In October 2023, Ypsilanti’s City Council voted in favor of the purchase of a multi-million dollar property, passing with 5-0-1. Intended to house a new DPS facility, the site boasts a number of complications and financial uncertainties that has sparked concern for community members.
"The city is being lugged to death," Cheryl Farmer, one of the leaders in the recall campaign against Council Member Desirae Simmons, said.
As a longtime Ypsilanti resident and former mayor of the city, Farmer decided to immerse herself back into city politics when things "began going south in the neighborhood," claiming that friends began reaching out to her with concerns. She explained that the revelation of an issue began last summer when downtown Ypsilanti was experiencing an increase in rampant drug use, open-drug markets, homelessness, and violence that posed a risk to residents, businesses, and business owners.
“It was just a really, really bad situation,” Farmer said.
Last fall, community members gathered at the City Council meeting in solidarity, voicing concerns about such a costly purchase.
“Absolutely no one was in favor of this deal,” Farmer said. “People urged against it.”
After an initial meeting and vote that violated the Open Meeting Act, this prompted a “do-over” meeting just two days later, where the bill was voted in favor. As a result, the DPS director proclaimed their resignation, followed by the assistant city clerk and a handful of DPS employees proposing to quit in unison.
The property was going to be purchased for $3.7 million when the current property owner had purchased it just a year earlier for $1.1 million. Assessed by the city for $250,000, the approximate value of the property stands around $500,000.
Calling it a “shady” deal, Farmer claimed that the deal was brought to council by a former council member and local realtor, who stands to make $80,000 off of this deal.
“I just can’t think of any good reason why they would want to spend that kind of money when we don’t even have the money,” Farmer said. “The city is on the precipice of a bankruptcy.”
“This was the tip of the iceberg,” said Farmer, who was now ready to prepare to take the steps to develop a recall petition.
In a four year term, one is not eligible to recall in their first or last year, taking three council members off of the table. After two members voted against the bill, language was filed against the three members who voted in favor three times. Following a resignation, Mayor Brown’s vote to rescind, and a few changed votes in opposition, there were few eligible candidates left to recall.
“Desirae just couldn’t bring herself to admit that she was wrong, I guess—and that singled her out for recall," Farmer said.
Desirae Simmons, elected to council in 2022, agreed with some of the concerns over the property, admitting that the site needs “substantial work in order to make it safe and match the needs of the site as an emergency command center,” leading her to abstain in the 5-0-1 vote.
"I just didn’t feel like we were getting new information,” Simmons said. "I understood a lot of the concerns, and I agreed with them, so I decided I would change my vote—but I wasn’t at the point where I could vote and be affirmative because I still had a lot of questions."
Uncertain of the cost to stay at the site and how it would impact Ypsilanti workers and services, Simmons began to weigh her decisions. At this point, she was already being threatened with the recall, and the process of the petition being filed loomed over.
"I didn’t feel like I could change my vote without the recall being part of the decision-making," Simmons said. "I decided that I didn’t have another reason to not push for my original vote to purchase, but to also remain true to what I feel like is an ethical decision."
Simmons claims that the recall group has spread a series of misinformation to garner support for their petition, engaging in disempowerment practices and aggressive pressuring for signatures, noting that some of the landlords behind this effort are the same landlords who sued the city in order to make sure that they were not required to provide voter information and local city contacts to renters.
"I understand they had to paint me as a corrupt politician who does shady dealings in order to get people to sign their petition,” Simmons said.
Simmons added that the group blamed her for businesses closing downtown, the Growing Hope open-drug market situation, and bringing Palestine issues to Ypsilanti.
“I was going to be targeted no matter what, I put forward viewpoint, perspective, and voice of people who aren’t typically being heard by the council," Simmons said. "I am very clear that I am not going to support policies that I feel are detrimental to people who have been disenfranchised and removed from the owner of decision making.”
If the petitioners are able to get their signatures approved, the election in May will include a council seat for Ward 3 on the ballot. In a time of transition and statistically lower turnout, Simmons said “they’re using a process that’s supposed to be democratic in order to actually be anti-democratic.”
On Friday, Feb. 2, the petitioners were able to submit 747 signatures, exceeding the required 603, just in time to reach the deadline for the May ballot. The county verified after a week in review that 606 of those signatures were valid. Simmon's now has 30 days to challenge the validity of these signatures.
"It brings me no joy to do this,” Farmer said. “When a recall becomes necessary, it means something is going seriously wrong with your elected officials and their ability to represent the people who elected them.”
The voters in Ward 3 were notified on Feb. 9 that a special election will be held on May 7 to consider the recall of Council woman Simmons.
