City Hall Insider … 7/28/26

By Charles Sercombe
The city council met on July 28, and all councilmembers were in attendance.
City Clerk Sami Elhady said that early voting was about to begin for the Aug. 4 primary election.
Mayor Adam Alharbi said the city made improvements to the clerk’s office to make it more secure to prevent unauthorized people from entering it.
He said the extra security measures now “make sure that none of the mistakes made before happen again.”
Alharbi was referring to last November’s city election, in which 37 uncounted ballots were discovered in the clerk’s office after unauthorized people had been in there.
During public comment, attorney Mark Koroi said that Michigan became a “battleground” state in the nation’s political landscape. He said a pro-Israel political action committee spent an unprecedented $40 million on Democratic candidate Haley Stevens to become the state’s U.S. Senator.
(Stevens lost the primary election to her Democratic rival, Abdul El-Sayed.)
Koroi said this amount of money spent on behalf of a candidate “has never happened before in America.”
Bill Meyer, speaking on behalf of the Michigan Peace Council, commended the city council for previously passing a resolution to prevent the city from investing in Israel, as a protest to that country’s war in Gaza and the West Bank.
“You should be proud of that,” Meyer said. “You’re way ahead of everybody else. Palestinians are still being massacred in the Israeli genocide in Gaza and now the West Bank by settlers.”
“We need to stop this wasteful use of our resources and start spending money for social programs and people’s needs,” Meyer added.
In new business, the council OK’d brickwork repairs at city hall at a cost of $27,460.
In another improvement project, the council approved a contract to replace sewer and water lines, as well as to make needed road repairs, on Trowbridge, between Lumpkin and Brombach.
The project’s cost is $1.6 million, and funding will come from both the city’s street repair fund and the water and sewer fund.
Mayor Alharbi introduced a resolution to create cultural districts to represent the city’s ethnic communities, such as districts celebrating the Yemeni, Polish, Bangladeshi, Bosnian and Ukrainian neighborhoods.
Alharbi said this will spur economic growth, promote tourism, and celebrate Hamtramck’s global culture.
He said he’s been working with city hall staff to think of ways to promote Hamtramck.
“Hamtramck is called the world in two-square miles, and we want to represent that,” Alharbi said.
Councilmember Nayeem Choudhury, who has also been working on the project, said that “Later on, we’ll have more ideas.”
Mayor Alharbi added: “I’m just trying to do what’s best for the city.”
A lengthy discussion was held to rescind a prior censure of Councilmember Choudhury.
At a previous council meeting, Choudhury was censured for an interaction with an independent journalist in a hallway outside of the council chambers.
The journalist alleges that Choudhury became aggressive with him.
Mayor Alharbi said the council needs to rescind the censure in order to “move forward here in Hamtramck, to make sure that we work on this together.”
He continued:
“We’re here on this table, one table here, and we got to make sure that we work together for the best interest of our city, to make sure we move our city forward.”
The mayor said one of the issues that the city is working on is to restore revenue from the Wayne County Jail operating here in the city.
Alharbi stressed that councilmembers should limit “our disagreement. Of course we’re going to disagree, but limit it with respect to ideas and just say, ‘I disagree with this,’ and not take anything personal, and try to work tougher to improve our city.”
(Mayor Alharbi is suing councilmembers for allegedly violating the city charter in the process of firing former city manager Adel Al-Adlani.)
Councilmember Abu Musa said that “everyone made a mistake in their life. If we see an error, let us fix together. We’re not here to make more conflict and chaos.”
Councilmember Hassan said that the matter involving Choudhury was not a council issue, and that it happened outside of a council meeting.
Councilmember Choudhury said he had “no idea why I was being censured when I did not disrespect any officials or any city employees.”
He stressed that “it’s not a good practice to censure or defame.”
In the vote to rescind the censure, Councilmember Hassan abstained, and Councilmember Yousuf Saed voted against rescinding the censure.
Later in the meeting, Councilmember Choudhury apparently criticized Councilmember Hassan, without specifically naming him, saying that he causes “chaos” and political division.
“If you really, really, really care for the city, work from your heart, be integrity,” he said.
What is our City Council up to these days? We have the highlights of the latest council meeting.
Posted Sept. 25, 2026