Will Hamtramck taxpayers be on the hook for mayor’s legal fees?

By Charles Sercombe
Don’t get out your checkbook yet, taxpayers.
There appears to be a wrinkle in the city council’s approval to use taxpayers’ money to cover the mayor’s $200,000-plus legal fees to remain in office.
Recently, in a 2-1 vote by the city council, it was agreed that the city should pay for Mayor Adam Alharbi’s legal fight to prevent 37 uncounted absentee ballots from last November’s election from being counted.
(An additional ballot was discovered after his lawsuit was filed but is not included in the dispute.)
The uncounted ballots were discovered by the City Clerk’s office the morning after last November’s election. Just why they were not included in the ballot tally is a question that has never been fully explained.
At the time, Rana Faraj was city clerk, but after this incident she was fired.
City Attorney Odey Meroueh said that, after a closer examination of the city charter and subsequent research, he determined the vote to approve the expenditure is not valid because there were not enough voting members of the council to qualify as a quorum.
A situation like this has not come up before.
At last week’s city council meeting, Councilmembers Abu Musa and Yousuf Saed voted to approve the payment for Alharbi’s legal expenses.
Those were the only two members of the council to approve the resolution. Councilmember Mohammed Hassan voted against the matter while Councilmembers Nayeem Choudhury and Muhtasin Sadman abstained from voting. The sixth councilmember, Mohammed Alsomiri, had already left the meeting before this vote was taken.
Because only three councilmembers participated in the vote, the council did not have a bare-minimum of four councilmembers actually voting “yay” or “nay,” according to Meroueh.
The two councilmembers abstaining from the vote meant they were not participating, Meroueh said.
Recently, it’s become routine for one or more councilmembers to abstain from voting on issues despite not having any apparent conflict of interest, which is considered one of the few acceptable reasons to vote that way.
City Attorney Meroueh is not alone in questioning the council’s vote.
Attorney Gerald Fisher, who specializes in municipal law and taught at Cooley Law School for decades before retiring fulltime from that position, backed up Meroueh.
Fisher told The Review, “The council’s vote on this was not valid” based on only three councilmembers being involved in it.
The city charter requires that at least four councilmembers are present to conduct business. But, because two councilmembers abstained in their vote, there were only three councilmembers actually conducting business — one councilmember short of the required minimum, Fisher said.
Just how the vote went down was not broadcast to the public despite the council acting in an open session.
The vote on the matter was not live-streamed after the council came back in open session after a closed session.
City Clerk Sami Elhady said it was his decision to not continue broadcasting the council meeting after the closed meeting.
Asked why he did not continue the broadcast, Elhady told The Review “nobody told (him)” to continue livestreaming.
Elhady said his only instruction was to “open the doors” to the council chambers.
In the past, before Elhady came on the job a few months ago, all council meetings that resumed after a closed session were broadcast.
Elhady was hired at the mayor’s insistence despite having no prior experience as a city clerk.
If the council does eventually decide to pay for the mayor’s legal fees, it opens the door for former councilmember Muhith Mahmood to demand – and receive – the go-ahead for the city to pay for his legal fees to have the ballots counted as well.
Mahmood was a candidate for mayor in November’s election. He lost by 11 votes.
In the end, taxpayers are looking at possible legal bills totaling over $500,000.
Mahmood told The Review that he is hesitant to demand the city pay for his mounting legal fees in the matter.
“I’m spending a lot of money,” Mahmood said. “But they are playing with the public’s money. I don’t have any intentions to take the public’s money.”
A lot is at stake in whether the ballots are counted or not, as a recount could result in Mahmood winning the mayoral election from back in November. If the election is upended, it would mean Alharbi would no longer be the city’s mayor.
And it would also likely result in further court challenges, and an ever-increasing amount of legal fees.
Mayor Alharbi continues to challenge a state court of appeals ruling that cleared the way for the ballots to be counted. Alharbi is seeking to get the state supreme court to overturn that decision.
The supreme court has, so far, declined to hear his appeal, but Alharbi is asking the court to reconsider its decision.
Mayor Alharbi justified the city paying for his legal fees by saying:
“The entire issue with those 37 uncounted ballots stemmed from an internal error by the city clerk’s office at the time — not from any candidate or elected official.”
Alharbi continued: “Under standard municipal protocol, cities protect and defend their officials when they are forced to deal with legal challenges born entirely out of city administrative failures. When a procedural mistake happens at the municipal level, it is the city’s operational and legal responsibility to resolve it.
“The council is simply ensuring the proper legal steps are taken to clear up an issue the city itself created.”
As for Mahmood being compensated for his legal fees, Alharbi said that depends on Mahmood.
“As of right now, this resolution specifically addresses the legal matter regarding the 37 ballots and the mayor’s office, reflecting the city’s standard obligation to protect its officials from internal administrative errors,” Alharbi told The Review.
“Any other individual’s legal situation is a separate matter for them and the council to evaluate independently based on their own circumstances.”
Recently, Alharbi complained about the increasing legal fees the city is paying for other matters, and looked to take bids for new legal services. That request was denied by the council.
City Attorney Meroueh told the council that legal fees are increasing because of past decisions by the council that resulted in numerous lawsuits and payouts.
Posted Aug. 7, 2026