Court Orders Macomb County Clerk Removed From Office

PORT HURON, MI -- Macomb County Clerk Karen Spranger was removed from office Tuesday. Judge Daniel J. Kelly of the 31st Judicial Court in Port Huron, ruled that Spranger was not a resident of Macomb County when she filed to run for office, making her ineligible to serve. Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel, in a press conference, called the ruling “historic.”

“John Schapka was the lead counsel for Macomb County. He was able to extract this issue,” Hackel said. “He was spot-on. It’s kind of a historic occasion – not just in Macomb County, but in Michigan.”

Judge Kelly cited a number of reasons for his ruling that Spranger falsified her affidavit of identity - the election document she signed attesting to her residency in the county. As proof that Spranger doesn’t live at the Warren address listed on the affidavit, the judge cited evidence from DTE showing the house had not had electrical service since 2015, and that Spranger, who uses a Bridge Card, had never used the card in Warren, but only in Livonia and other parts of western Wayne County. Further, when police served a search warrant at the Warren house, they found it “barricaded from the inside by wall-to-wall garbage, feces and animals to a depth of four or five feet." Police included video of the execution of the warrant to illustrate the home's condition, too.

Spranger, who took office in 2017, has been a lightning rod for controversy. In her first six months as county clerk, Spranger was barred from using her county PC after allowing people who didn’t work for the county to access it. She was fined for violating county ethics rules, totaled a government-issued vehicle rear-ending another car, and tried to impede a planned move of county offices by covertly taking storage bins of items to be moved to those offices to a construction site - an act caught on videotape. Stranger was also the subject of a whistle-blower lawsuit in 2017 and was accused this month of kicking a county employee.

The county sued to remove Spranger from office in September 2017. Today’s ruling took effect immediately. Hackel insists the move had nothing to do with disliking Spranger, and says having her removed was purely in the public interest.

“This question that had been plaguing her since she was in office, did she actually live at the address in Warren,” Hackel said. “It was a question we had to ask on behalf of the public - it wasn’t because of how we felt about her, or whether we liked her,” adding that Spranger’s removal was “based upon pure facts.”

Schapka, who argued the case on behalf of Macomb County, also said Spranger’s removal was based entirely on the residency issue, adding that he wasn’t at the press conference to revel in Spranger’s removal.

“I’m not here to gloat, not to celebrate. It’s actually a sad day for the County of Macomb. It's sad that we had to travel this route,” Schapka said. “She falsified the affidavit to the effect that she said she lived at an address she didn’t live at. It is an established fact at this point.”

Hackel said that area judges will appoint an interim successor, and that even if Spranger appeals, which he says is her right, she will not be allowed to hold the office during that process.

“She is to be removed from office. She is no longer the clerk of Macomb County. The judges are meeting to make a determination of who they put in to replace the clerk,” Hackel said, adding that appeals will not permit Spranger to linger. “It doesn’t mean she gets to go back to be the clerk pending appeal - she has been removed from office. We’ve already begun shutting down her ID, her access. She is no longer the county clerk,” Hackel said.

Hackel was unsure about whether or not Spranger will have to return salary she was paid while acting as clerk. He said that would be addressed later, possibly after – or even if – Spranger appeals Judge Kelly’s ruling.

Image via Shutterstock.