Recall petitions approval appealed to court

Oakland County Commission Chair Dave Woodward (D), whose district includes portions of Birmingham, Royal Oak and Troy, has filed a lawsuit in Oakland County Circuit Court in an attempt to overturn two recall petitions approved in April over his support for a public safety drone program for the county sheriff’s department.

The recall petitions have been put forth by a group entitled I Am Oakland. One petition is directed at Woodward’s support, at an April 9 commission meeting, of a nine-month trial program offered by the national Flock Group, which is known for a widely used license plate reader surveillance program. The second petition is focused on the fact that the county board took a vote on the Flock program after a voice vote of the commission to not take public comment until after the issue was approved by commissioners.

The Flock trial program will involve seven drones to be used for response to 911 emergency calls and to assist in searches for missing persons or crime suspects. The sheriff’s department program would also be used to assist other first responder requests for assistance in local communities.

At the end of the trial program the county would then decide whether to enter into a two-year contract that would cost $2.5 million.

Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard’s department has been using drones as part of its public safety program for several years but the technology is constantly changing and could prove outdated. The department has most recently used its drone assistance in a bank robbery incident in the Bloomfield area and at the recent attack on a Jewish temple and school in West Bloomfield.

Opponents of the drone program spent nearly five hours commenting at the commission meeting after the board voted to enter into the Flock trial program. Comments generally focused on concerns about privacy violations if the drones were used for general surveillance and whether the drones would be assisting in immigration enforcement efforts.

The county sheriff’s program already has an 11-page policy that regulates use of drones for law enforcement and regulates how long surveillance data is retained. The motion to approve the new trial program also includes language that assures any data remains the property of the sheriff’s department and will not be shared with the Flock firm which has been a growing issue on a national basis out of concern that the federal government will have access to the information gathered locally.

Woodward’s lawsuit, filed on Wednesday, May 6, by noted attorney Mark Brewer of the Goodman Acker firm, asks the court to overrule the petitions approved by the Oakland County Election Commission, members of which include county Clerk Lisa Brown, county Treasurer Robert Wittenberg and Chief Probate Court Judge Jennifer Callaghan.

Brewer’s court challenge basically rests on the argument that the two petitions mention a “miscellaneous resolution” referenced by its number, which would force petition signers to have to look up the actual commission to fully understand the issue.

If the court does not dismiss the recall petitions, then the I Am Oakland group would have 60 days to collect signatures equal to at least 25 percent of the number of votes cast in the Woodward county district cast for the office of governor in the 2022 election. Once petition signatures are verified, the recall issue would appear on t he ballot this November.