TRAVERSE CITY -- Retail giant Meijer secretly funded a plan to orchestrate last February's recall of Acme Township's elected officials, a potential violation of state campaign finance laws.
Meijer paid a public relations firm at least $30,000 in a failed effort to remove Acme's board after years of zoning disputes over Meijer's plans to build a store along M-72 in Grand Traverse County. Meijer's public relations firm crafted recall language, devised election strategy, wrote campaign literature, and used local residents as figureheads in the recall.
Meijer never reported its contributions to the recall effort. Michigan law requires reporting of all campaign contributions and bars corporations such as Meijer from contributing to political campaigns.
The Grand Rapids-based firm on Saturday said it settled a lawsuit filed by Acme Treasurer William Boltres and acknowledged its improper financial contributions to a pro-recall group.
Meijer's actions came the day before the Record-Eagle was to publish an investigative series that detailed Meijer's role in the recall.
"... Meijer wishes to note that prior to this month, senior company officials believed that no financial contributions had been made to a local taxpayers group," Meijer said in an unsigned statement faxed to the Record-Eagle Saturday afternoon. "New information indicates otherwise.
"We apologize for this error. Meijer is completing its review of the facts and will meet any reporting requirements that emerge," the statement read.
Meijer officials refused additional comment.
Details of Meijer's secretive recall strategy emerged through depositions and subpoenas in Boltres' lawsuit. The Record-Eagle this month obtained documents, including $30,000 worth of invoices addressed to Meijer from the public relations firm, Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson Inc. of Grand Rapids.
Record-Eagle reporting on Boltres' lawsuit prompted Meijer attorneys to seek a change of venue for Boltres' scheduled February trial, and the company also sought a gag order on Boltres' attorney, Grant Parsons, of Traverse City.
Thirteenth Circuit Judge Philip E. Rodgers this month denied both requests.
Acme officials who survived the recall weighed in on revelations of Meijer's behind-the-scenes effort at regime change.
"It gives me a chill, how much money they can spend to ruin other people," said Acme Clerk Dorothy Dunville, a target of the February recall.
Grand Traverse County Clerk Linda Coburn said she suspected Meijer was behind the recall but hid its involvement. The large amount of campaign literature and limited contributions reported by a local pro-recall group prompted her suspicions.
"They had a mailing every other day and the (reported campaign filings) didn't seem to add up," Coburn said. "But I guess they weren't as careful as I thought they were."
Denny Rohn, a member of Concerned Citizens of Acme Township, whose members generally support the current township board, said she was surprised by the extent of Meijer's involvement.
"It's pretty disappointing," Rohn said. "The democratic process in a little township has been undermined by a corporation's millions. I guess the sunny side of it is that it hasn't been very successful."
Township officials are negotiating with Meijer to settle a spate of related lawsuits, but some are troubled over the Meijer revelations.
"That was before we realized the true nature of Meijer's duplicity," township attorney Chris Bzdok said. "Anytime you are in a negotiations ... there has to be some level of trust and some level of honesty, that's a prerequisite of working something out."
The lawsuit settlement bars Boltres and Parsons from commenting, but both spoke about the case prior to the agreement.
"I didn't want all this, but they just kept hammering me and at some point you have to say enough," Boltres said.
Parsons said he suspected Meijer was behind the recall but was "literally stunned" by its attempts to crush township officials.
Documents tell story
Meijer's role in the recall effort were detailed through invoices, contracts, e-mail, and other papers Parsons obtained with subpoenas of high-ranking Meijer officials.
Documents showed Meijer hired the law firm Dickinson Wright PLLC, which in turn hired Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson to direct recall supporters, write recall petition language, set up pro-recall Web sites, and write forums and letters to the editor in the Record-Eagle that some Acme residents signed as their own.
Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson billing records listed Meijer as its client and detail how Meijer officials directed local board opposition groups, wrote recall petition language and campaign literature, set up Web sites, coordinated recall campaign efforts, and served as ghost writers for recall proponents who sent letters to the editor to be published in the Record-Eagle.
"I find it incredible that Meijer could be doing such things," said Acme resident Paul Brink, who supported the board during the recall election. "It is almost like there are two separate personas -- the benevolent, neighbor-friendly company they like to appear to be, and their cutthroat alter ego which will do whatever it takes to bully their one-size-fits-all stores into communities."
Meijer's primary attorney at Dickinson Wright, Detroit-based Tim Stoepker, signed a contract May 1, 2006 with Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson, about 10 months before the recall election.
Recall is goal
Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson invoices show its first strategy discussions listed under "project development" were about a recall election.
Records show the agency reported regularly to Scott Nowakowski, Meijer's director of real estate. Stacie Behler, Meijer vice president of corporate communication and treasurer of its political action committee, also was listed as participating in several strategy sessions beginning in June 2006.
Behler and other Meijer officials refused or did not respond to numerous requests by the Record-Eagle for comment.
Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson's first local contact was Jim Goss, an investor in the hotly contested Village at Grand Traverse development on M-72 that was to include a Meijer store. The township board's opposition to the development led Meijer to individually sue members of the Acme board.
Goss, who did not return calls seeking comment, collaborated with Nowakowski and Seyferth, Spaulding Tennyson to set up a meeting of Acme Taxpayers for Responsible Government, a nonprofit group formed in 2005.
Ron Reinhold, an Acme resident and member of the Acme Taxpayers board, said just prior to the recall that the group would not take a position on the recall, fearing it could jeopardize the group's nonprofit status.
Invoices show Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson billed for recall election research and writing the reasons for recall and the agenda for the Acme Taxpayers meeting. The agenda listed a February recall election of the entire township board as its goal.
The agenda also laid out a time line for filing recall language, circulating recall petitions, and starting the recall campaign.
Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson then went to work on a complete reconstruction of Acme Taxpayers' Web site, letters to voters, and the reasons for recall that would end up on the ballot.
More than a half-dozen Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson staff members eventually worked on the campaign.
In e-mail messages dated July 20, 2006, Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson employees asked Goss and Nowakowski whether Acme Township residents will "know what 'dereliction' means" on the recall petition language.
Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson vice president Eileen McNeil left the decision up to Goss, and "dereliction of duty" ended up on the ballot as a reason for recall.
Throughout the campaign Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson employees served as ghost writers and/or edited Record-Eagle letters to the editor, letters to voters, letters from Meijer, and guest columns from members of Acme Taxpayers, invoices addressed to Meijer show.
McNeil counseled petition circulators on what to say to voters and kept Nowakowski updated on their progress gathering signatures.
By January there were almost daily conference calls between Goss, Nowakowski, and McNeil.
More local people began working directly with Seyferth, Spaulding and Tennyson on the campaign, including former township Clerk Noelle Knopf and Reinhold of Acme Taxpayers.
Reinhold in February, just before the recall election, told the Record-Eagle he did not believe Meijer was involved in that campaign.
When contacted by phone at home for this story, Reinhold declined to answer questions and hung up.
Invoices show Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson created the Acme Recall Committee's logo, Web site, talking points, and campaign literature that was mailed or hand-delivered to voters with the disclaimer, "Paid for by the Acme Recall Committee."
The recall committee, formed in 2005, did not report the work on campaign finance statements, prompting suspicion among supporters of the township board.
Election law violations
Lewis Griffith, treasurer of the Acme Recall Committee, was responsible for listing all contributions to his committee. When contacted at home he spewed profanities at a reporter, then hung up.
Papers filed by Griffith with the Grand Traverse County clerk showed he recorded total contributions of exactly $3,000 each during two reporting periods. His campaign finance filings did not list any work by Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson or contributions from Meijer, its employees, its law firm or its lawyers to pay for the public relations work.
Griffith's sole expenditure for a Web site created by Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson was $13.45 in Web site fees that were donated by Acme resident Dan Rosa.
In a sworn deposition in Boltres' lawsuit, Griffith said he had no contact with Meijer regarding the recall election, but a phone conference between McNeil and "Louie" regarding "forms" is listed on Seyferth, Spaulding, Tennyson invoices.
Rich Robinson, executive director of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Michigan Campaign Finance Network, said there are several legal means Meijer or Dickinson Wright could have used to fund the recall campaign, but all would have had to be publicly reported.
Coburn said Meijer is listed with the Secretary of State as having funds it could use in the recall campaign, "but they just didn't want anyone to know they were funneling money into it," she charged.
Prior to Saturday's Meijer-Boltres settlement, Parsons said he planned to turn over his findings to Michigan State Police and ask for a criminal investigation of Meijer and members of the Acme Recall Committee.
After the settlement, he said he would not speak to anyone regarding Meijer.
Supporters of the Acme board, however, are contemplating action, Brink said.
Robinson, of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, said criminal violations are a possibility, but campaign finance law abusers typically are fined, instead.
"In my experience, it depends on who the violator is as to how they will be treated," Robinson said.
Coburn, the county clerk, said all campaign finance complaints must be handled by the state elections commission, a division of the Secretary of State. She doesn't expect much, based on her experience.
"Nothing, that's exactly what will happen, nothing," she said.
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