TRAVERSE CITY -- Meijer Inc. and The Village at Grand Traverse LLC once stood united to push development proposals, election strategies and lawsuits against Acme Township government officials.
Time -- and Acme Treasurer Bill Boltres -- changed all that.
Now representatives of The Village have broken with Meijer, and could be placing all or part of the blame for alleged wrongdoing against Boltres at the feet of Meijer and its former attorneys, including Timothy Stoepker, law firm Dickinson Wright PLLC, and the Traverse City firm of Smith & Johnson Attorneys PC.
Boltres sued Meijer in 2007 and alleged the retailer maliciously sued him and other Acme officials over a proposed development. Meijer settled with Boltres in December, as depositions and other documents emerged that indicated Meijer illegally influenced an Acme Township recall the previous February.
Boltres then took aim at The Village in a lawsuit that mirrors the Meijer suit. Last week, The Village filed court documents indicating that if it wronged Boltres, so too did Meijer and lawyers from firms in Detroit and Traverse City.
"This is the opposite of rats fleeing a sinking ship. This a rat stating to the other rats 'welcome aboard,'" said Boltres' attorney Grant Parsons of Traverse City.
The Village was required by court rule to file a brief stating why the other parties are at fault, but its representatives did not include the statements in their notice.
Parsons said he will seek documents and other evidence to determine what roles the various parties played in alleged actions against Boltres.
"This is sort of a bombshell," Parsons said. "Village at Grand Traverse is apparently blaming some of its legal representatives of wrongdoing. It says they may have done something outside their scope as legal representatives that exposes them to liability."
Former Meijer attorney Kenneth Petterson of Smith Johnson did not return messages left at his office. Stoepker also did not return messages.
Steve Smith, managing partner of the Village, referred all questions to his attorneys who did not return messages left at their offices on Monday.
Documents from Boltres' suit against Meijer showed Stoepker contracted with the public relations firm Seyferth Spaulding Tennyson Inc. on behalf of Meijer to secretly orchestrate and illegally fund an attempted recall of the entire board in 2007.
An attorney hired by Meijer subsequently reported to Michigan's secretary of state that the retailer followed essentially the same illegal script in 2005, during a referendum to overturn Acme's temporary ban on so-called big box stores.
In 2005, Meijer used a Traverse City firm, Smith & Johnson, to contract with Seyferth Spaulding to defeat the moratorium without reporting campaign expenditures.
Meijer settled its suit with Boltres in December, shortly after a mediation panel recommended Meijer pay him $3 million.
The settlement bars Parsons from discussing Meijer's role, and he declined to say if the latest development will allow him a second crack at the Grand Rapids-based retail giant.
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