Can anyone from here flesh out this dysfunction better than the article does?


Royal Oak commissioner quits amid report of sheriff's probe

 By Bill Laitner • Free Press Staff Writer • June 5, 2009

Royal Oak City Commissioner Stephen Miller resigned Thursday, two days after a hearing in which attorney David Gorcyca said three commissioners were subjects of a sheriff’s investigation.

A spokesman for the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said today that Miller was one of three commissioners who David Poulton, a member of the Royal Oak Zoning Board of Appeals, said had tried to improperly influence him. But spokesman Mike McCabe said no criminal case is pending because Poulton did not file a criminal complaint when investigators interviewed him last week.

The hearing and resignation capped a year of heated debate on the city’s elected body, when commissioners shifted alliances to fire the city manager, accused one another of misusing the city’s public-access cable channel and of pressuring Downtown Development Authority members for political ends. Miller became embroiled in especially bitter disputes.

The resignation of Miller, who earlier this year had said he would run for mayor, “doesn’t resolve the problem, if something egregious occurred,” Royal Oak Mayor Jim Ellison said today. “But right now, it’s just someone saying this happened and no formal complaint has been filed,” Ellison said.

Miller did not return phone calls. City Commissioner Chuck Semchena, a friend to Miller, said that “Steve’s been thinking of resigning for a long time. He’s just sick of all the political back-biting.”

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