Election investigation underway

If you know who produced this campaign flier, Hamtramck investigators would like to hear from you.

By Charles Sercombe
Last Tuesday’s school millage election is now a crime scene.
City Clerk August Gitschlag turned over anonymous campaign literature distributed to what appears to be select households to the Hamtramck Police Department for investigation.
It is illegal to distribute or advertise campaign literature without saying who is responsible for the message. In most cases it’s a campaign committee.
The campaign flier in question urged voters to reject the school millage and even falsely said voters would save $500 per year doing so. The flier said it was produced by “Hamtramck Residents.”
The flier angered School District Superintendent Tom Niczay, who called it “a cowardly act.”
Gitschlag said it’s up to the Police Department to turn over its findings to the Attorney General’s Office for possible prosecution.
So far no one has stepped forward to claim credit for the flier, but there has been plenty of speculation among those politically-connected in town.
The thinking so far among local politicos is that the flier was distributed mostly among Bengali voters in the belief that the city’s most active voting bloc would respond accordingly.
Almost 1,000 voters participated in Tuesday’s vote, which is about 10 percent of the city’s registered voters. The ballot proposal lost 528-384.
There is now a new twist to the school millage campaign.
In yet another anonymous missive, the City Clerk received a letter urging an investigation into campaign lawn signs urging passage of the school millage.
The letter, signed by “Concerned Voters of City of Hamtramck,” accused those who produced the lawn signs of not identifying who paid for the signs. As proof, the letter-writer included a photo copy of a lawn sign that appears to have no identification of who paid for the signs.
But sometimes photos can be misleading.
When looked at in person, the signs clearly state, in the lower right hand corner, that they were paid for by the “Non-Homestead Renewal Committee 3915 Trowbridge.”
City Clerk Gitschlag said he did not turn over the complaint to the Police Department.
“There was no truth to it,” he said.
Schools Superintendent Niczay said the district will seek voter approval of the millage, which generates $1.88 million a year, at the August Primary Election.
The millage is paid only by those who own commercial properties or rental dwellings. An individual who owns a house and has a Homestead tax exemption does not pay the tax.
The millage has been in place for the past 10 years, and if approved again would expire in 2025.