A former Grand Rapids city commissioner is pushing back against fraud allegations involving his role in a city-backed cannabis social equity program, saying the companies that paid millions into the initiative failed to follow through on their own commitments.
“I’m extremely disappointed, I guess we can go ahead and call it righteously indignant, that they would have the gall to include me in the lawsuit,” Joe Jones told Crain’s Grand Rapids Business Friday afternoon. “They seem to be painting a picture that I’m somehow benefiting from all of this. In fact, a nonprofit board of directors, it’s a volunteer position.”
Jones, who represented the city’s second ward from 2016 to 2022, denied the allegations from six cannabis companies included in a March 17 complaint against him and a nonprofit he’s leading, Seeding Justice Grand Rapids.
The amended claims as part of an original lawsuit against the city of Grand Rapids alleging the city’s Cannabis Social Equity Program is unlawful. New claims of fraud and conspiracy are directed at Jones and Seeding Justice, an independent nonprofit created to collect funds for social equity work…