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SAGINAW, MI — A Saginaw City Council member up for reelection next month could face felony charges stemming from allegations she falsified signatures on the nominating petition forms of another individual seeking a seat on the council.
Michigan Secretary of State officials confirmed Monique Lamar-Silvia, a council member since 2021, was under investigation.
Saginaw County Clerk officials provided MLive with documents that show correspondence between the county clerk and office of the Saginaw City Clerk, whose staff flagged the signatures that launched the state investigation, the documents stated.
The evidence includes video surveillance outside Saginaw City Hall, 315 S. Washington, where Lamar-Silvia on July 24 was “appearing to falsify signatures on the nominating petition forms” of Eric Eggleston, reads an email from City Clerk Kristine Bolzman to state elections officials.
Saginaw County Clerk officials, who were CC’ed on the email, provided the city clerk’s correspondence to MLive.
The email from Bolzman states Eggleston brought nominating petition forms to City Hall, where officials made him aware he was six signatures short of the 50 signatures necessary to qualify as a candidate.
“He obtained two additional sheets from the Clerk’s Office and proceeded outside to gather signatures in front of City Hall,” Bolzman’s email read. “Ms. Silvia joined him.”
Later, Lamar-Silvia moved near the office window of a City Hall official, who observed the councilperson “writing for a length of time on the petition sheet.”
Within minutes, Eggleston returned inside City Hall with additional signatures, where city officials observed “it was evident that” some of the voters listed on the additional forms “had not signed the sheets themselves,” Bolzman’s email stated.
“There are misspellings in the print and signature of the first two names, and it is not clear what first name is signed on the third name but none of the three signatures match the (Qualified Voter File) records,” Bolzman’s email stated.
Her email stated officials then observed camera footage outside City Hall, where they attempted to match the visuals of Lamar-Silvia’s and Eggleston’s actions with what was observed on the forms.
A 16-minute clip from the camera footage showed Lamar-Silvia approaching and obtaining signatures from individuals before herself laying a form on the concrete wall and filling columns across the page “while checking her phone repeatedly,” the email stated.
Bolzman’s email to Michigan election officials stated, “I find this to be a violation of (Michigan Election Law, Section 168.544c) and request your thorough review.”
That law states in part, “An individual shall not sign a petition with multiple names. An individual who violates this subsection is guilty of a felony.”
Lamar-Silvia, Bolzman and Eggleston did not respond to messages from MLive seeking comment.
Lamar-Silvia, a 64-year-old former scholarship pageant organizer and prison minister, remains a candidate in an 11-person race for five council seats with 4-year terms. While Election Day arrives Tuesday, Nov. 5, absentee ballots reached Saginaw mailboxes in recent days, meaning voting has started.
She first won office in November 2020, when she received the second-most votes — 6,334 votes — among that election cycle’s 11 candidates vying for five seats.
While Eggleston was not under a state investigation and did not qualify as a candidate in this November’s race, he is a familiar name at Saginaw City Hall.
The Saginaw City Council — including Lamar-Silvia — in January 2023 allocated $1.3 million in federal stimulus funds to Youth Development Corp., a Saginaw nonprofit Eggleston founded that was to provide education in trade skills to at-risk youths.
Less than a year later, though, the council reversed that decision and decided to reallocate those funds after it was discovered Eggleston’s organization was involved in a 2020 federal audit with financial issues that remained unresolved.
The council in March 2023 provided Eggleston a 6-month deadline to resolve the organization’s issues, which he failed to accomplish. Lamar-Silvia was among the council members to approve the deadline he failed to meet.
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