Residency question lingers

City Councilmember Abu Musa says he lives in Hamtramck while his wife and two daughters live in Warren. Musa is seeking re-election.

 
By Charles Sercombe
School Boardmember Mohammad Huda is not alone in being questioned about his residency status.
Recently, the Hamtramck School Board was presented with evidence that Huda actually lives in Warren. That investigation is still ongoing, and Huda remains on the board.
Like Huda, City Councilmember Abu Musa says he lives in Hamtramck while apparently his wife and children live in a Warren house that his wife owns. Musa has said he is not separated from his wife.
Musa, who is seeking re-election, owns a home at 11632 Gallagher in Hamtramck where he receives a 100-percent Homestead tax exemption. According to his voter registration record this is where he lives.
His wife, Jaheda Ruzi Ahmed, owns two houses in Warren, one of which she claims a 100-percent Homestead tax exemption.
Musa and his wife have two daughters. His wife’s Facebook page makes no mention of her relationship with him, but there is a photo of the two with their daughters.
Musa’s voting registration record shows a curious path from Hamtramck to Warren and back again to Hamtramck.
He first registered to vote in Hamtramck in 2011 while living on Trowbridge, and then a little over a year later he moved to a house his wife owns in Warren at 28880 Audrey Ave.
That was in August of 2012, but then a month later, Musa came back to Hamtramck and re-registered to his former residence on Trowbridge, according to his voter registration record.
In March of 2013 he moved to a house on Moran and then in December of that year to his present address on Gallagher.
Musa is not the first elected official to claim residency in Hamtramck while their spouse lives in another city.
You could say that back in 2007 former Councilmember Cathie Gordon set the precedent. At that time Gordon announced she was running for a seat on city council and would move out of her house in Sterling Heights. She said she was leaving her husband Lewis Gordon there while she lived with her mother in Hamtramck.
Gordon said at the time that she and her husband were not separating or divorcing.
While some in the city questioned whether she truly would make Hamtramck her home, she was elected to office. But a year later, her residency once again became a matter of debate.
In an interview with a television reporter about what effect the possible closing of GM’s Poletown plant would have on the city, Gordon said she would be forced to sell her Sterling Heights home and move into her bar, the New Dodge Lounge.
Some on the council seized on that comment, saying it was proof positive that Gordon was not a resident and thus subject to being kicked out of office.
Gordon insisted she was being “sarcastic,” but the council found the comment warranted an investigation into her residency.
It was discovered that her name was not only on the deed to the Sterling Heights home, but she was also claiming a Homestead exemption.
After the city’s legal bills accumulated to $50,000, the council abandoned its inquiry into Gordon’s residency because the investigation was getting too expensive.
“It’s in the best interest of the city,” said then-Councilmember Alan Shulgon. “We have to move on beyond this.”
But what investigators discovered during the inquiry was that Gordon frequently went to her Sterling Heights home, even after closing her bar late at night.
Although Gordon is still on the deed for the Sterling Heights house, she agreed to remove her name from the Homestead exemption in 2010 in her settlement with the council following the inquiry.
Gordon is seeking a return to city council in the August Primary Election.