Former Councilwoman Appeals St. Clair Shores Facebook Ban

ST. CLAIR SHORES, MI — A former city councilwoman has been banned from the St. Clair Shores city Facebook page — unfairly, she says — after she posted comments earlier this summer that criticized a tax increase to support the city’s $11.2 million and $6.5 million budgets of the police and fire departments.

Former councilwoman Erin Stahl, who served from 2003 to 2007, has appealed the ban to the city’s Communications Commission, which will take up the matter at a meeting Wednesday. The city says her comments were “unfair and misleading,” The Macomb Daily reports.

Stahl told the newspaper that she “wanted to give residents a different point of view about our police and millage,” but claimed City Manager Mike Smith “didn’t like it, so he banned me and silenced me.”

Stahl claims city officials tricked voters into approving a 3-mill increase to fund police and fire operations, which they did by a 70 percent margin in the Aug. 2 primary. Stahl claims the approximately $7 million a year generated by the increase will supplement the general fund.

Mary Jane D’Herde, administrator of the Facebook page and the city’s administrator, said Stahl’s anti-tax views weren’t the reason for the ban. Rather, D’Herde said, Stahl is in hot water with the city over statements she made on YouTube videos created as part of her Make Your Vote Count political action committee she formed to oppose the millage increase and posted on the Facebook page.

“She violated the terms of use when she used false and misleading information in her videos about the city’s millage campaign,” D’Herde said, adding the videos were designed to mislead voters.

Stahl and a representative from the city will each have 10 minutes to state their positions at the Wednesday’s appeal, which takes place at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall, 27600 Jefferson Circle Drive.

» For more on this story, go to The Macomb Daily.

Photo illustration by Esther Vargas via Flickr Commons