Lapeer City Commission · Public-records dossier

The mayor called it "for cause."
His own bloc wouldn't.

Six officials reviewed City Manager Mike Womack on the same form. The four who scored him down are the same four who vote as one bloc, and who hired the investigator, set the hearing, and rewrote the review form days before grading. Every claim below is drawn from the public record.

Average of all six reviews

3.14

On the commission's own scale, that's "Meets Expectations."

vs.

The mayor, alone

1.60

The only failing grade, and the only 24-page "for cause" brief.

In May, the Mayor of Lapeer gave City Manager Mike Womack a failing grade and built the case to fire him "for cause." It came with a 24-page write-up, 21 exhibits, and a citation to Womack's contract on nearly every page. It looked airtight.

We read all of it: every meeting minute since this commission took office, the employment contract, and all 21 exhibits. The more we read, the clearer one thing got. This is not a performance review. It is a firing, dressed up as one.

The case in one sentence

The mayor wrote the test, weighted 40% of it on whether the manager got along with him, pushed it through on a party-line 3-2 vote days before grading, filed 21 exhibits to justify a firing, and not one clears the bar set by the contract he keeps citing.

Here is what the public record shows

Exhibit A

Six reviewers, one form. Only the mayor failed him.

Overall weighted scores. The mayor scored the lowest ethics mark possible (a flat 1.00, every line); two commissioners gave a perfect 5.00.

Unsatisfactory Needs improvement Meets Outstanding

HingMayor · bloc

avg 3.14

1.60

PetrieMayor pro tem · bloc

2.00

McCarthybloc

2.28

Glismanbloc

2.97

Bradyindependent

5.00

Atwoodindependent

5.00

Mayor's voting bloc The two independents dashed line = six-reviewer average (3.14)

On this scale, 3.0 and up counts as "Meets Expectations." Bars ending left of the dashed line fall below the six-reviewer average.

Exhibit B

The measuring stick changed, days before grading

A fair review measures the year against a standard set in advance. This one was written by the mayor himself, swapped in after the year ended, and not adopted by the Commission until a party-line vote days before grading.

May 2025 to May 2026

The year being judged

The evaluation period runs May 8, 2025 through May 1, 2026.

Apr 28, 2026

The mayor hands the Clerk a form he wrote himself

Emails show Mayor Hing personally drafted the new instrument (the Clerk refers to "the CM Evaluation that you are working on"; he replies, "Please find the updated Evaluation attached"). It is distributed to commissioners that evening, replacing the form the City had used for years.

Apr 30, 2026

A commissioner refuses the new form, in writing

Commissioner Brady emails the full commission, calling the revised instrument "designed to produce an artificially low score," and declines to use it. The mayor's same-day reply concedes the form was never separately adopted by the Commission, but argues none was required.

May 4, 2026

The bloc swaps the form 3-2 · #116 & #117

Motion to keep the old form fails 2-3. Minutes later, the bloc adopts the revised form 3-2. Brady and Atwood vote no on both.

May 6 to 18, 2026

All six reviews are completed

Every evaluation is filled out on the just-adopted form.

Result

The mayor scores 1.60, and calls for termination "for cause"

A grade no other reviewer, not even his own bloc, came close to.

The old form (used for years)

10 co-equal categories, no weighting, no tiers
Simple A / B / C letter grades, no averaging
No "ethics" category at all
No score math, and no "corrective action" trigger
No KPIs

The form the mayor wrote

9 weighted sections on a new three-tier structure
40% of the grade on "relationship" plus a brand-new "ethics" section
Numeric 1 to 5 scoring; a sub-3.0 average is labeled "corrective action required"
New KPIs that read like specific disputes: 48-hour replies, "don't call questions improper," "get City Attorney review first"
One friction incident is scorable in three sections at once

The mayor's fair point: the form does not generate a score, an evaluator still enters the numbers, and a straight "meets" across the board still averages to "meets." But it hands whoever wants a low number the leverage to reach one, by making "relationship" and "ethics" 40% of the grade and letting a single dispute count three times.

Exhibit C

The clauses he kept quoting are the firing clause

Throughout the review the mayor marks Womack "in violation of § 7.4.b, .e, .f, .h, .i." But § 7.4 is not a list of job duties. Section 7 of the contract is titled "Termination," and § 7.4 is the "for cause" clause. Its lettered items are the grounds for firing, so each citation is the mayor asserting Womack committed a fireable offense.

He cited	What § 7.4 actually says (verbatim grounds for a "for cause" firing)
7.4.b	"Misconduct ... which ... brings disrepute to the office of City Manager"
7.4.e	"Dishonesty, intentional falsification of records ... or deliberate misrepresentation of material facts to the City Council"
7.4.f	"Willful neglect or abandonment of ... duties"
7.4.h	"Violations of ... laws, the City Charter ... which would expose the City to significant civil liability"
7.4.i	"Material breach of this Agreement"

The items in that same list the mayor did not cite: (a) felony conviction, (c) gross negligence, (d) fraud or embezzlement, (g) illegal-drug use or intoxication. That is the company he put intemperate emails and a billing-invoice dispute in. The clause also requires the conduct to have been "intentionally committed."

Does that conduct clear the bar? No.

To fire "for cause," § 7.4 requires the Commission to find the manager "intentionally committed" a listed ground. Every ground has to pass three tests. The mayor's reasons fail all three.

Intent

The act must be "intentional," "deliberate," or "willful." His evidence is disputes and judgment calls, not intent to deceive or harm the City.

Severity

The grounds demand conduct that "substantially impairs" the manager's work, "brings disrepute," creates "significant civil liability," or is a "material breach." Sharp emails, one slow directive, and an Open Meetings dispute do not reach that.

Class of conduct

The same list includes felony, fraud, embezzlement, and drug use. Rudeness and a contested privilege call are not in that company.

§ 7.4 fires people for serious, intentional wrongdoing. The mayor's reasons are performance-and-personality friction, which is what the annual review exists to handle, not a firing.

His two strongest cards, the Open Meetings violation and the privileged-invoice disclosure, still miss: the OMA issue produced no lawsuit and no voided City action, and being wrong on a contested privilege question is not "dishonesty." And § 7.4 requires a finding by "a majority of the full commission," yet only one of six reviewers went to for cause.

Why the label is worth six figures

Fired "for cause": severance is forfeited. The manager receives only earned, unused paid time off.

12 to 15 mo.

Fired without cause: 12 months of total compensation, or 15 months if within three months of new members being seated.

The bill that most likely lands

$141,000 to $175,000

Letting him go without cause is what the contract's severance actually points to, and 12 months of total compensation is the probable payout. The floor is his roughly $135,000 salary plus the $6,000 car allowance; it climbs from there once the medical, life, and accrued-leave items the contract also counts are added. Estimated from public salary figures; the city's actual benefit costs would sharpen it.

"For cause" is not only about reputation; it is the difference between a six-figure severance check and none.

And the contract says who sets the yardstick

Section 4 requires the Commission, not the mayor alone, to evaluate annually and, "with the input of the Manager, ... define, in writing, the goals and performance objectives." The bloc's May 4 form, with new KPIs and no Womack input, is the opposite of that.

Exhibit D

We ran all 21 of the mayor's exhibits through the bar

Every exhibit the mayor attached to justify "for cause," read in full and tested for intent, severity, and class, then checked against the actual document.

0/21

clear the "for cause" bar.

8 raise fair performance-review concerns (tone, decorum, one Open Meetings wrinkle) but not intentional, serious misconduct. 10 are contradicted or undercut by the document itself. 3 aren't even Womack's conduct: two are the mayor's own emails, one is a meeting-minutes excerpt.

Ex	What the mayor filed	Verdict
1	Social District proposal (said "if the Commission would consider it")	NO
2	A template request he actually granted, called a "refusal"	NO
3	Called elected attendance "abnormal," but "won't object"	WEAK
4	Combative "messy and expensive" email, replying to a firing threat	WEAK
5	An excerpt of the Dec 15 meeting minutes (Motion 301)	NO
6	The mayor's own Social District "correction" email	NO
7	One resident's disputed demeanor complaint	WEAK
8	The Open Meetings notice issue (his best card)	WEAK
9	"Advised against" a tour to protect appeal neutrality	NO
10	An "internal contradiction" that isn't in the email	NO
11	The mayor's own workshop-withdrawal email	NO
12	Phoning four members re a meeting (self-flagged OMA, posted notice)	WEAK
13	A privilege call he deferred to counsel and self-corrected	NO
14	A cooperative resignation, framed as "coercion"	NO
15	Said questions felt like "interrogating me"	WEAK
16	Called a motion "disrespectful" and "maybe intentional" (public)	WEAK
17	Disclosing enforcement pacing TO the Commission	NO
18	Internal skepticism plus a pledge to investigate and remediate	NO
19	Blunt tone to a constituent plus a $200 offer she could appeal	WEAK
20	Litigation-caution pushback on citizen-to-attorney contact	NO
21	A reply that reports an employee was reprimanded	NO

Key: WEAK = a fair review-level concern, not intentional cause-caliber misconduct. NO = the document undercuts the claim, or it isn't the manager's conduct. None reached "MEETS."

Where his own exhibits turn on him

Ex 4: points to "a corroborating reply from Commissioner McCarthy in the same thread," but no such reply is included in the exhibit (it is a single Womack email; McCarthy is only a recipient).
Ex 10: the alleged "internal contradiction" rests on Womack's own distinction, avoiding the "legal issues" while raising non-legal "concerns"; an arguable tension at most, not the factual contradiction claimed.
Ex 13: claims Womack's privilege view was "confirmed wrong by Bodman," a confirmation not in the exhibit, when Womack had in fact already deferred to the City Attorney and pulled the invoice himself.
Ex 14: frames a cooperative resignation ("to effectuate the Mayor's stated intention") as an attempt "to compel" a seat.
Ex 18, 19, 21: three emails about one garden-damage dispute, counted as three strikes; Ex 21 actually documents an employee reprimand, the opposite of "resists correction."

In fairness, a few exhibits raise real review-level concerns: the Open Meetings notice issue, the privilege error, a sharp public remark. Those belong in a performance review. None is the intentional, serious misconduct a "for cause" firing requires.

Exhibit E

The voting wall

Every decisive vote touching the manager, the investigator, the review, or the mayor's power broke the identical way. Fourteen straight. The line never moved.

FOR ▸ Petrie · McCarthy · Glisman outvoting, every single time AGAINST ▸ Brady · Atwood

Date	What the bloc pushed through	Vote
Nov 17 '25	Elect Petrie Mayor Pro Tem	3-2
Dec 1 '25	Censure Commissioner Brady	3-2
Dec 15 '25	Hire Bodman PLC as outside labor counsel	3-2
Mar 2 '26	Approve Bodman billing ($1,311)	3-1*
Mar 2 '26	Name the Mayor sole contact for Bodman	3-1*
Mar 16 '26	Planning Commission seat & Womack's role	3-1*
Apr 6 '26	Reject postponing the Bodman bill	3-2
May 4 '26	Reject the old review form	3-2
May 4 '26	Adopt the revised review form	3-2
May 18 '26	Keep the Bodman invoice bundled (block itemizing)	3-2
May 18 '26	Set the July 20 review hearing	3-2
May 18 '26	Refuse to compel a written Bodman opinion	3-2
May 21 '26	Hire Bodman to investigate Womack (Hing & Petrie in control)	3-1*
Jun 1 '26	Defeat a motion to censure Mayor Hing	3-2

* The four 3-1 votes: Commissioner Atwood was absent (excused) for the March 2, March 16, and May 21 meetings. The split is otherwise identical: the bloc versus Commissioner Brady, with the second opposition seat simply empty.

Exhibit F

The two camps, and what we're not claiming

The review scores and the voting record are the same map.

The mayor's bloc

HingMayor (chairs; not in tallies)1.60

PetrieMayor Pro Tem2.00

McCarthyCommissioner2.28

GlismanCommissioner2.97

The two independents

BradyCalled the form "rigged"; refused it5.00

AtwoodRefused to score the "trap" KPIs5.00

Both were routinely gaveled "out of order" by the chair.

In fairness: the honest caveats

The manager isn't spotless. Multiple reviewers flagged real issues (an attorney-client-privilege lapse, tone with the public). But even his critics stopped at "needs improvement," not "fire for cause."
The bloc isn't robotic. On routine, non-political items, a road diet, a land agreement, a pickleball court, members crossed freely. The 3-2 wall hardens specifically around the manager, Bodman, the form, and the mayor's power.
The mayor votes only to break a tie. Hing chairs the meetings and appears in no roll-call tally in these minutes; he votes only when there is a tie to break. With his three-commissioner bloc winning 3-2, a tie never arises, so he prevails without ever voting, then backs the result from the chair.
We are not claiming he is owed a hearing. The for-cause clause sets a high bar (the act must be "intentionally committed" and approved by a majority of the full commission), but by its own terms it does not require notice, a hearing, or a chance to cure. Our case rests on the severance motive and the process, not a missing hearing.
The contract cuts both ways. Its § 7.5 bars the City and the manager from disparaging each other, so the mayor's own public "for cause" review may run against the same contract he keeps citing. We flag that as an open question, not a proven breach.

The mayor called it "for cause."His own bloc wouldn't.