By Gus Burns | fburns@mlive.com
SAGINAW — Saginaw taxpayers or the city’s insurer will shoulder the cost of settlement in the dispute between a prominent Saginaw pastor and the former site coordinator for the city’s Weed and Seed crime prevention program.
Saginaw City
to pay Ronald O’Brien, the former Saginaw East Side Weed and Seed site coordinator, $75,000
O’Brien filed against the Rev. Larry Camel, the co-founder of Parishioners on Patrol for defamation.
Saginaw, the “fiscal agent” of the federal grant, “indemnified” or assumed liability on Camel’s behalf related to the case.
Camel, who sat on the Weed and Seed steering committee with Saginaw Councilman Amos O’Neal, also a co-founder of Parishioners on Patrol, requested $10,000 be paid to the nonprofit for mobilization work, court documents filed by Saginaw attorney Victor J. Mastromarco Jr. on behalf of O’Brien show.
The Saginaw Weed and Seed “steering committee” hired O’Brien, 63, of Frankenlust Township for $40,000 for a year to act as site coordinator beginning in January 2009.
The dispute
Mastromarco’s filing says Weed and Seed moved into a unit of the Sedona Building, 310 S. Washington in downtown Saginaw, which housed a computer lab, four offices and a reception area.
“It was understood that Parishioners on Patrol would supply volunteers to monitor a computer lab inside the Weed and Seed offices,” Mastromarco’s filing says. “Over the next several months, Rev. Camel had various disagreements with” O’Brien, “which typically involved a financial detriment to… Camel.”
The court filing claims Camel solicited O’Brien for contributions to his church — Camel is a pastor at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church at 1418 S. Warren in Saginaw — and often used office space to promote or sell church-related fundraiser items, such as tickets for a “taco sale” and “fruit,” which O’Brien said violated grant guidelines.
The lawsuit accused Camel of disparaging O’Brien by “maliciously and without any factual evidence” accusing O’Brien of “hating children and being a racist.”
When O’Brien’s contract expired in January of 2010, Camel made an “unplanned motion” at the steering committee meeting to allow O’Brien’s contract to expire without renewal, O’Brien’s lawsuit alleges.
The complaint says the action violated meeting bylaws and O’Brien’s contract would have been renewed had committee members sympathetic to O’Brien known about the vote and been at the meeting.
The defense, represented by Jamie C. Hecht Nisidis of Saginaw Township’s Braun Kendrick law firm, filed a response denying O’Brien’s claims and stating “no duly enacted bylaws” existed.
Computer question
Mastromarco’s court filing says, “another point of contention was two laptop
computers purchased with grant money… The day the computers arrived, Camel took possession of two.”
“Rev. Camel took one for himself and stated that (Councilman) O’Neal wanted the other one,” the filing says. “Mr. O’Neal entered (O’Brien’s) office and asked, ‘Where’s my laptop?’ and said he needed it for Parishioners on Patrol” duties.
Subsequent remarks in Mastromarco’s court filing indicate Camel returned one computer and do not include what happened to the other.
O’Neal said he never requested or possessed a computer related to the Weed and Seed Program.
Diane Hobbs, the Weed and Seed coordinator when the grant ended, said the program purchased two laptop computers prior to her arrival, which remain in the possession of the computer lab.
Mastromarco, Camel, O’Brien and O’Neal said they could not comment about the case. Mastromarco said there is a confidentiality clause as part of the settlement agreement with Saginaw officials.
‘Cheap way out’
Council members Norman Braddock, Larry Coulouris, Andrew Wendt and Annie Boensch voted against the agreement, while Mayor Greg Branch, Mayor Pro Tem Dennis Browning, and Council members Amos O’Neal, Floyd Kloc and Dan Fitzpatrick voted in favor of the settlement.
“For me, it had everything to do with being a new councilman, going into closed session and having the facts as they were presented to me,” Braddock said. “Afterward, I did some of my own investigation… and this is something we should have aggressively pursued, and there is no doubt in my mind… that we would have prevailed.”
Braddock said “municipalities tend to take the cheap way out,” but Saginaw “has had a reputation over the years for being an easy target for people that want to sue.”
“That has got to end because that is taxpayers’ money we’re giving away,” he said.
Braddock said City Council agreed to give City Manager Darnell Earley approval to negotiate a settlement up to a designated amount after a previous closed-session meeting.
Circuit Court notations to the case that are available on the Saginaw County website show the “case settled” on Dec. 29. Subsequent notes from the same date say: “need j’mt or other closing order.”
Wendt also voted against the settlement.
“My No. 1 reason why I voted (no) is I don’t believe the city should have represented Rev. Camel,” Wendt said. “I don’t think we should have represented him, and I don’t think we had any legal obligation to do so.”
Kloc, who voted in favor of settling, said the city had agreed to assume liability and indemnify Camel prior to him becoming aware of the settlement negotiations.
“I voted for it because I thought it was in the city’s best interest under the circumstances,” said Kloc, who is an attorney. “Had I been involved in it earlier, I might not have felt the same.”
The program
Weed and Seed is “a program that focuses on community-driven crime prevention and improvement of residents’ lives in high-crime neighborhoods. It is a two-part strategy,” the program’s website says. “ To ‘seed’ neighborhoods with prevention, intervention, treatment and revitalization services” and to ‘weed out’ violent offenders via intensive law enforcement and prosecution efforts.”
Among the activities in Saginaw, half of the Weed and Seed funds were spent on a computer lab and community initiatives.
The Saginaw Police Department spent the remainder on police initiatives.
The Weed and Seed program received grants for $175,000 in 2008, $142,000 in 2009 and $157,000 in 2010, said Sheila Jerusalem, a spokeswoman for the Department of Justice.
She said Saginaw’s most recent Weed and Seed grant expired Sept. 30. The U.S. Department of Justice Community Capacity Development Office, which administered funds for Weed and Seed, closed in June due to lack of funding.
Jerusalem said financial status reports submitted by Saginaw show the program spent $173,747.52 of the 2008; $114,236.18 of the 2009; and $64,340 of the 2010 grant to date.
Hobbs said all of the grant funds have been spent and final spending reports were submitted.
Using computers, printers, a copy machine and other equipment purchased with Weed and Seed grant funds, the computer lab continues to operate under a nonprofit named the Center for Community Solutions, said Sharon McKeethen, the program’s site coordinator.
“We’re still doing training here at the computer lab and working with our neighborhood groups,” she said. “Until someone tells us what they want to do with (the computers and equipment), we’ll continue to run the lab here.”
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