Kid Rock named on Oakley Police reserve application, attorney says

MLive – by Brad Devereaux

OAKLEY, MI — A name commonly heard shouted over a rap/rock mix of drums, bass, guitars and turntables is one that the village of Oakley fought to keep quiet for years.

Robert James Ritchie, known by the stage name Kid Rock, is listed on an application for the village police reserve force that Hemlock Attorney Philip Ellison received in the mail from Oakley earlier this month.

The name is perhaps the most famous one associated with the Oakley Police Department’s reserve unit, which includes many well known Michigan professionals and Miami Dolphins player Jason Fox.  

It’s the latest twist in a two-year controversy involving police funding and reserve officers in the village of 300 in southern Saginaw County. The Oakley village reserve force has 148 members, many from metropolitan Detroit, according to village records. The revelation of Ritchie’s application brings that total to 149 reservists.

The names of the reservists have been a closely held secret by the village. Several Freedom of Information Act court cases are now shedding light on who is a reserve officer and who has donated tens of thousands of dollars to the village’s police fund.

The village sent Ritchie’s application to Ellison’s Hemlock office last week inside a box of documents after a judge in March ruled that the village did not give up enough records to satisfy a FOIA request.

Ellison said he put a document to Shiawassee County Circuit Court in the U.S. mail on Monday, April 13, asking the judge to allow him to release the record to the public. Until a hearing on the topic takes place, however, the document will remain sealed by court order, Ellison said, though he is allowed under the judge’s ruling to talk about it.

The motion asks Shiawassee County Circuit Judge Matthew Stewart to allow the part of the “application to become a reserve officer/critical incident response team member for the village of Oakley reservist Robert James Ritchie” to be released to the public, acknowledging an earlier order by the judge requiring documents to be given to Ellison and the court but not immediately to the public.

“There are real questions of public importance as to why and how the Village of Oakley Police Chief would come into contact with such an international rock
star and why this international rock star would have any legitimate interest in such volunteer activities such as cooking hot dogs at community events or inspecting Halloween candy,” the motion states, citing previous media interviews with Reznick saying that was one role of reservists.

Access to such details about the reservist program would give residents the ability to decide whether the Village of Oakley police reserve program is a pay-to-play scheme, Ellison argues.

He plans to bring the document to the hearing to allow the court to review it before ruling.

While Ellison said he has heard the rumor that Kid Rock was a reservist plenty of times, finding the application that he believes provides proof that the rocker was linked to the reserve force was a surprise to him.

The Saginaw News is seeking comment from Ritchie and his agent.

Rumors of reservist rocker

Then-Oakley Village President Doug Shindorf said before his death in June that Oakley Chief of Police Rob Reznick told him Kid Rock was a reservist, though Shindorf had never met Ritchie nor seen any paperwork with his name on it.

Shindorf has said that Ritchie never came to a village meeting, though he laughed, “I wouldn’t know him if I saw him.”

Shindorf said Ritchie’s uncle got Ritchie involved.

“I’m not good with names, I don’t write them down,” Shindorf said when asked if he knew the names of other reservists.

“I was happy when he came on,” he said about Ritchie.

Ritchie’s name did not appear on a list the village released last month that it said includes donors to the police fund. Ritchie’s application likewise was not among the 148 that the village released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by a resident.

“That’s news to me,” Oakley Village President Richard Fish said when informed that an application had surfaced with Robert James Ritchie’s name on it.

He said Kid Rock being on the reserve force does not bother him.

“As far as I’m concerned, he’s just another person,” Fish said.

Fish said he does not know why the name was not given out with the rest of the reservist names.

“It bothers me that it wasn’t given out, but I didn’t deal with applications, I don’t really know,” Fish said, noting he and Oakley Clerk Cheryl Bolf went through records at the village offices but did not handle reservist applications and other police records.

Reznick would not confirm for The Saginaw News during interviews in the spring of 2014 that Kid Rock was a reservist.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Reznick said in early 2015 in response to a question about whether Kid Rock was a reservist. He told The Saginaw News in February to stop contacting him.

Nick Stern, the agent representing Kid Rock, did not respond to requests for comment left by phone at his office and by email beginning in March 2014 and as late as April 2015.

Who’s policing here?

When Oakley in 2013 denied resident Shannon Bitterman’s Freedom of Information Act requests seeking information about the police reservists and donors to the police fund, she turned to Hemlock attorney Ellison of Outside Legal Counsel to take the matter to court.

“When I originally took the case, I thought it was going to be a fairly straightforward FOIA case,” Ellison said, calling the type of case “usually very routine for someone who practices in government transparency.”

Ellison filed a complaint to fight the denial April 3, 2013, in Saginaw County Circuit Court.

“I really don’t know why, what law is out there, that prevents me having names of the volunteers who help our village pay its bills. We’re not a nonprofit,” Bitterman told The Saginaw News in April 2014. “To me, these people are paying the village bills to a huge degree, and when I ask who is paying the bills, I should have those names and the number.”

Reznick previously said the reserve force was about 100 strong and included doctors, lawyers and other professionals.

He has said the reserve force does only good for the village. In past interviews he said he believes his reserve officers have the right to keep their identities secret.

Saginaw County Circuit Judge Robert L. Kaczmarek ruled Feb. 20, 2014, that the village of 300 people had the authority to keep secret the names of current reservists or those serving within the past three years.

The court also ruled that the names and addresses of the police fund donors could be kept from public disclosure because “the anonymous donor information is exempt from FOIA disclosure.”

Ellison appealed the ruling on March 24, 2014.

The Saginaw News ran a series about Oakley called “Small Town, Big Problem” in late March 2014.

The news coverage revealed that the village was losing its insurance coverage due to the number of lawsuits involving the village and its officials and because of the police department’s lack of cooperation, according to their insurer, the Michigan Municipal League.

The Michigan Attorney General’s Office announced it was investigating the Oakley Police Department and sent a series of subpoenas to the village on behalf of the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards.

Village attorney Richard Hamilton responded that the village did not have to provide the names of its reservists as subpoenaed to do so, arguing that MCOLES does not have authority over reserve officers.

“I was quite surprised at the lengths the village went to to protect what appears to be a continual stream of money being paid to the village, which was granting badges to reservists,” Ellison said.

Reznick has said that reservists are not required to make donations, though many have. Dozens of names on a list of donors to the police donation fund also appear on reservist applications.

After denying two separate additional FOIA requests for information about the reserve officers, the village was sued twice more. One case was in Wayne County and the other was filed in Shiawasee County.

“They fought very, very hard and spent a large amount of resources trying to oppose a relatively routine requirement,” Ellison said.

“They more they fought, the more it made you believe they were hiding things, and now we know that to be true.”

The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that the names of donors had to be disclosed and was continuing on the question about the secrecy of reservist names when the village voluntarily released the information.

Oakley Village Attorney Richard Hamilton recommended to the village council in February to release the information in an effort to end litigation.

The village then disclosed 145 names on reservist applications to Ellison that it said were people serving on the reserve force. Subsequently, the village released more applications, bringing the total to 148 reservist applications.

When the village gave up the names, it did not assert any exemptions to the FOIA request being fought in court, which Ellison argued means he should get every document with information about a reservist. The judge agreed and gave the village 30 days to give all the records.

During the Shiawassee County hearing, the village released several more names and Hamilton told the judge the village had at that time given Ellison a complete record of reservists.

In early April, Ellison received by mail a box of documents from the village of Oakley.

Among the documents that included police dailies, passports and records, was the reservist application with Robert Ritchie Jr.’s name on it.

Ellison noted that the village did not release Ritchie’s name with the rest of the names during multiple releases of documents leading to and during the March 4 hearing in Shiawassee County court.

“I take that as the village was trying to hide his name,” Ellison said, noting he is still researching the rest of the contents of the box.

It contains about 2,000 pages, Ellison estimates, and includes reservist applications, meeting minutes, firearm inspection reports, handwritten records, police reports and what Ellison called a “call sheet.”

“It’s amazing,” Ellison said, noting village officials said earlier they could find no additional records regarding the police department.

Through months of research, Ellison said he learned more about the scope and size of the reserve force and noted that if he had trouble finding out details about the reserve force, certainly Oakley residents would, too.

He said he is “extremely pleased” that courts ultimately decided the case on the side of transparency and openness.

“Government secrecy has resulted in a number of individuals who you would never guess are in any way related to a small rural village,” Ellsion said, “but they are directly connected in a secret police program.

“It’s up to village residents now to decide whether or not it’s a a good idea have a program where individuals pay money to receive a badge.”

— Brad Devereaux is a public safety reporter for MLive/The Saginaw News. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ 

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