ANN ARBOR, MI – A local attorney sought to have longtime Ann Arbor City Attorney Stephen Postema fired, making the case to select city council members that they could replace him with a “new puppy and train it to your style, " according to emails obtained by the Ann Arbor News/MLive.com.

The emails, authored by attorney Tom Wieder, were released to the The Ann Arbor News through a Freedom of Information Act request, following the dismissal of a lawsuit against the city filed by three residents who sought to keep these and other emails private.

In his April 18 FOIA request, resident Luis Vazquez sought copies of communications between resident Pat Lesko and any council members since Jan. 1, including emails, texts and direct messages over social media.

Vazquez also asked for messages from resident Tom Stulberg and attorney Tom Wieder to any city staff or council members during the same timeframe, and messages exchanged between five council members: Anne Bannister, Jeff Hayner, Jack Eaton, Kathy Griswold and Elizabeth Nelson.

Among the nearly 3,500 pages of communications included in the FOIA was a Feb. 13, 2019 email from Wieder to what appear to be personal email addresses of seven members of city council asking “about action that you might consider taking with regard to the City Attorney," records showed.

Though, their email addresses are redacted, the 15-page memo is addressed by Wieder to “Ali, Anne, Elizabeth, Jack, Jane, Jeff and Kathy,” - all names of members of city council. Five council members confirmed to The Ann Arbor News that they received the email.

“I know that a lot of questions have been raised about what the new majority might do, if anything, about continuing Steve Postema as the Attorney,” Wieder wrote. “I strongly believe that it would be in the best interests of both you and the city to hire a new attorney.”

‘Better to get a new puppy and train it to your style’

Wieder went on to suggest Postema’s long tenure as city attorney had led him to develop his own ideas about how city business should be conducted, suggesting that he did not have loyalty to council members.

“What he doesn’t have is any allegiance or loyalty to you,” Wieder wrote. “Are you truly confident that Postema will set aside all of this baggage and be an enthusiastic advocate for you? If you have any doubts about that, it is time to hire your own attorney, not to drift along with the choice that a different Council made more than 15 years ago.

“Some may argue that Postema can reform his behavior to what is desired by the new Council. Perhaps, an old dog can be taught new tricks. Sometimes, however, it is better to get a new puppy and train it to your style.”

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Postema said he ordinarily wouldn’t dignify Wieder’s comments with a response, but provided clarification on the City Charter because he felt Wieder’s view was flawed.

"Because the flaw in this view is profound, I will clarify that the City Charter states that the City Attorney ‘shall be attorney and counsel for the City, and shall be responsible solely to the Council,’” Postema said in an email to The Ann Arbor News. “What this means is that I and my office provide professional legal advice to the City Council. Our advice is based on the law, and for that reason cannot be based on any personal ‘loyalty’ or ‘allegiance.’

“The belief of Mr. Wieder that some subset of the Council needs their ‘own’ attorney to ‘train’ like a dog to fit some Councilmembers ‘style’ is based on an incorrect and jaded view of the role of the City Attorney,” he added.

Wieder went on to outline “The Case against Stephen Postema” in the lengthy memo, providing scenarios where he felt Postema didn’t fulfill his duties with the interests of council members in mind, including his handling of The Library Lot, city seal ordinance, the Y Lot, ward boundaries and his use of FOIA “as a way to prevent the public from seeing city documents.” Wieder has been involved in a number of lawsuits against the city in recent years, including one over the Library Lot central park ballot proposal and the city’s Y Lot dispute.

Wieder attempted to quell potential concerns about a “golden parachute” for Postema if the council were to hire a new attorney, referring to a severance that would pay him one year’s salary if he was fired.

Wieder suggested council members shouldn’t assume the city would have to pay the entire severance because “Several of Postema’s actions could be considered cause for firing.”

“If Council claimed that a termination was for cause, Postema would have to sue to get his Parachute,” Wieder continued. “There is a good chance that he wouldn’t (want) to do that. First, there is the cost and uncertainly. Second, he wouldn’t want a public discussion in court about whether he was competent, ethical or honest. I believe that Postema would walk away or would settle, eventually, for substantially less than the full Parachute amount.”

An email exchange between Eaton and Wieder on March 1 included Eaton forwarding a copy of Postema’s contract to Wieder with the message, “This one is searchable.”

Wieder responded a few hours later thanking Eaton.

“Let's talk about working to get our 5th and 6th votes,” Wieder wrote. “Your thoughts? Jeff next, then use presence of 5 to help us get Jane or Ali?”

The council eventually approved a raise for Postema on March 11 by a 6-5 vote, with Bannister, Eaton, Griswold, Hayner and Nelson voting against it.

Wieder told the Ann Arbor News in a recent interview he doesn’t regret spearheading the effort to remove Postema. During a hearing for the FOIA lawsuit, Judge Carol Kuhnke addressed his memo to council members’ personal emails suggesting they vote to fire Postema.

Wieder maintains his communications and suggestions to city council members should have been kept confidential as a private citizen, but suggested on two occasions during the hearing for the lawsuit on Sept. 25 that Eaton had encouraged the use of personal email among council members. Wieder previously argued the point of the lawsuit was to seek a determination about what the city is required to disclose pursuant to FOIA, defining a set of parameters of what types of communications are or are not exempt.

“It’s kind of funny, when I hear Mr. Postema talk about how supportive the council is of this transparency and the position being taken by the city, because one of the exhibits, which was my memorandum about Mr. Postema and others that I have sent, were sent to a council member Mr. Eaton, who said, ‘Well, send it to my personal email, and it will not be something that anyone else can see,’” Wieder said during the hearing.

“Jack (Eaton) took the position that if it went to his private email address, it could be kept confidential,” Wieder said Friday. “Then, when this (lawsuit) case came along, he did a 180 and said, 'Yes, these (emails) are public.’ Totally hypocritical.”

An email from Ann Arbor resident Tom Wieder to City Council member Jack Eaton.Martin Slagter | The Ann Arbor News

Eaton said he didn’t recall any conversations with Wieder in which he encouraged sending messages about city business to council members’ personal emails.

“I do recall having a conversation with him where I did say that if he sent emails to me that were about political matters ... like, my political campaign or political advice or personal matters - if they went to my personal email address, they wouldn’t be disclosed because they didn’t have anything to do with city business,” Eaton said.

Council member Elizabeth Nelson said receiving an email like the one she did from Wieder to her personal address “is not typical," and that the subject matter wasn’t of particular interest to her.

“This whole thing is very exasperating to me, personally,” she said. “I’m being lumped into a group that is now being targeted. I appreciate that some of my colleagues have personal relationships with Tom Wieder and have engaged in more serious communication with him on their private email and I don’t think that’s appropriate. We’re in an interesting conversation right now about what’s political and what’s city business.”

‘I made a couple of mistakes’

A little more than a month later, Wieder expressed frustration with the council’s decision to approve a $5,366 bonus for City Administrator Howard Lazarus on April 15 by a 6-4 vote.

“Well, so much for firing Lazarus, or for the 2018 elections making any significant difference in how the city is run,” Wieder wrote in an email that appears to be sent to members of the city council on April 16. “If Council keeps and rewards the only two people it directly controls, the clear message is that there isn’t a majority commitment to change.”

Wieder went on to say the council’s decision to give Lazarus a bonus was “sad” and “disappointing.”

“(Mayor Christopher) Taylor, et al, must be laughing hysterically,” he wrote.

A response from the personal email of council member Jane Lumm suggested that she and three others – Bannister, Eaton and Griswold – were against Lazarus receiving the bonus following a “very mixed performance review.” Lumm, Bannister, Eaton and Griswold ultimately voted against Lazarus’ bonus.

“For me, he continues to demonstrate that he is not a good /strong leader or capable (manager) and, most significantly, he continues to inappropriately overstep his authority and demonstrate his disregard for council's authority (which) he constantly usurps) to SET policy, and why, I am inclined to call him Councilmember Lazarus,” Lumm wrote.

“Pure and simple, he does, over and over and over again and, without fail, the Mayor's bidding.”

Lumm said it was a mistake to respond to Wieder through her personal email, but she has, on occasion, forgotten to copy any response over to her city council email address when discussing city matters.

“I should not have responded on personal email to (Wieder’s) email, and I made a couple of mistakes here and I do apologize for that,” Lumm said “... And I shouldn't have been discussing personnel matters at all.”

When receiving an email regarding city business on her personal email, Griswold said she either forwards the message to her government email first to reply or copies her government account in her response.

Both Griswold and Nelson said there is sometimes a fine line between what is city business and what is political.

“I know that Tom Wieder was frustrated, because after Jane Lumm, Jack Eaton, myself and some others were in the council majority, I think that some of the community members who had supported our campaign sort of expected things to be different right away,” Griswold said. “Because we were now in the majority, they became frustrated that that wasn’t the case.”

Council member Ali Ramlawi said he disregarded the email from Wieder after receiving it from his personal email account, noting that he knew not to respond from a personal email despite only being on the council for a couple of months. Hayner agreed, saying he never responds to emails on city business from his personal account.

“Tom Wieder is not a staff member, he’s not even a constituent of mine, he’s not the city attorney,” Ramlawi said. “So, I didn’t feel it was appropriate to even recognize it beyond simply open up the email to see what it said. From there I just ignored it. It wasn’t appropriate for me to even respond to it."

Taylor said he has not yet seen the full set of documents from the FOIA and will continue to study the findings.

“It’s important as we go forward to affirm the compliance with FOIA and OMA and the adherence to our fiduciary duties, which include the maintenance of attorney-client privilege and the understanding that the employment evaluation process is properly and necessarily confidential.”

Bannister could not be reached for comment for this story.