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A Highland Park city councilman leveled serious allegations against Mayor Glenda McDonald, saying she threatened him with violence and ordered the city’s police chief to arrest him based on fabricated allegations.
Councilman Khursheed Ash-Shafii filed a complaint with the Michigan State Police last week, saying the first-term mayor threatened him in an obscenity-laced phone call after he posted a video on Facebook about a controversial deal to settle the city’s unpaid water and sewage bills.
“When I put that video out, she called me and cussed me out and said she was going to sue me for slander, and if i didn’t keep her name out of my mouth, she was going to do something to me,” Ash-Shafii tells Metro Times. “As a man, I instantly said, ‘What are you going to do to me?’ But as a politician, I took it as a threat. I took it as she intended to do bodily harm or get someone else to.”
McDonald firmly denies she threatened Ash-Shafii with violence and scoffed at the idea that she would order the police chief to act on an embellished police report.
“There was no bodily harm mentioned,” McDonald tells Metro Times. “I wouldn’t do that. That is another false statement.”
McDonald, who agreed to talk to Metro Times if her lawyer was on the line, says she called Ash-Shafii because he falsely suggested she and her administration planned to steal money from water fees.
“That is defamation, and I will be following up with a lawyer and sending a cease-and-desist letter,” the mayor says.
The tiff centers around a state-brokered deal to settle the city’s unpaid water and sewer bills. If approved, the deal would dismiss ongoing litigation involving roughly $55 million in disputed water bills.
A lot is at stake.
If the deal isn’t approved, roughly $25 million would be added to residents’ property tax bills as part of an order by Wayne County Circuit Judge Edward Joseph. To put that into perspective, that’s more than two and a half times the amount that Highland Park collects annually in property tax revenues.
In a city with a 41% poverty rate and a per capita income of less than $20,000, a vast majority of residents would lose their homes because they would be unable to afford a steep increase in their property tax bills, Ash-Shafii says.
The councilman and mayor are in rare agreement on that.
Because of the potential levy, Ash-Shafii says he supports the deal.
In his video, Ash-Shafii accuses the mayor of trying to scuttle the pact.
“The administration is running around telling everyone in the city that will listen to them that this is a bad deal, that we should throw away this deal and take our chances with bankruptcy,” Ash-Shafii says.
The mayor denies this, saying she supports most of the deal, but is concerned that some of the pact violates the charter, though she declined to elaborate.
“I am here to save the citizens from the levy that can be imposed on them that they would not be able to afford,” McDonald says.
“I support this deal, but I don’t support the part of this deal that is a violation of our charter because we cannot do that,” McDonald says.
Opponents of the mayor plan to begin collecting signatures to recall her for failing to veto the term sheet of the water deal. The Wayne County Election Committee approved the language of the recall last month.
In his video, Ash-Shafii goes on to suggest that the mayor doesn’t support the deal because it includes an agreement that would require the city to turn over all water and sewage fees to Comerica Bank, which would serve as a trustee. If Highland Park wants to withdraw money, he says, it would have to submit invoices to the bank.
“It’s really hard to steal money when you don’t have access to it and you can’t control it,” Ash-Shafii says.
“They don’t want that oversight. Again, it makes it really hard to steal,” he adds.
McDonald says the councilman is defaming her by falsely accusing her of wanting to pocket money, and that was the basis for her phone call to Ash-Shafii.
“I do not hold grudges, but I did however tell him that he was defaming my name and my administration,” McDonald says.
In an interview with Metro Times, Ash-Shafii appeared to back off, saying he wasn’t suggesting that McDonald would steal the money.
“I didn’t mention she is stealing,” Ash-Shafii says. “I just said when you don’t control something, someone can’t steal. I didn’t mean her.”
McDonald says the councilman also falsely accused her of raising water bills, pointing out that the city does not control the rate increases.
But Ash-Shafii counters that he was talking about the water fees, which the city does control. Those fees have more than doubled, Ash-Shafii says.
McDonald disputes that she is behind the fee increase, but declined to say who in her administration is responsible.
“I can’t answer that because I don’t want to give the wrong answer,” the mayor insists.
Ash-Shafii also made a wild claim that McDonald ordered Police Chief James McMahon to arrest him on a fabricated arrest warrant. The councilman says he was notified of the warrant last week when he tried to pay off two traffic tickets.
“I went into the chief’s office, and I asked him about the ticket. Instead of him looking it up, he already had it printed out on his desk,” Ash-Shafii says. “He told me, ‘I was ordered to arrest you for this ticket but I decided not to arrest you.’ I asked him who made the order, and he wouldn’t say. There is only one person in this city who could give that order.”
McDonald denies having anything to do with the warrant, and McMahon tells Metro Times that he previously told Ash-Shafii about two outstanding traffic tickets.
“I spoke with him, and I said, ‘Listen, we have a problem. You have a warrant out, I’ve talked to you about this before, and I don’t want people to think you are getting preferential treatment. … [With] you being in the position you are in, this isn’t a good look. You need to pay this off.’”
McMahon also pointed out that he does not have the authority to issue an arrest warrant.
“The chief of police doesn’t generate bench warrants,” McMahon says. “The district judge does.”
Whatever the case, Ash-Shafii is not backing down.
“You literally fucked with the wrong person,” he says of McDonald. “I don’t take threats well. I’m a Gemini.”
The council is scheduled to meet Monday evening and discuss the water deal.
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Steve Neavling
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