Candidate: Prosecution a ‘political stunt’
Local officials note controversy began before Kress joined township trustee race
A candidate for an elected trustee position in Clinton Township says efforts to prosecute him for building code violations are a “political stunt” designed to blemish his reputation prior to the upcoming election.
Dan Kress, a licensed residential builder and Republican candidate for trustee, faces three counts of misdemeanor ordinance violations for property owned by an LCC he oversees. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for March 6 in 41B District Court.
Kress, 56, said “it is more than a coincidence” the ordinance complaint surfaced in the weeks leading up to the Feb. 27 Presidential Primary election where voters will select someone to fill a vacant seat on the township’s Board of Trustees.
“In my opinion, this court case amounts to nothing more than a POLITICAL STUNT orchestrated to tarnish my good name in the closing days of this Trustee race,” he said Friday in a text message.
In the election, Kress faces Democrat Iona Means and Libertarian Mike Saliba for a partial term ending on Nov. 20, 2024.
Two weeks ago, the township’s prosecuting attorney, Charles Towner Jr., filed a criminal case against Kress, charging him with three counts: failure to receive an occupancy , violating the township refuse ordinance, as well as a building ordinance, relating to a property at 18632 Millar Road.
At issue is the property on Millar near Moravian Road that records show was purchased in 2018 by Eighteen632Millar
LLC. Dayne Kress, who is Dan’s son, was listed as the corporation’s resident agent.
Three years later, the township’s assessing department began investigating the property.
According to assessing notes, Kress claimed the property has livable space and his son, the owner at the time, was living there in 2021. But the building was being assessed as garage/ storage with no record of it being converted into a livable space
Father and son accused assessors of presenting “false information” to their mortgage lenders and ‘“tanking” their mortgage chances, according to the notes. The two refused to allow assessors access to the building so it could be assessed correctly as to what portion is livable, and what portion is garage/storage.
The notes state by refusing to allow access to the property, Kress has continued
to avoid taxes on the residential portion of the property that would have been assessed at a higher rate than storage/garage
In November 2021, the building department wrote up its initial violation, charging Dayne Kress for failing to obtain a permit to restore the property and failing to obtain an occupancy certificate.
Records show that in 2022, the township prosecutor filed suit on the code violations. After several postponed hearings, officials discovered the resident agent for the LLC had changed from Dayne Kress to Dan Kress. That caused the Building Department to issue new tickets and the prosecutor to refile the case.
Officials allege that by refusing to allow access to the property, Dan and Dayne Kress has avoided having the residential portion of the property assessed at a higher tax rate than storage/garage space.
Kress maintains the residence has been “officially occupied” and gained a homestead tax status. Since the time his LLC purchased the property, no permits were pulled so no inspections were required, he said.
“It is interesting that this ‘ordinance complaint’ was not postponed until after the election, but rather fasttracked into a court case in less than 30 days, so as to run parallel to this election and be given media attention,” he said in a text message.
Township officials deny any political plots are involved in the prosecution of Kress.
Robert Cannon, the township supervisor, noted the controversy started back in 2021, two years before Kress became a candidate.
“This dispute is not tied to the campaign for the open trustee seat,” Cannon said Friday. “Courts exist because people sometimes disagree. Court filings allow people to resolve disagreements peacefully and within the law which is what the township is attempting to do.”
The political candidates were submitted in late 2023 by the respective parties to fill the last nine months of the unexpired term of longtime Trustee Jenifer “Joie” West, who resigned Aug. 1.
Means, the Democrat running against Kress, said she wasn’t aware of the ongoing building code dispute until informed by a reporter.
“I’m just focusing on my own campaign,” she said.
Alysa Diebolt, chair of the Macomb County Democratic Committee, said: “I think Iona Means and her family have a record of serving Clinton Township and Dan Kress and his family have a record of screwing Clinton Township.”
The Macomb County Republican Party did not respond to a request for comment.