The Wayne County Election Committee approved language Thursday for a campaign to recall Highland Park Mayor Glenda McDonald for allowing residents’ utility bills to skyrocket.
Highland Park activist Robert Davis says he and recall supporters aren’t wasting time in collecting signatures to remove the first-term mayor.
“Her days as mayor are numbered,” Davis tells Metro Times. “We’re going to hit the ground running. In the next couple of weeks, we are going to convene a strategy meeting so when the weather breaks in March, we will commence circulating petitions.”
Davis has 180 days to submit enough signatures to place the recall on the November ballot. Under state law, Davis must collect signatures equal to 25% of all votes cast for governor in Highland Park in the 2022 election. That amounts to a little more than 500 signatures.
The election committee, which is made up of the Wayne County treasurer, clerk, and probate judge, unanimously determined the language of the recall met the standards to begin the process of removing the mayor.
Under state law, the recall language must be clear and factual. It does not have to prove criminal wrongdoing.
Davis submitted three reasons to recall McDonald: She uses on-duty police officers to chauffeur her around, she allegedly recommended that the city council approve a water agreement that resulted in an increase in residents’ utility bills, and she declined to veto the water agreement.
The commission voted in favor of the language that indicates McDonald declined to veto a water agreement with the Great Lakes Water Authority to end a years-long dispute over millions of dollars in unpaid water bills. As a result of the pact, Davis says residential water bills have soared.
The committee didn’t vote on the police chauffeur language because only one of Davis’s proposals needed to be approved to begin the recall process.
“The voters are already up in arms by the fact that their water and sewage rates have significantly increased as a result of the mayor failing to inform the residents of Highland Park that, as part of the agreement with the state and Great Lakes Water Authority, the city would have to implement drastic water rate increases, which are like 200%,” Davis says.
McDonald tells Metro Times that she plans to appeal the committee’s decision and defend herself to “the fullest and to the best of my ability.”
“I will appeal this decision and move forward,” McDonald says.
McDonald says she plans to release a more thorough statement later Thursday or Friday.
Davis has held Highland Park officials to account. Last month, he was responsible for a judge ousting the city’s seven-term treasurer Janice Taylor-Bibbs from office. The judge agreed with a lawsuit filed by Davis that argued the treasurer was ineligible to run for reelection in November because she owes more than $90,500 as a result of a housing scandal. Davis also successfully sued the city over its controversial marijuana ordinance. In July 2023, a Wayne County Circuit Court judge agreed with Davis that the ordinance violated the Michigan Zoning and Enabling Act because city officials failed to get approval from the city’s Planning Commission to create eight zones where cannabis businesses were permitted to open.
Davis also filed a lawsuit in 2022 that resulted in McDonald’s opponents being removed from the ballot for failing to properly fill out their Affidavit of Identity to run in the non-partisan race.
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