Fouts appointee at center of probe
Council investigating allegations that clerical technician did political consulting on city time
The Warren City Council is set to launch an investigation into the appointment of political consultant Jamie Roe to a clerical technician position in the city’s public service department.
A press release issued Friday by Council President Patrick Green and Council Secretary Mindy Moore cited several instances where it appeared Roe was doing political consulting work while on the clock for the city. The press release also alleges Mayor James Fouts never submitted Roe’s appointment information to the council for approval. Fouts replied the information was submitted to the council several months ago.
“We sent the council notification of Jamie Roe’s appointment a year ago,” said Fouts. “They ask us to provide all of this documentation, but then they don’t read it.”
According to Fouts, Roe is a full-time city employee who reports to Public Service Director Gus Ghanam. Fouts said Roe earns an annual salary of approximately $40,000 and said he “played a major part” in setting up Warren City Hall as a COVID-19 vaccine distribution center. Documents provided by Executive Assistant to the Mayor Amanda Mika show Roe’s hire date to be March 20, 2020. Mika said this information was included in a large package given to the city council during the budget adoption process last year. The list of city employees, their position and date of hire is dated June 3, 2020.
Friday’s press release from the council included a list of in
stances where Roe allegedly posted political statements to Twitter during city hall business hours over the past 10 weeks. None of the posts listed were about Warren, but included Tweets calling for the removal of State Attorney General Dana Nessel; supporting former President Donald Trump; discussing Wall Street and the stock market; and other posts about national and state politics.
At 2 p.m. March 11, a post was made to Roe’s personal Facebook page announcing he was launching his own political consulting firm called Team Roe. The post was present on Roe’s Facebook page on March 12, but by March 13 it appeared to have been removed.
“You have a political consultant getting paid to do that work on city time,” said Green. “You can’t be a political consultant and be working for the city. All of the stuff you see is partisan politics during business hours. If that is the case, the mayor’s office is acting as a political tool for anti-state government administration.”
What was unclear Friday is if the posts came during lunch or break times.
Green also pointed to appearances by Roe on a Feb. 8, 2021 podcast where he identified himself as a Republican political consultant and a Jan. 21, 2021 appearance on the Fox 2 program “Let it Rip” where he never mentioned he was a full-time employee of the City of Warren and did not discuss any matters pertaining to the city.
Fouts insists the council’s press release is much ado about nothing and called the accusations against Roe “a deflection” and “targeting.”
“This is typical of what the city council and its attorney, Jeff Schroder, does,” said Fouts. “When they see the city is successful, they come up with some attack and it is usually late on a Friday afternoon. The city council knows how valuable Jamie is; a great part of the success of the city is due to him. Mayor Fouts is only as successful as the people with whom he surrounds himself and this is just targeting, targeting, targeting.”
Warren City Council employs its own attorney, Jeff Schroder of Plunkett Cooney Law, and does not recognize City Attorney Ethan Vinson as its legal counsel.
In a written statement issued March 13, Roe emphasized that he is “on call 24/7 for the people of Warren” and said he is extremely proud of the work he and his colleagues did with regard to providing COVID-19 vaccines to Warren residents.
“I’m particularly proud of the work we did this week to provide COVID-19 vaccines to thousands of Warren residents,” said Roe in his statement. “Like many city employees, I have outside interests.
Watching this council threaten and attempt to intimidate and harass hard working employees is sickening, but not unexpected. I wish the donothing council would do something to help us beat COVID-19 instead of distract from the positive work being done by this administration including a weekly food bank for citizens in need at city hall each Monday, free COVID-19 testing each Thursday and Saturday, and our most recent free vaccine clinic.”
A Legal Affairs Subcommittee meeting is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. today to discuss how council might proceed with its investigation; a special meeting of the Warren City Council is expected to be held on Tuesday, March 16 to consider action recommended by the Legal Affairs Subcommittee. Green and Moore are the only members of that subcommittee.
“We contemplated waiting until the next regular council meeting to do this, but we realized that this just can’t wait,” said Green, who indicated he did not envision this matter going to court but believes an investigation by the city council is in order. “If this person is doing political consulting work during normal business hours with taxpayer dollars, we need to find out what is going on.”
The Legal Affairs Subcommittee is expected to recommend the city council investigate possible violations of the City Charter and state law for conducting political activities on company time and seek documentation including Roe’s appointment letter, payroll records, emails, key-card access records, application, acknowledgement of ethics code, and other computer records.
“All of my employees have the right to free speech and have the right to go on social media,” said Fouts. “I am extremely outraged about the continued targeting of hardworking employees.”
The Legal Affairs Subcommittee is expected to recommend the city council investigate possible violations of the City Charter and state law for conducting political activities on company time and seek documentation.