Mayor Randy Walker Courtesty of Garden City

GARDEN CITY — Seven residents were not able to plead with the City Council to save their homes because officials planned to have a pizza party after the meeting. 

Councilmembers left the session on Monday, Nov. 9 without taking public comment from the former homeowners facing eviction. 

Mayor Randy Walker said the meeting’s main purpose was to swear in new officials, The Detroit News reported. Those meetings usually do not include public comment; and a party was planned immediately after, he said.

“It’s a happy occasion,” Walker told The News. “We had food waiting. We had pizza coming out of the oven at 7:45 (p.m.).”

The explanation was not acceptable to Nicholis P. Dunsky, whose home was foreclosed because of back taxes. He faces eviction and attended the council meeting with his family to fight against it.

“That’s a … (poor) excuse,” he told The News. “We felt like we didn’t matter.”

Garden City, like Dearborn and several other cities, acquired tax-foreclosed homes from Wayne County before they were offered in a public auction. Developers, including JSR Funding of Warren, then purchased the homes with plans to flip them for profit.

Officials in the cities said they want to prevent blight and deter absentee landlords from buying properties at the county’s fall auction. But many homeowners said they thought they had time to save their homes before the auction. They did not know their homes had been sold until they received eviction notices.

University of Michigan law professor and Detroit News attorney Leonard Niehoff said some form of public comment is legally required at public meetings. Violations are misdemeanors punishable by fines of up to $1,000.

Walker said public comment is typically not heard at swearing-in ceremonies. He said protesters “can come to the next Council meeting” but the city is unlikely to intervene in their cases.

“The houses were foreclosed by the county,” Walker told The News. “We are not the property owner anymore. It’s out of our hands.”