions” in Salvatore’s reports to be fixed. Her resolution was defeated in a 7-4 vote.

Griswold, in speaking to The Michigan Daily about the “imprecision” of Salvatore’s work said, “I was asked to provide at least one example of a discrepancy in the Salvatore report. I provided one with the intent of discussing it in a closed session. However, a closed session was not allowed because I did not provide the evidence to prove that the discrepancy was valid – a topic for the closed session where I was prepared to provide the written evidence.” Griswold added, “My request for a closed session to discuss the discrepancies was denied by the attorney [Stephen Postema] because I did not present evidence to prove the perceived discrepancy example in my request for a closed session. This is contrary to the principles of U.S. justice system.” It is also contrary to the City’s Charter which does not give the City Attorney the power to unilaterally block closed sessions without a vote of Council.

Laidlaw said in his Feb. 25 email about Salvatore’s work: “I have had prosecutorial duties as a city, township and village attorney. I feel confident that if I authorized charges on the facts like those alleged in that report, I could expect a judge to sanction me for bringing frivolous charges. Grasping at straws, the report deals with a hiring before Crawford was appointed as City Administrator. It directly contradicts a finding in the first report. It was completely unprofessional.”

Salvatore’s third report (Dec. 2021) was used by Taylor and his allies as justification to remove Ali Ramlawi (D-Ward 5) and Elizabeth Nelson (D-Ward 4) from Council committees as punishment for allegedly engaging in inappropriate conduct in their meetings with the City’s former HR Director, Tom Guajardo. Guajardo had lodged a formal harassment complaint against Assistant City Administrator John Fournier and the two Council members met with Guajardo.

Nelson, in a written “response” to Salvatore’s third report, on Dec. 3, 2021 wrote in a blog post, “Prior to release of this report, I alerted the City Attorney’s office and the investigator that allegations in it were defamatory to me. Speculation in this report is factually wrong.”

Council member Griswold has repeatedly expressed concerns about the reliability and accuracy of Salvatore’s work product. Griswold has also expressed concerns about the conduct of Fournier, Taylor and Postema related to the investigation and their parts in what some have called a “palace coup.” Griswold said Crawford’s dismissal “was political payback” coupled with a desire to rid a spendthrift Mayor and his Council allies of a “fiscally conservative City Administrator.”

Local attorney Ralph McKee wrote to City Council in July 2021, shortly before Crawford’s resignation, outlining what he claimed were serious flaws in Salvatore’s work. Read McKee’s entire July 2021 analysis of Salvatore’s June 2021 report below:

One City staffer who worked closely with Crawford, but who asked to remain anonymous out of fears of retaliation, told The Ann Arbor Independent, “Tom was a dead man as soon as he released those records [public records concerning AAPD visits to the home of Council member Jen Eyer (D-Ward 4)] to MLive and to The A2Indy. Dead man walking. Tom paid with his job. Taylor, Fournier, all of them, destroyed the career of a good man, an honest man. It was sickening.”

Others, like Griswold, suggest it’s better to follow the money. Former County Commissioner Vivienne Armentrout writes, “It seems clear that there is a strong coalition within City Hall that is seeking to gain control of the money, and the control, of many aspects of our City government.” Armentrout added, “We speculated that the American Rescue Plan funds were a major reason for the unceremonious dismissal of Mr. Crawford. Sure enough, a ‘plan’ appeared almost immediately from Acting Administrator John Fournier.”

Bruce Laidlaw, in his email to A2Indy, said that Ann Arbor’s City government is in “chaos.” Mayor Chris Taylor did not respond to a request for a comment about Laidlaw’s plans to file a grievance against him with the Michigan Bar.