WAYNE COUNTY
Wayne Co. officials accused of violating campaign finance law at transit meeting
Julia CardiThe Detroit News
July 11, 2026, 11:00 p.m. ET
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Wayne County officials violated campaign finance law by partnering with a transit advocacy group at a recent event to push a transit millage that will go before all county voters in August, according to a complaint filed this week with the Michigan Secretary of State’s office
The complaint, filed this week by attorney Matthew Wilk of Northville, alleges county officials violated campaign finance laws when Deputy County Executive Assad Turfe and other officials from Executive Warren Evans’ office appeared at a June event at Romulus’s senior center along with representatives from Transportation Riders United, a nonprofit that supports the roughly 1-mill SMART measure
A post on Wayne County’s Facebook page from July 1 shows pictures of the event at the center, which was billed as an informational event for seniors about the SMART millage proposal and how it would change available transportation services. The complaint is based on this Facebook post
The complaint alleges county officials violated Section 57 of the Michigan Campaign Finance Act by using public real equipment, the time of county employees and refreshments. Section 57 prohibits government officials from using public re
“Clearly, Wayne County is partnering with an advocacy organization, using public resday
“The ultimate goal is for Wayne County to follow the rules,” Wilk said. “I live in Wayne County. … My tax dollars may have been used to rent this facility; may have been used to provide food, and certainly were used to do some co-sponsorship, or what have you, with an advocacy organization
A spokesperson for Evans’ office denied Wilk’s accusation
“Wayne County has engaged the public in order to educate them related to the August 4th transit ballot initiative. We have followed all laws and are fully compliant with regulations,” Matt Allen, a Wayne County spokesman, said in an email to The News
The complaint is the latest opposition to the 1-mill property tax proposal that will go before voters for renewal Aug. 4. While Wayne County communities were previously allowed to opt out of the transit millage, all 43 cities and townships in the county will vote on it next month, including 17 that have never voted on it before
Michigan’s Legislature passed a bill in 2024 prohibiting the county’s communities from opting out, which Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed in January 2025
Not Smart Wayne, which is registered as a ballot question committee in Wayne County, has made its case against the millage proposal
And Wilk, who contends SMART buses have too low of ridership and generate too little funding from fares to make the millage a worthy taxpayer investment, filed a lawsuit in May alleging the Wayne County Transit Authority violated the Open Meetings Act. He argued the authority didn’t give proper legal notice of a March 19 meeting where it approved ballot language, but a judge dismissed it
But Megan Owens, the executive director of Transportation Riders United, denied any improper advocacy for the millage happened at the June event with Wayne County officials
She said TRU paid for the food provided, and the event was intended to only provide information about the millage proposal and how services would expand if voters approve the measure
“We reminded them that it’s important to vote, but no one ever told anyone how to vote, so I don’t understand what the complaint is. The county officials go out and inform residents about issues all the time,” she said
In Oakland County, communities had been allowed to opt of SMART until 2022, when voters approved a 10-year, 0.95-mill countywide property tax for transit. Macomb County has never allowed communities to opt out. It has a dedicated 0.95-mill property tax for SMART, approved by voters in November 2022 for five years
Of the 17 opt-out communities in Wayne County, Detroit is the only one that gets SMART bus service anyway, because of buses running along major corridors in Detroit’s suburbs such as Michigan and Grand River Avenues. The city funds its own bus system through the Detroit Department of Transportation
In an interview with The Detroit News in May, Turfe said transit provides an important service for people who rely on it to get around; some studies have shown that two-thirds of Detroiters don’t have their own car
At a session of the Detroit Chamber’s annual policy conference in January 2025, Evans did not say residents should vote “yes” or “no” for the millage, but voiced his support for putting the question on the ballot countywide for voters to decide on
“My main issue was, let’s get it on the ballot,” Evans said last year. “Let people decide what we should do, and get rid of some of the misconceptions people have, whether it’s going to be light rail and we’re going to go into the hole for hundreds of millions of dollars and all that. That’s not what we’re talking about.”
The campaign finance complaint requests an investigation by Michigan’s Bureau of Elections and for penalties to be enforced if the state determines the event violated campaign finance law. Wilk said he hopes to send a message to other local governments as well that partnering with advocacy organizations goes too far
But Bob LaBrant, a Michigan attorney and campaign finance expert, said it seems unlikely county officials’ involvement in the event violated campaign finance law, as long as they did not expressly advocate for voting in favor of the millage or do anything to prevent opponents of the proposal from making their own presentation at the event — even if the presentation given was otherwise one-sided
“The onus is on (the people bringing the complaint) to show how this veered off of informational into express advocacy,” he said
