Mayor files lawsuit to undo CM firing

By Charles Sercombe
As expected, the saga of the firing of City Manager Adel Al-Adlani isn’t over.
On Monday, Mayor Adam Alharbi, through his attorney Nabih Ayad, filed a restraining order in Wayne County Circuit Court to reverse the city council’s decision.
Alharbi, who accused councilmembers of violating the charter for the way the city manager was fired, is asking for an emergency ruling, which, as of press time, the court has not yet provided.
The mayor says the resolution was improper because it was added onto last week’s council agenda right as the meeting started, as opposed to submitting it earlier for the public to be properly made aware of it.
“The charter is our city constitution that we must follow,” Alharbi said, at a press conference he held on Monday afternoon in front of city hall. “We cannot have elected officials not follow the charter.”
Councilmember Mohammed Hassan has been regularly adding items onto the agenda as council meetings start, and Alharbi said he has abused that right. He said the charter only allows items to be added on an agenda at the last minute that are of an emergency nature or are time sensitive.
What it comes down to is the definition of an emergency.
Alharbi’s attorney, Nabih Ayad, was also at the press conference and repeatedly referred to Hassan, without naming him, as someone facing “multiple” felony charges.
Ayad also criticized the council’s action saying, “This isn’t the Wild West. They need to understand there are rules and regulations.”
Hassan is facing three felony election fraud charges, and is slated for a trial in Wayne County Circuit Court on June 29.
He is being charged with:
• Forging a voter’s signature on an absentee ballot application
• Forgery
• Making a false statement on an application for an absentee ballot
In the meantime, that left City Attorney Odey Meroueh in the awkward position of filing a response defending the city council’s action and opposing the mayor.
In a statement he sent to The Review, Meroueh said the mayor’s lawsuit is flawed.
“The complaint has serious errors and inconsistencies that illustrate the lack of merit within,” Meroueh said. “It skips the entire count, quotes from an employment contract it does not attach, mischaracterizes council procedural rules as charter provisions, and cites as authority a court of appeals decision that it acknowledges was reversed by the Michigan Supreme Court. We are confident in the city’s position.”
Mayor Alharbi championed the hiring of Al-Adlani, although it appears, through email conversations between him and the city’s human resources director, that he attempted to boost Al-Adlani over other candidates.
City Manager Al-Adlani’s short four-month tenure had not been a smooth transition in city hall, according to sources. He rubbed a number of staff members the wrong way, and there was growing dissatisfaction among some councilmembers as well.
As for the reason for his firing, the council did not include one in its resolution to fire him. The city manager was hired as an “at will” employee, meaning that, normally, a reason for firing isn’t required to be given.
But Councilmember Hassan suggested that the reason for Al-Adlani’s firing was because of various “violations” that were not specified.
Al-Adlani was hired after the council abruptly fired former city manager Max Garbarino last August. Garbarino has also filed a lawsuit against the city.
According to sources, Al-Adlani has hired the same attorney representing Garbarino (and former city clerk Rana Faraj, who was also fired after last November’s election) to file his lawsuit as well.
As of now, Finance Director Syed Aamir Hassan is once again the acting city manager, a role he filled after Garbarino was fired.
Al-Adlani’s firing underscores a growing rift between the Bengali councilmembers and Mayor Alharbi, who is a Yemeni immigrant. That divide now seems threatening to blow open into a full-on civil war.
Posted June 19, 2026