In Our Opinion … Taxpayers deserve to be outraged

What were they thinking?
We’re talking about the three councilmembers -- Nayeem Choudhury, Abu Musa and Muhtasin Sadman -- who agreed to pick up Mayor Adam Alharbi’s private legal bill.
And when we say they agreed to the deal, we mean that you, Hamtramck’s taxpayers, will be paying something like $200,000 to cover Alharbi’s legal squabble to prevent 37 ballots from last November’s city election from being counted.
By counting them, it could turn out that Alharbi’s loses his title as mayor and, instead, his mayoral challenger, former councilmember Muhith Mahmood, takes over that role.
As reported previously, the 37 ballots in question were discovered in the city clerk’s office a day after the election, but Wayne County election officials deadlocked in a 2-2 vote on whether to count them.
The county’s split vote meant that the ballots remained uncounted.
That is, until Mahmood went to court to get them counted, and Alharbi, acting on his own and not yet officially mayor, hired an attorney to make sure those ballots remained uncounted.
Ultimately, Alharbi lost his case. But now he is claiming that, since he was acting in the capacity as mayor, Hamtramck taxpayers owe him back his legal fees.
Despite what Alharbi says, he was not, repeat, not, the mayor at the time he got involved in Mahmood’s lawsuit to have the ballots counted.
This council vote for the city to pay Alharbi’s legal fees was an outrageous decision, and we’re more than a little surprised the public isn’t more outraged.
Alharbi has a lot of gall to dump his legal bills on taxpayers. Just a short time ago he was complaining about the city’s increasing payouts for legal services.
Guess it doesn’t matter when it comes to his personal needs.
Apparently, that concern over legal bills stops when he can get on the gravy train. So much for looking out for the residents, and the costs they bear.
It’s also shady that, in Alharbi’s first try to get his legal bill approved by the city council, he insisted it get added on to the council agenda after a closed session.

Alharbi has been criticizing councilmembers for abusing this privilege by constantly adding on agenda items as council meetings begin.
Add it all up, and it seems that Alharbi doesn’t mind being a hypocrite when it comes to his own needs and wants.
Funny how that works.
Posted Sept. 18. 2026