A decidedly unfriendly holiday spirit at Warren City Hall has made Mayor Jim Fouts the victim of a prank by the lawyer hired by Warren City Council to oppose Fouts’ administration.
That lawyer was caught over the weekend on a City Hall surveillance video affixing to a wall a photoshopped portrait of the Grinch — yes, that Grinch, the Dr. Seuss character from children’s books about a nasty dude who “stole Christmas.” But this drawing has Fouts’ face superimposed over that of the leering Grinch.
The City Council’s lawyer, Jeff Schroder of the Bloomfield Hills-based Plunkett Cooney law firm, is clearly seen on the surveillance video affixing the derogatory poster to a city hall doorway at about 5:30 p.m. Saturday evening, shortly after the mayor had hosted three young children for lighting the city’s holiday tree. The ceremony took place before a crowd of singing carolers, Christmas well-wishers – and, apparently, Schroder.
A city employee found the poster on Tuesday, just after 7 a.m., before City Hall opened for the day. The usual housekeeping staff had Monday off, delaying the discovery, said Amanda Mika, executive administrator, and assistant to the mayor. Because Schroder turned at one point during his prank and faced the city’s video camera, his face is clearly identifiable as the perpetrator, Mika said.
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Schroder did not respond to an email sent to him on Tuesday and he hung up on a phone call before a reporter could identify himself, saying, “I don’t know what that is.” A Fox2 television report on Monday at 5 p.m. said that Schroder also failed to respond when a reporter called and emailed. Fouts said not only was the prank an insult to him “and really to my entire staff,” but also it violated a city ordinance against defacing city hall.
“I had just had little kids lighting our tree, some of them physically challenged — we had a very heart-warming event — and right after this he defaces our building,” Fouts said.
Finding the defamatory poster is only the latest incident in a series of heated controversies involving Schroder and Warren’s mayor. Schroder has long been a lightning rod for municipal controversy because he was hired without the City Council going through a city-required bidding process and because he pushed the council to sue Fouts’ administration in eight lawsuits, all of which are pending. Fouts has said repeatedly for more than two years that Schroder is working for the city in violation of Warren’s city charter. Fouts, on behalf of his administration, filed a lawsuit challenging the council’s ability to hire Schroder as city attorney, losing in Macomb Circuit Court. That case is pending in the State Appeals Court.
Warren’s city charter calls for the mayor to appoint a city attorney, not the City Council, although the Council is then to approve the appointment. Those actions occurred in 2017, when Fouts chose Ethan Vinson as the full-time city attorney, after which city council members approved the choice of Vinson, Warren’s first African-American city attorney. Vinson remains on the city payroll, at $126,000 per year. Yet, council members have for more than a year refused to let him make presentations to them and they’ve ordered him not to attend council meetings.
In May 2020, according to a previous Free Press report, Warren City Council President Pat Green said the council would not seek bids before hiring its city attorney because the job falls under the category of professional services, which need not be filled by competitive bidding. Other cities routinely request bids before hiring lawyers from outside firms to handle legal chores. At that time, Green said funding for the position would come from the City Council budget, with about $20,000 available for the fiscal year. Since then, Schroder, while working only part-time for the City Council, has submitted billings for “hundreds of thousands of dollars every year,” Fouts said on Tuesday.
In May, the Warren City Council discussed its budget for the current fiscal year that began July 1. According to city documents, council members first reviewed the mayor’s annual recommendations for city spending, including the figure of $27,479 that Fouts suggested that the City Council budget for its “contractual services,” to cover the costs of outside professionals such as lawyers. The City Council, however, anticipated its need to pay Schroder considerably more this year. It approved $425,000.
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