In Superior Twp. Supervisor Race: Allegations of Racism, Coercion, Sign Stealing and “Nasty Politics”

by P.D. Lesko

Correction: Superior Twp. attorney Fred Lucas is not handing the Golden EEOC case. The Township’s insurance company is handling the response to Irma Golden’s EEOC complaint and has assigned attorney Dave Landry. It was Landry who wrote the Township’s response to Golden’s complaint.

Updated: With comments from Deputy Township Supervisor Irma Golden.

Signs and wonders. Superior Twp. Supervisor Ken Schwartz admits he used a vehicle owned by the Township to drive around and pull out candidate signs, signs of businesses offering services and other “blight” placed on Township property or in the right-of-way. Deputy Superior Twp. Supervisor Irma Golden publicly announced her candidacy for the job of Supervisor in a letter to the Trustees put in their Board packets, then less than a month later promptly filed a complaint against Schwartz and the Board of Trustees with the EEOC alleging racial discrimination.

Golden says she has been an “outstanding employee,” and an “honorable woman,” targeted because she is Black. Oh, and Ken Schwartz pressured her to drop out of the race for Township Supervisor (he says he did), and has been stealing her yard signs off private property (Schwartz says he did not do this).

Irma Golden also claims Schwartz’s behavior was illegal. She said in an email: “Isn’t it illegal to tell an employees [sic] to withdraw and reimburse them $100.00?  A senator said it was.”

Brad Kelley is an attorney who specializes in public policy law in Washington, DC. He says, “It is a federal crime to interfere with an individual’s ability to vote for federal candidates, or to coerce that individual to cast a ballot in a specific way. Similarly, it is unlawful to bribe or offer an expenditure to an individual in exchange for voting a certain way. Many states prohibit employers from intimidating, threatening, or coercing employees to refrain from voting or to vote in a certain manner.”

Employers have the right to establish ground rules for employees who run for office, including requiring that employees do not campaign while at work, use work time or work materials to campaign for office. Employers have the right to set policies whereby employees who run for office are required to take unpaid leaves of absence.

Superior Twp.’s insurance company is handling the case and Dave Landry is the lawyer assigned. In his response to the EEOC complaint, he argues Golden is, in essence, slinging mud against a wall to see what sticks, and if what she’s slinging will help her politically.

Township Clerk Dr. Lynette Findley filed a report with the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Dept. against Schwartz for allegedly removing yard signs. Findley announced the fact that she’d done so on a post to NextDoor. Irma Golden has also filed a police report against Schwartz for allegedly removing her signs.

Golden in her EEOC complaint against Schwartz and the Trustees of Superior Twp., alleges, Trustees “did nothing” when apprised of the racial discrimination, “coercion,” and “treatment” she reported to them in a March 8, 2023 letter.

Golden submitted the March 8, 2024 letter to Schwartz and asked that it be included in the Trustee’s Board packet. In doing so, she used both her position and public resources to publicly announce she was running for Superior Twp. Supervisor.

When asked about pulling up signs, Schwartz said: “I called the County Road Commission and asked them to do their job–to remove improperly placed signs–but they didn’t do anything. There were signs up and down Prospect.”

In her NextDoor post, Dr. Findley also said she had also called the Washtenaw County Road Commission to urge them to remove illegally placed signs.

Schwartz said in the phone conversation, “I announced at a meeting of the Trustees that candidates should not place their campaign signs on Township property or in the right-of-way.”

Irma Golden, currently the part-time Deputy Twp. Supervisor since May 2023, and a candidate for Superior Twp. Supervisor, claims Schwartz has removed her signs from private property, places where owners have given her permission to plant signs. Golden claimed in a three-page letter sent to Township Trustees dated March 8, 2024, that when she told Schwartz she intended to run for his job that he became angry that she had not asked him before filing to run.

Schwartz, a former County Commissioner, has experience with political horse-trading whereby insiders choose their successors in backroom deals. He considered Golden’s move in filing to run before he himself had decided whether he would run again or retire, a sign of disloyalty.

“I was angry,” said Schwartz, “but politics is a nasty business.”

Sheriff Jerry Clayton chose his successor, Derrick Jackson, despite Jackson’s clear lack of policing qualifications, command experience, and a penchant for fabricating awards and achievements and lying.

Clayton has also given Jackson’s campaign thousands of dollars from a PAC the Sheriff controls.

Clayton has endorsed Jackson, and allowed Jackson to use County resources to run for office. Jackson’s use of County resources, and his persistent campaigning on the job, resulted in a campaign finance violation complaint.

At the recent Washtenaw County Black Caucus candidate event, Derrick Jackson complained that reporting that had revealed he has been impersonating a licensed social worker for over a decade, that he has lied on his resumes about being nominated for awards, and winning awards, is racially based, “tearing down a Black man.”

When District 2 Washtenaw County Commissioner Crystal Lyte was confronted at a meeting of the County Commissioners about the fact that she’d owed the County money for over a year and had not repaid it, Lyte accused the resident who’d chastised her, a Black woman, of being “racist.”

Sheriff candidate Alyshia Dyer has alleged she was asked to drop out of the race by a Sheriff’s Dept. administrative employee, and promised that she would have the Dept.’s support if she ran in 2030.

Dyer publicly attributes criticism of her demonstrable lack of qualifications to serve as Sheriff as rooted in sexism.

Most recently, County Treasurer Kate McClary and Water Resources Commissioner Evan Pratt both engaged in political maneuvers that allowed them to choose their successors. Their actions earned a rebuke from the Washtenaw County Democratic Party Executive Board.

“The Executive Board of the WCDP protests the effort by Evan Pratt, Water Resources Commissioner, and Catherine McClary, Treasurer, to​ hand-pick their successors. Immediately before the final filing deadline on Tuesday, April 23, at 4:00 pm, Commissioner Pratt and Treasurer McClary encouraged two Washtenaw County residents to file to run for election to the positions Pratt and McClary now hold. Shortly thereafter, Pratt and McClary dropped out of the race, ensuring that their ​​chosen successors –​ Gretchen Driskell for Water Resources Commissioner, and Latitia Lamelle-Sharp for Treasurer — will run unopposed in the Democratic primary on Tuesday, August 6.”

In essence, McClary and Pratt blocked County Commissioners Andy LaBarre and Yousef Rabhi from running for County Treasurer and Drain Commissioner, respectively. In reality, the fault lies with the two County Commissioners who chose not to challenge the incumbents.

In her letter to the Township Trustees, Irma Golden said Schwartz’s behavior in urging her to withdraw from the election for supervisor amounted to “coercion.”

“As an employee, and candidate, and resident of this township this was coercion, psychological pressure and abuse of power.” Golden continued, “Unmistakably, this was an unlawful request made to an employee and candidate for office from their supervisor and more importantly a Superior Charter Township elected official.”

The lawyer representing the Township, in the response to Golden’s EEOC complaint addressed this allegation directly: “[Schwartz] suggesting that a person with no political experience should first run for the office of Township Trustee at Large before running for the highest elected position as Township Supervisor is not racially based….There was nothing more than discussion, perhaps heated at times, involving politics.”

The Township’s response accuses Golden of filing her EEOC complaint for “political means.”

Schwartz, who hired Golden, is retiring but also running for Superior Twp. trustee. The new Township Supervisor, per the Township Charter, will choose her/his own assistant. Irma Golden, the Township’s response to her EEOC complaint says, “will likely lose her job…if she is not elected as the Township Supervisor as each Supervisor is allowed by statute to hire their own Deputy.”

Under the auspices of the Hatch Act, public employees may run for public office; they may not use any public resources or their office to campaign however. Employers may put policies into place to which employees must adhere. For example, if an employee’s campaigning interferes with their work duties, an employer may require such employees to take an unpaid leave of absence, or use up vacation time. If a public employee has a laptop provided by the employer, that laptop may not be used to create campaign materials.

Schwartz did not deny Golden’s accusations that he pressed her to run for trustee rather than for supervisor. He also pointed out that by retiring, whether Golden ran for supervisor or not had no direct impact on his retirement or his candidacy.

It is Schwartz’s personal opinion that Irma Golden, a realtor with a decade of experience in sales, an undergraduate degree in Business Administration from EMU and graduate classwork but no degree from Central Michigan, is simply not as qualified as her opponents, in particular Emily Dabish Yahkind, a member of the Township’s Planning Commission. Yahkind, who is white, has Schwartz’s endorsement.

In her EEOC complaint, which was provided to the A2Indy by Schwartz, Irma Golden alleged harassment and racial discrimination by Schwartz (who’d hired her), because she had been given no “instructions to obtain business cards”; not immediately offered a township-owned “laptop for use”; was not immediately given a key to the front door of the township hall, and saw her part-time duties “marginalized.”

Golden also alleged in her EEOC complaint she had been paid less than other assistants, because she is Black.

Records show Township elected officials, including Clerk Dr. Lynette Findley, raised the hourly pay of their assistants to $34. Ken Schwartz, out on sick leave, was not informed and neither were the Township Trustees, whose permission was required to raise the assistant’s pay 24 percent. For two weeks after she was hired, Irma Golden was paid $27.63 per hour and the other Superior Twp. assistants were paid $34 per hour.

Township Trustee Bernice Lindke brought the unauthorized raise in pay to the attention of her fellow trustees, and they voted on an official raise to $34 per hour for all assistants.

Not only was Golden’s pay raised to $34 per hour weeks after she began her job, she was given a lump sum payment to make up for the difference between the $27.63 per hour she was paid and the $34 per hour she should have been paid.

Without evidence, she also alleged she’d heard Schwartz make racist comments against a variety of Black officials in the Township, including the Clerk Dr. Lynette Findley.

In August 2023, the Superior Twp. Board of Trustees voted that Ken Schwartz be investigated for alleged sexual harassment. “The inquiry…stemmed from comments Schwartz made to a township employee in a two-year-old email, and allegations he created a hostile work environment,” reported MLive.com. In Feb. 2024, it was announced that “an outside investigation into allegations of sexual harassment against Superior Township’s supervisor did not substantiate the claims.”

Schwartz said when hiring Irma Golden as the part-time Deputy Administrator, her primary responsibility had been oversight of the township’s sidewalk replacement program, including fielding customer feedback. In addition, Golden was responsible for fielding resident feedback and complaints about garbage pick-up services.

The Township’s response to Golden’s EEOC complaint is that, “She was given the duties as determined by the Township Supervisor and as authorized by MCL 41.61.”