This report is going to be broken up into several parts, including a timeline of major events in this story.

  • The Perego Letter: Deconstructing the First Bogus Ethics Investigation of James Freed (Part 1)
  • Examination of Ethics Complaint #2: COMING SOON!
  • Examination of Ethics Complaint #3: COMING SOON!

Background

In June 2022, Michigan city manager James Freed was publicly censured and stripped of his credential by the International City/County Management Association (ICMA).

The ICMA claimed that he had violated Tenet 3 of the organization’s “Code of Ethics.”

There were three reasons provided by the ICMA to justify the censure and these will be unpacked later in this report. The major component of the censure centered around the COVID vaccine mandate, and an email Freed sent out to his employees at the city of Port Huron whereby he stated he would never enforce a vaccine mandate.

In September of 2022, Freed filed a lawsuit against the ICMA alleging that the organization conspired to defame him.

Prior to this ethics investigation and public censure by the ICMA, Freed was investigated on two other alleged violations of the “Code of Ethics.”

Freed contends that all three of these investigations were retaliation against him because he had spotlighted the partisan political activity of an ICMA staffer on Twitter and requested that this person cease the activity back in 2018.

This staffer was Martha Perego, the self-titled “ethics guru” who was the Director of Members Services and Ethics up until her retirement in mid-2023.

Timeline

November 2018 – Ethics Complaint #1

James Freed sent a letter to Martha Perego and ICMA CEO Marc Ott expressing his concerns about Perego’s partisan political activity on Twitter using the @ICMAethics username. He politely and simply asked that the activity cease or that Perego change the username to remove the ICMA affiliation.

This led to a five-month long investigation into whether Freed had actually filed an official complaint against Perego and whether he had violated the “Code of Ethics” by speaking about the matter on the private listserv for Michigan managers.

He was subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing after a five-month investigation.

In a future post, this “ethics complaint” will be examined in more detail and we will expose the ICMA staff and how they attempted to railroad Freed on this matter.

Mid-2019 – Ethics Complaint #2

As the city manager for Port Huron, Freed will often engage with state and local elected officials from both political parties as part of his official duties.

An anonymous individual(s) trawled through his social media pages and found pictures he had taken with Republican elected officials at non-political events. They ignored the pictures he had taken with elected Democrats and filed an ethics complaint against him for engaging in political activity.

Freed had never endorsed, contributed to, attended a political event, or politicked on behalf of any elected official.

He was subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing after a nine-month investigation.

In a future post, this “ethics complaint” will be examined and we will highlight how the ICMA ethics staff do not follow their own rules and violated the confidentiality of this ethics complaint process — which is what they tried to accuse him of doing in the first complaint.

November 2021 – Ethics Complaint #3

On November 6, 2021, Freed sent out an email to employees informing them that he would never enforce a vaccine mandate because they could provide employees with a testing option.

Additionally, Freed had posted a couple of social media posts where he called out Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Her administration falsely accused the City of Port Huron of failing to follow COVID safety protocols and levied the maximum financial penalty possible. Freed and the City successfully appealed and through this process it was revealed that her administration had burnt documents related to “investigation.”

Freed posted a link to an op-ed highlighting the burning of these documents and Freed’s successful appeal to the Michigan Municipal Executives listserv. Another city manager suggested Freed review Tenet 7 of the ICMA “Code of Ethics” suggesting that he was violating the COE by posting this information on the listserv.

An anonymous individual(s) triggered an ethics investigation citing these three items which ultimately led to the public censure and de-credentialing in June 2022.

In a future post, this “ethics complaint” and the sham investigation conducted by the ICMA ethics staff will be exposed. This includes highlighting how the ICMA failed to follow its own investigatory process by not convening a state chapter led Fact Finding Committee.

October 29, 2024 – Trial Date

In late May, a judge set a trial date of October 29, 2024.

Additional Coverage

Podcast Episodes

The following podcasts are “must-listen” episodes that will provide you greater context and clarity of this matter.

Episode #17 features my interview with James Freed and you can hear him tell his story in his own words. Episode #18 contains a recording of his phone call with ICMA ethics advisor Jessica Cowles. It is important to listen to this episode because Freed asserts that Cowles misrepresented this conversation in her staff report to the ICMA executive board.

Media Coverage

  • The Times Herald (Port Huron): James Freed speaks out amid legal battle against body that censured him in 2022 (9/30/23)
  • The Detroit News: Port Huron city manager vaults from poor childhood to case before Supreme Court (10/29/23)
  • The Coast News: Encinitas city manager under fire for ‘inappropriate’ text messages (10/30/23)
  • The Daily Signal: City Manager Association Censured a Man for Refusing to Enforce a Nonexistent Vaccine Mandate. Now, He’s Suing. (3/17/24)
  • The Coast News: Trial date set in defamation lawsuit against Encinitas city manager (7/15/24)
  • The Moorpark Acorn: Moorpark City Manager Troy Brown ordered to stand trial over alleged defamation (7/20/24)