WARREN, Mich. (WXYZ) — Warren politics are getting messy once again and now the Secretary of State is investigating allegations of campaign finance violations. The alleged lawbreaking occurred during Mayor Jim Fouts' recent State of the City address.
In Michigan, it’s unlawful for a public body or a person acting on the public body’s behalf to use personnel, equipment, and public resources to help a political candidate. And that’s exactly what the Secretary of State’s Bureau of Elections is now investigating the Warren Mayor for doing during his recent State of the City speech.
“I want to highly recommend council members,” said Fouts during his State of the City address on June 22.
At the end of Fouts’ State of the City address last month, he spent the last 12 minutes and 11 seconds of his speech endorsing candidates for city council, city clerk, and for mayor.
“When you see Sonja at the booth -- you vote not only for George Dimas, you vote for Sonja Buffa,” said Fouts to the crowd.
Our cameras were rolling as the term-limited Fouts used a PowerPoint presentation showing his chosen candidates for the August primary. But those weren’t the only cameras rolling that day.
Members of the City of Warren’s Communications Department, who work for the taxpayer-funded TV Warren, were also working that day to broadcast, record, and stream the speech. Sources inside city hall tell us the TV Warren production truck and city-owned cameras were all used during Fouts endorsements. They also tell us their department made the graphics that showed Fouts’ political endorsements in advance of the speech, and then they ran the PowerPoint during the presentation.
According to a complaint with the state, TV Warren has been airing the speech repeatedly for weeks, and they’ve also been running the speech on city-owned social media sites.
“He is using his position and being very, very unfair to the voters. He is trying to skew an election just to get back at certain people. This is just retaliatory on his part,” said Warren City Council Secretary Mindy Moore.
Moore and several of her council colleagues asked their attorney to file a formal campaign finance complaint with the Secretary of State, alleging Fouts used public resources to influence the upcoming election.
Fouts has been at odds with much of the council for years.
Now the Secretary of State is investigating the allegations and reminding Fouts in a letter that it’s unlawful for someone acting on behalf of a public body to use public resources for political activity.
“I appreciate that they’re going to investigate it, but the genie is out of the bottle and it can’t be put back in. The damage has been done,” said Moore, who says she and other candidates did not get a chance to respond to Fouts' allegations that aired on TV Warren.
An attorney for Fouts told the 7 Investigators they will be responding to the Secretary of State in the coming days, and denied any wrongdoing. Attorney Jack Dolan told us Fouts has the right to express himself, and claimed the speech was not held during business hours even though an email was sent from city hall -- from a government email address -- inviting members of the media to attend the 11 am State of City address on Thursday, June 22, 2023. The speech was not held at night or on a weekend. Several police officers in uniform attended, as did other city appointees.
Dolan said Fouts did not direct TV Warren to attend the event, even though city employees tell us it’s mandatory for TV Warren staff to work every state of the city address.
This isn’t the first time that complaints have been made about TV Warren being used for political propaganda. As council president back in 2005, it was Jim Fouts who complained about the use of the government TV station by his predecessor Mayor Mark Steenburgh.
“They’re not interested in balanced reporting they’re not interested in giving the opposing point of view,” Fouts told the 7 Investigators in 2005.
This isn't the first time Mayor Fouts has gotten in trouble with the state for using city resources for political activity. He entered into a conciliation agreement several years ago and had to pay the city back $761.90. The agreement states, “the Secretary of State alleges that there may be reason to believe that Respondent violated [the law] by making or authorizing improper expenditures in the amount of $761.90 by authorizing the use of city resources to advertise and produce materials for a fundraiser sponsored by a Political Action Committee (PAC) at which Mayor James Fouts gave a State of the City address.”
Fouts has until July 26th to respond to the Secretary of State.
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