Depositions: ICMA staff admit they violated procedures in Freed case and failed to investigate

A 20-page court filing released by Michigan city manager James Freed includes several bombshells and new pieces of information that have been previously unknown.

It features testimony by ICMA staff members admitting they violated their organization’s own procedures. It also includes testimony by Jessica Cowles, the ethics advisor investigating Freed. On page 9 of the filing, it reads:

“Unfortunately, Ms. Cowles chose not to review the veracity of Plaintiff’s claims and testified that she did absolutely no investigation into the facts.”

CEO Marc Ott testified that he had assumed that Cowles conducted an investigation “as they always do.”

However, Cowles testfied that she was instrumental in deciding not to send the matter to the ICMA state chapter for a “fact-finding hearing.”

Why?

Because she knew it would result in a “nothingburger” and short-circuit her opportunity to “get” Freed and avenge her boss, Martha Perego.

And it gets even worse on page 10 (see below), when Ott acknowledges that his subordinates did not follow the organization’s processes in this ethics investigation.

“Of course I’m concerned when the rules are not followed,” he testified.

Martha Perego agreed with Ott in her testimony stating “it makes me nervous when we don’t follow the Rules of Procedure.”

The filing states that Molly Mehner, the chair of the Committee on Professional Conduct (CPC), acknowledged that “there were important missing facts the CPC needed but the CPC did no investigation.”

These individuals fully understand and recognize how damaging a public censure would be to the professional reputation and career of a fellow city manager. But they didn’t give a damn and could not be bothered to investigate the case even though they were repeatedly told that they had the facts wrong by Freed and his attorney.

And Victor Cardenas, the Novi, Michigan city manager who was “elected” to the board and directly represents Freed, was the ringleader in trying to ruin Freed’s career. He authored a significant portion of the press release even though he was a Michigan manager and intimately familiar with the facts of the state’s COVID vaccine mandate policies.

Now — most of this information was shared by Freed on the City Manager Unfiltered podcast. But it is entirely different to hear about it from Freed versus seeing in written form with the citation of depositions in an official court document.

So, what’s new in this court filing?

New Bombshells & Information

We have a few new nuggets of information.

Marc Ott Angry with Freed

When Marc Ott and James Freed had a call to discuss Martha Perego’s use of the Twitter handle they got into an argument about the interpretation of the ICMA constitution as it related to this matter. The filing reads on page 4 (see image below) that Ott “became very angry during the call.”

So, now you have the CEO who is angry with Freed tapping Perego’s second in command to investigate Freed.

Seems legit.

Clearly, Freed’s due process was of utmost concern to the powers that be at the ICMA.

Cowles Recommended Disciplinary Action on Ethics Complaint #1

If you recall, James Freed recorded his conversation with Jessica Cowles back in late 2018 during the first ethics complaint investigation after he called out Perego for her partisan political activity while using the @ICMAethics Twitter handle.

The entire recording is featured in Episode 18 of the City Manager Unfiltered podcast.

Freed stated that he never filed an ethics complaint against Perego — in fact, he thought she was just an employee and not an ICMA member. It was Ott that referred Freed’s letter to the ethics committee and tapped Cowles to investigate. Now, that in and of itself is extremely questionable as Cowles clearly had a conflict of interest.

But, how could Freed have violated any confidentiality rules of an ethics investigation when he did not file a complaint and was unaware an ethics investigation was even taking place?

And how could Freed have even violated the confidentiality rules of an ethics investigation when Perego was not even subject to Tenet 7 as acknowledged in the depositions (see page 4 of the court document below)?

It is laughable and absurd.

But what is new is that we learn that Cowles went so far as to recommend disciplinary action against Freed and apparently the CPC agreed before reversing the decision.

Why did they reverse course?

According to my previous conversations with Freed, it was after they learned about the audio recording and realized that it didn’t match what Cowles stated in her misleading report.

That 4.5 month investigation was an absolute farce that should not have lasted more than 4.5 seconds — let alone result in a recommendation of disciplinary action.

That fact that she recommended discipline after this “investigation” and lied about the conversation with Freed in her staff report should have resulted in her termination.

Molly Mehner Fears Freed May Physically Attack Her

This is incredible.

Freed sent an email expressing his desire to attend his appeal hearing in person. According to the filing (page 11), Mehner became “fearful of her well-being” and falsely accused Freed of having sent a “hostile correspondence.”

On top of that, Mehner tainted the appeal hearing when she introduced Freed’s case by stating that he had had “past ethical issues.”

This was an outright lie — unless you consider the two previous trumped up ethics charges in which he was cleared to be past issues?

So much for due process and the presumption of innocence at the ICMA. All this from the same woman who admitted that the committee she chairs did not investigate the Freed matter even though there were facts missing.

Split Vote Divides Executive Board

The filing reveals that Freed’s public censure is the only censure in which the board was not unanimous in its findings. On page 12 it reads:

“This was the first time in ICMA memory there was a split vote, given that in all other cases the violations were clear cut.”

It appears there was an 11-7 vote with one abstention.

Don’t forget that Cardenas weaseled himself out of voting for the censure — but was the key person behind the drafting of the public press release.

And you must also remember that Cardenas and other members of the executive board refused to turn over evidence during discovery until compelled to do so under the threat of sanctions by the judge in the case.

Talk about a man of principle and conviction.

The ICMA can put out all the “gaslighting” public statements that they want, but apparently there was a sharp division even within the executive board about whether Freed violated the Code of Ethics.

Village Manager Defends Freed

Lake Isabella Village Manager Tim Wolff testified under oath in defense of Freed.

Now, Wolff isn’t just a village manager testifying as a “peer” or character witness. He was the long time chair of the ethics committee for Michigan Municipal Executives — the state ICMA chapter.

On page 13 of the filing, Wolff is quoted in the footnotes:

“…him taking that stand, or any other manager taking that stand, still having the right to resign when that day comes, to me is not a violation of the Code of Ethics. The code is when you are forced with that choice and you choose to do your job and not follow the law.”

The entire “preemptive declaration” argument is a farce.

Freed never said he was going to violate the law. What he said was that he would never force a vaccine mandate because he had the choice of offering up the testing option. And even if he was faced with a vaccine only mandate imposed by the state, he was well within his right to step down and resign his position if he felt that violated his principles.

Wolff also stated that public censures were reserved for serious crimes and offenses (see page 3).

Yet, ICMA CEO Marc Ott and other staffers admitted that no other manager in the history of the organization had been censured for these various allegations (see page 12).

Summary

If you are a skeptic of Freed then ignore all of his comments and the statements of his attorneys.

Instead, focus on the statements provided by ICMA staff and executive board members under oath. Compare those statements and their actions to the organization’s own rules and procedures.

There were blatant conflict of interest violations and evidence that various individuals had prejudged Freed in some fashion or another. This started with the first ethics investigation and culminated at the appeal hearing.

• Mehner tainted the well by fabricating the notion that Freed was a violent and unhinged individual that posed a physical threat to her
• She smeared Freed by falsely claiming he had past ethical issues, when in reality each of the three investigations revealed that ICMA staffers and executive board members were the ones behaving unethically
• Pamela Antil and Bill Fraser had never even met or interacted with Freed but thought he was a “douche” and wanted to “punch him in the face”

There was no attempt to conduct a fair and thorough investigation. These are not the arguments of Freed but facts attested to by CEO Marc Ott, “ethics guru” Martha Perego, and “ethics advisor” and “investigator” Jessica Cowles, and CPC Chair Mehner.

In fact, Cowles deliberately took action to ensure that a fair investigation was not conducted by refusing to convene a fact-finding committee has prescribed by the Rules of Procedure.

This was a blatant attempt to ruin the reputation of Freed and destroy his career because there was disgust and contempt for his political views along with personal grudges and vendettas held by staffers looking to settle a score because he had embarassed Perego in 2018.

The entire filing along with citation of deposition statements given under oath can be read here.