Macomb County says controversial Clerk/Register of Deeds Karen Spranger isn't legally qualified to hold office because she wasn't living at the Warren address she claimed was her residence when she filed to run for office last year.

The county filed a motion against Spranger on Tuesday asking a judge to rule she isn't qualified to hold the clerk's office because of the residency question. The motion — a request to file a counter-complaint to a lawsuit Spranger filed in June against the county — says the address Spranger listed on Hudson Street in Warren was "uninhabitable" at that time because it lacked utilities, including water, and had been cited by the city for nuisance violations.

The county's lawsuit says it has been looking into the residency issue for several months and comes after claims Spranger made in her lawsuit against the county, including that she wanted a ban on weapons lifted at two county buildings and she wanted the court to establish that she's the boss in her two departments.

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A hearing on the county's motion has been set for Aug. 14 before Macomb County Circuit Judge Kathryn Viviano.

"One big question that remains, that has been out there and has been a concern of ours for a while, and that is where does the clerk live? But a more important question is where did the clerk live as of April 2016 when she decided to file for that office as clerk?" Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel said Tuesday at a news conference.

He said the county, its employees, the public and "even Clerk Spranger needs to have this answered for herself."

Hackel said the question of whether Spranger lived in the house in Warren is "causing a big disruption for the county."

"If the court rules she lives there, we move on, the issue is settled," he said." If not, she then is no longer entitled to hold that office."

Hackel said the move is not a personal issue or politically motivated, but Spranger's attorney, Frank Cusumano, said that he believes that it is.

He attended Hackel's news conference and told reporters afterward that Spranger "lived at that address at that time." He said she lived there, got her mail there and voted from there.

Cusumano said there has been no allegation that Spranger hasn't lived in Macomb County and that if she was a county resident at the time she filed for office "she can hold that office," even if she didn't live at that address. He said it's apparently the opinion of county officials that she didn't spend enough time there.

Cusumano said county officials are "showboating" and that this could contaminate a jury pool if Spranger requests a jury trial on her lawsuit.

Outside Spranger's office in the newly renovated space for vital records and register of deeds, Cusumano said that Spranger "wants to review the complaint before making any comments." The Free Press provided a reporter's phone number and e-mail to a member of Spranger's staff inside the office in case she wanted to comment.

The county's counteraction comes shortly after the sheriff's office began to investigate a complaint that Spranger lied about her residence in Warren on the affidavit of identity that she filed to run for office April 6, 2016.

On July 18, the City of Warren put a notice on the house that it may not be occupied until city certification is obtained.

Cusumano said that Spranger hasn't resolved that matter yet, but that she plans to either rehab, sell or rent out the house. He said he wasn't sure where Spranger currently is living, saying he doesn't ask about her personal life and that he only meets with her at the county offices.

The legal question the county is asking the courts to hear is a civil one, county officials said and is simple: Can Spranger legally occupy the office? If not, they say, she should be removed from office.

In its motion, the county states that the City of Warren has been involved in disputes with Spranger that led to two Court of Appeals opinions finding that she didn't qualify for a principal residence exemption on her property taxes or a poverty exemption since she has not resided at the house since 2012 and the property has been uninhabitable since then because of a lack of utilities.

It said water usage has been off at the property since 2012 and that she has not re-established a principal residence exemption for the house with the city. It also states that the property — which the county said Spranger acquired from her mother's estate by quit claim deed in 2003 — has been cited for nuisance by the city since 2012.

"As a matter of law, a candidate that does not accurately state their residence on an affidavit of identity is disqualified from running for and holding office," the county's motion contends, adding that Spranger did not reside at the address when she filed her affidavit of identity and "is not qualified to hold the office" of county clerk/register of deeds.

County officials said they applied to the state Attorney General's Office to have the state file this action, but that was denied because it involved a local office and issues of a local nature that are "best resolved at the county level."

The county's request details a 2015 Court of Appeals unpublished opinion that noted that Spranger "lacked credibility as she filed an affidavit for the principal residence exemption claiming she lived at the property since 2001 but registered to vote and voted from a Clinton Township address through July 6, 2011."

A second Court of Appeals opinion, also unpublished, in August 2016 on her claim for a poverty exemption found that the prior opinion established she didn't reside at the house and could not meet the requirements for a poverty exemption.

Cusumano said the timing of the county's motion is suspicious, and he thought officials were going to discuss Spranger and her proposed budget for her offices next year.

Hackel said Spranger has not provided her proposed 2018 departmental budget to his office, though it was due June 23. County officials may have to come up with a proposed budget for her offices in order to submit the county's entire proposed 2018 budget to county commissioners by Aug. 23 for consideration and approval.

Hackel said officials have tried to reach Spranger repeatedly and that today they received "an obscure document" indicating she was not doing something because she wants to do an audit of concealed pistol licenses.

Cusumano said that he believed Spranger submitted a budget, but it didn't conform to what county officials wanted and had handwritten changes.

Since taking office Jan. 1, Spranger has gotten kicked off her county computer for months for allowing noncounty workers on it; fired her two top appointed deputies, and was named as a defendant in a federal whistleblower complaint filed by her former deputies. She was cited $100 for a county ethics violation; totaled her county car in an accident, and filed a criminal complaint about the news media harassing her.

Spranger's lawsuit filed in June included seven counts, and all boiled down to one basic tenet: "Who is the boss" in the clerk and register of deeds offices?

County Corporation Counsel John Schapka said after a cursory review of Spranger's lawsuit that it appeared "to be gibberish." But Cusumano said it deals with the many issues Spranger, a neophyte Republican politician, and other county officials have tussled over since she took office.

Spranger's case and the county's motion are assigned to the same judge who presided over the first lawsuit the county filed against Spranger in May when she fought the move of the register of deeds and vital records offices to a newly renovated space in the Talmer Building in Mt. Clemens. The two sides eventually worked out an agreement, and the move took place in mid-May.

Contact Christina Hall: chall99@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @challreporter.