A city attorney involved in a legal effort to shut down a concrete crushing operation he says is a public nuisance is now facing questions about his qualifications. 

The claims come as he works to build evidence for an appeal after a judge declined to revoke the company’s land use permit. 

Related: 

• Detroit residents battle against neighborhood concrete crusher
• Detroit attorney blasts city Law Department in resignation letter

The city submitted a notice in 2022 to revoke the permit for the concrete crushing operation run by Grand Rapids-based Green Valley Properties, which received nearly 300 blight tickets over a two-year period for dust and other issues. But the city, represented by Detroit Law Department Chief of Staff Jason Harrison, was overruled by its blight court, which determined Harrison did not have enough evidence to revoke Green Valley’s permit. 

Harrison disputed the court’s claim during a community meeting last week, while relenting that he wished he had gathered more testimony from residents earlier in the process. 

During the meeting to update residents on the litigation, Harrison said the court’s claims weren’t true “at all.” The city, he said, presented aerial footage of the site as well as testimony from city inspector Gordon Glenn, an affected resident and a geotechnical science expert. 

“We presented that, which is why we think the hearing officer is wrong,” said Harrison, who is appealing the decision in Wayne County Circuit Court. To convince the circuit court that the operation is a nuisance, Harrison is collecting signed affidavits from residents testifying that the dust is affecting them. 

“We believe that this is a public nuisance, which is why being able to attach your affidavits will be very, very important,” Harrison said. “I kind of wish we had done this, or we had the opportunity to do this – and that’s probably more so me as a litigator’s fault than anybody else’s fault – before we went to the [city’s Department of Appeals and Hearings],” he told a room of approximately 30 people. 

“But with that said, we did present a community member who said, ‘I see fugitive dust on my car all the time when I come outside,’ and the hearing officer still ignored that,” Harrison said.

This week, former Detroit Deputy Corporation Counsel Chuck Raimi added more fuel to the fire in a 30-page resignation letter criticizing the law department’s top attorney and calling into question Harrison’s qualifications and his role in the concrete crushing case.

“I humbly suspect that, had I been consulted, there would have been a better result,” Raimi wrote. 

Raimi and Harrison could not be reached for comment.

George Perdue, president of the Schoolcraft Improvement Association, which advocates for the neighborhood affected by the concrete crushing operation, said he thought the community meeting went well and it was helpful to hear directly from Harrison about the case. 

“We got over 20 affidavits [signed at the meeting], which was the goal,” Perdue told BridgeDetroit. “Only God knows how this is going to turn out, but there were obviously some missteps that allowed them to actually go into operation.”

City attorneys will hold another meeting Friday, Jan. 26 online from 3-4 p.m. to provide another opportunity for residents to sign affidavits. 

Issues over the northwest Detroit concrete crusher in the Schoolcraft Southfield neighborhood have continued for years. 

Detroit’s Buildings, Safety Engineering and Environmental Department alleges Green Valley failed to secure permits for an expansion and follow its dust mitigation plan, among other things. The city’s blight court agreed the company’s crusher, Dino-Mite Crushing and Recycling, was noncompliant with some property maintenance codes, but ruled the operation – which stores crushed stone and old concrete in 45-foot-high piles – wasn’t posing a nuisance.

In 2019, Dino-Mite received a permit from the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) to crush up to 600,000 tons of concrete per year at the Greenfield Road site, across from homes. The crushing creates silica dust, which can “irreversibly damage the lungs,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as particulate matter, microscopic particles that can enter the lungs and bloodstream and cause health issues.

Neighbors say the operation also brings heavy traffic and idling trucks that emit exhaust.

Last week, Harrison told community members that a certificate of occupancy should have never been issued by the city, given that the company was supposed to pave the roads as a condition of the land use permit but did not. 

“The positive here is we feel like the DAH hearing officer was wrong,” Harrison said. “The negative here is that we made some procedural mistakes along the way that hurt our legal arguments.” 

The property is owned by Anthony Calo. Calo and his attorney have not responded to BridgeDetroit’s requests for comment.

Council President Pro Tem James Tate also attended the meeting and said he was seeing the city’s presentation for the first time. 

“Thank you for sticking with us, holding us accountable, and we’re going to ensure that we take this on,” Tate told residents. Tate could not be reached for further comment on what his office is doing to support residents. 

Harrison said if the company comes to the city ahead of an appeal hearing with a plan to keep operating while protecting the community and complying with city code he would recommend that city Corporation Counsel Conrad Mallett consider it. It’s a decision, Harrison said, that would be made by Mallett, the mayor and Tate.