Troy officials say their names were faked on marijuana petition

Bill Laitner | Detroit Free Press

Show Caption Hide Caption What you need to know about marijuana in Michigan Local officials are beginning to decide if they want medical marijuana businesses in their communities before the state starts giving out licenses next year.

It’s not quite as bad as turning in the signatures of, say, Mickey Mouse or Winston Churchill.

But it was almost as obvious — and nutty — when a pro-marijuana group submitted a thick batch of petitions to the Troy city clerk recently, listing name after name of prominent local people who seemed to have given their signatures.

Except, they didn’t, Troy City Councilman Dave Henderson said.

“There’s apparently a lot of fraud on these petitions,” Henderson said Tuesday — starting with his very own name, he said.

“Obviously, there’s no way I would sign this,” Henderson said, referring to petitions that favored overturning Troy’s local ban on medical-marijuana growing facilities. It's a ban that Henderson publicly pitched for a year before he led the City Council's 4-3 vote in February to pass it.

Others whose names showed up on the petitions included City Councilman Ethan Baker, who also voted with the majority on the council to “opt out” of allowing medical-marijuana cultivation businesses in the city. At the time, Troy had more than 70 state-registered caregivers raising marijuana at 51 facilities in the city, according to city officials.

As for County Commissioner Wade Fleming, his ersatz signature appears not just once but twice in the 516 pages of petitions, a clear violation of state petition-gathering rules.

“I didn’t even sign it once,” Fleming said, chuckling when the Free Press reached him Tuesday. “That’s not my signature at all,” he added, after the Free Press sent him copies of the petitions. Fleming is a long-standing foe of easing laws on marijuana.

"My position is, if you want medical marijuana, let's do it through the FDA and regular pharmacies," he said.

What Troy City Clerk Aileen Dickson politely called “significant irregularities” led the city to turn the petitions over to Troy Police and to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office “for investigation and possible prosecution,” Dickson said Monday, in a memo to City Manager Mark Miller that was obtained by the Free Press.

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The petitions originated with a group called Citizens for a Responsible Troy, an East Lansing-based group that hoped to put a measure for Troy voters on November ballots. That measure would’ve amended the Troy city charter to allow medical-marijuana facilities. But it won’t appear on ballots because the group turned in only 2,524 valid signatures, far fewer than the 2,925 signatures they needed, Dickson said in her memo

Yet, that shouldn’t end the issue, said Troy resident and attorney John Kulesz, who has closely followed the situation. The petition circulators “didn’t just screw this up — this is criminal" — because numerous signatures apparently were forged, "although that will be up to the courts to decide," Kulesz said Tuesday. Kulesz is well versed in the law regarding petition campaigns.

“I collected over 700 signatures for the Janice Daniels recall. I know the process,” he said, referring to the former Troy mayor who was recalled in 2012.

Although some petition campaigns are staffed by volunteers, most campaigns for ballot measures in Michigan rely on professionals who are paid for each signature they obtain, according to political consultants. Those circulating the petitions are independent contractors employed by companies that gather signatures for a fee, and so the petition circulators typically have no political connection to the campaign but instead are simply trying to make money, according to the consultants.

Attorney Jeffrey Schroder said he represents Citizens for a Responsible Troy and said he was shocked to hear that many signatures apparently had been falsified.

“I was not involved with the gathering of these signatures but this does give me heartburn," Schroder said Wednesday. "I know many of these people” listed on the petitions, “and I know they didn’t sign this — Dave Henderson absolutely would not have signed this,” he said.

The forged signatures appear to have originated with a single petition circulator, "an older woman — she lives in Shelby Township," Schroder said, adding that "as a former prosecutor, I can assure you that the committee is going to cooperate fully in the investigation."

Contact Bill Laitner: blaitner@freepress.com