CLINTON TOWNSHIP — As prosecution against the owner of the Goo Smoke Shop is set to continue later this month, Clinton Township trustees approved their own investigation of sorts along party lines.
Published February 13, 2025
CLINTON TOWNSHIP — As prosecution against the owner of the Goo Smoke Shop is set to continue later this month, Clinton Township trustees approved their own investigation of sorts along party lines.
The Clinton Township Board of Trustees voted 4-3 on Feb. 10 to establish a committee to develop a summary of the events surrounding the Goo Smoke Shop fire and explosions. Initially proposed at the Jan. 27 board meeting, the proposal’s creator, Trustee Dan Kress, told the board the group would develop a summary for the benefit of the three newest part-time trustees.
“It’s a summary with three board members that we put together,” Kress said. “There’s no public input. There’s no public hearing. Because it’s a three-person committee, it’s not an open meeting, and I’m looking to just gather information that we share with each other, or we share in closed session.”
According to the proposal document submitted with the Feb. 10 meeting agenda packet, the summary committee is tasked with “look(ing) into the Township’s permitting practices, approvals, ordinances, emergency notification system and overall response” in order to “provide an honest summary including the financial burden ultimately left to our taxpayers.” The final summary developed by the committee would include “an overview and ultimately a special recognition certificate for every devoted & heroic Firefighter, Police officer, or Township worker that braved the sight during and after the explosion.”
The move to form the committee comes nearly a year after the fire, as well as a year after Kress’ election to the board and months after King and Wade were elected themselves. Kress said he has not received an update about the incident since officially joining the board.
“We (trustees) are in the dark regarding facts,” Kress said. “Regarding whether the case is closed. Regarding whether the EPA investigation (had concluded), the ATF, FBI. If there’s a report, we’ve never been shared any of that and none of that is privileged information for you (Supervisor Paul Gieleghem) to have or the planner to have or for anybody to have. The board needs to stay attuned to what’s happening, what happened and plan forward in the spirit of transparency.”
Approval of the group came along party lines with all board Republicans — trustees Kress and Wade along with Township Treasurer Mike Aiello and Township Clerk Kim Meltzer — voting to approve while Democrats — trustees King and Julie Matuzak, along with Gieleghem — voting against it with concerns that the committee’s work could sway the legal proceedings in favor of Goo’s owner.
“I totally want us to learn what we can learn about what happened,” Matuzak said. “I want us to make sure our ordinances are in the best possible shape, that we can do this. I am just really concerned that having this committee inadvertently can really hurt this criminal trial, and I’m very concerned about that.”
Gieleghem told trustees Macomb County Prosecutor Peter Lucido advised him not to “prejudice a jury” and told Deputy Supervisor Dan O’Leary to not “let the township screw up (his) case.” Township Attorney Jack Dolan told trustees the township was working with state legislators to force Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel to issue an opinion on whether the township could investigate businesses like Goo Smoke Shop without prior warning.
“You catch criminals who want to be undetected by being able to catch them by surprise, and we’re hoping that we can get a ruling that we can enter these types of facilities without having to give notice so they can (with), whatever they were doing illegally, disguise or hide it, remove the items and so on,” Dolan said.
The AG’s opinion would be used to direct changes to the code of ordinances regarding searches.
Dolan also pushed back against a claim in Kress’ proposal stating the federal government’s investigation into the explosion had finished. While the Environmental Protection Agency’s cleanup of the site ended, Dolan said he was unaware of ongoing investigations and that the FBI’s official stance on any investigation would be neither confirmed nor denied.
Kress expressed a willingness to have the summary’s public release withheld until the end of legal proceedings.
Elections changes
Trustees also voted 5-2 to cut the number of voting precincts in half, reducing the number from 42 to 20 and the number of polling locations from 23 to 19. The change comes in the wake of the maximum precinct population size being raised from 2,999 to 4,999 people in 2023 and was described by Matthew Cheung, elections coordinator, as a cost-cutting measure and a response to a growing number of absentee voters.
The measure also removed early in-person voting as an option for the May 6 Mount Clemens Community Schools bond election.
Gieleghem and King voted against the measure.
On another election matter, trustees voted unanimously to use $29,900 in grant funds to purchase cameras, video recorders and other equipment to monitor ballot drop boxes throughout the township.
