Fireworks will follow appointment of new Circuit Court Judge

There will be a new Livingston County Circuit Court Judge in April when Judge Stanley J. Latreille retires after 26-years on the bench. But the real excitement will come over finding his replacement.

In predominantly Republican Livingston County, nonpartisan races are sometimes the most exciting, and voters must judge the candidate on their merits instead of them just having an R after their name. But that has not stopped the county GOP in its quest to do away with non-partisan elections.

The Governor fills judicial vacancies, and Gov. Jennifer Granholm will appoint a candidate to fill Latreille's seat after a candidate review period. The replacement judge will serve until the next election in 2010, and then they will have to run to fill the remainder of Latreille's term that runs through 2012.

We saw how the GOP tried to smear Livingston County District Judge Theresa Brennan as a whacked out troop-hating, pro-abortion liberal after the Governor appointed her to fill the vacant district judge seat. She has had to run for the seat twice after getting the appointment, and she won handily, defeating Jay Drick, a member of the county GOP's executive committee. Brennan has been mentioned as a possible candidate for Latreille's seat.

According to the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus, Brighton Attorney Mike Hatty has applied for the vacancy. I got to know Hatty when I was a reporter. He is the attorney for rural Deerfield Township, and I did a feature story on him. He is a stand up guy, and he would make an excellent judge.

Latreille will be missed. I met him at a fundraiser, and I covered a few court proceedings he presided over. What I really liked about him is he was once a reporter for the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News, and he is an author. He wrote the crime novel "Perjury," and it's a very good read.

Newspaper fails to find real cause for failure of bond milage

The local newspaper finally picked up on the fact that the Livingston County Republican Party was trying to influence the Brighton Area Schools bond issue that was defeated on Election Day.

Better late than never, but it certainly let the party chair get off with a lame excuse; letting him claim that the predominate party in the county was not advocating for the election but simply allowing the opponents of the bond issue to store the campaign signs there.

A group calling itself "Parents Union Local No. 1" that is made up of members of the county party’s executive committee advocated for the defeat of the bond issue, and according to the article, Allan Filip, chair of the party, claims the party did not take a position. Right, and I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you.

The question the reporter or editor at the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus who wrote the piece should have asked is of the group operated by party officials is registered as a Political Action Committee or a ballot committee. In order to spend money to influence the outcome of an election must, which they admitted they paid for the signs, they must be registered.

The school district was seeking a $15 million bond for buses and technology, and a separate capital projects sinking fund on the Nov. 4 ballot. With the bond funds, the school would have purchased 1,600 new computers and 46 new school buses. While this is not entirely a new millage, it replaces an old one with a slightly higher millage.

The combined building millage and the technology/bus bond would equal about 1 mill, which is slightly higher than the building/sinking fund millage rate that expired in 2007. That millage rate was 0.9 mills, or 90 cents in taxes per each $1,000 of taxable value." It would have cost the owner of a $200,000 house $100 a year or about 28 cents a day.

That still would have left homeowners - in the most affluent area in one of the most affluent counties in the state - with the lowest school millage in Livingston County. Without those needed improvements, it will become more difficult to compete for school-of-choice students, causing the district to lose even more funding.

What is even more stunning is in light of the newspaper’s failure to ask a basic question, is an editorial in the same issue blaming the school board for the ballot failure because of the teacher’s contract they approved in April that gave teacher’s whopping 1.13 percent to 2.26 percent raise over three years, offset by requiring teacher’s to pay for their own health care.

“Tired of the fact that its school board steadfastly spends money it doesn't have, voters in the Brighton Area Schools district resoundingly defeated two requests for new taxes Tuesday,” the editorial begins.

Generally, editorials advocate for something, but I’m not sure what this one is advocating for. Being one of the most affluent communities in the area, it would make sense that in order to live here teachers need to make a decent salary. Many teachers live outside the community, but with zero mass transit opportunities they have to drive in to work. I know the price of gasoline has fallen steadily from its high marl of more than $4 a gallon, but I don’t think that’s going to continue. Teachers in Brighton are not even the highest paid in the county. That honor belongs to teachers in Pinckney Community Schools.

The editorial then goes after board member Joe Carney, who is a friend of mine. It calls him, “veteran board member Joe Carney.” I’m not sure how veteran a first-term board member can really be.

“Did the school board get the message? Not if the response by veteran board member Joe Carney is typical. As the thrashing of the tax issues became apparent election night, Carney deflected any responsibility from the school board. The fault, he said, belonged squarely on the back of recently departed Superintendent Jim Craig.”

The editorial goes on further to quote Carney, "I lay this on the very poorly ran campaign to get this done," Carney told our reporter. "The guy (Craig) that was supposed to be leading the parade, who recommended we do this, his mind was elsewhere."
Amazing. And wrong.”

I disagree. The superintendent is the one who recommended the millage. Plus, before being named superintendent he was the assistant superintendent for finance. His job is to sell the mileage within the constraints of campaign finance law. It seems a little suspect that in the most affluent district in the county he can’t sell a much needed millage that will cost homeowners a mere 28 cents a day. Instead, he was looking for a new job.

Clearly, that’s not the only reason for the defeat. The teacher’s contract, wrongly, contributed to the loss, but when the party that controls every political office in the county from U.S. Congress down to 90 percent of the township positions advocates for the defeat of a common sense proposal, some of the blame should be placed at their feet.

That’s where the newspaper should look, and they failed.

Republicans incognito try to influence millage election

Something is fishy in Brighton, and if that's the case it's a pretty good bet that the Livingston County Republican Party is behind it.

In Tuesday's General Election, the Brighton Area School district was seeking a $15 million bond for buses and technology, and a separate capital projects sinking fund that was defeated. With the bond funds, the school planned to purchase 1,600 new computers and 46 new school buses. While this is not entirely a new millage, it would have replaced an old one with a slightly higher millage. If approved, it would have cost the owner of a $200,000 house in affluent Brighton $100 a year or about 28 cents a day.

That still would have left homeowners with the lowest school millage in Livingston County. Without those needed improvements, it will become more difficult to compete for school-of-choice students, causing the district to lose even more funding.

While watching a Youtube video of Michigan Republican Party Chair Saul Anuzis make a stop in Brighton just a few days before the election for his highly successful "Fight to the Finish Tour," I was surprised to notice among the candidate yard signs stacked up was a stack of yard signs urging people to vote no on the millage. I had no idea why a political party would advocate against a local millage issue.

Raising further suspicions was a story in the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus two days after the election on a group calling itself "Parents Union Local No. 1" pushing to reopen the teacher contract that was just approved in April and put their health benefits out to bid. The name is an apparent attack on teacher's unions.

The so-called leader of this group is businessman John Conely, owner of Conely Auto Sales in Genoa Township. But his associates really raised my eyebrows, and their ties to the local Republican Party are strong. The rest of the group consist of Genoa Township attorney Neal Nielsen, county assistant prosecuting attorney Bill McCririe and former Brighton School Board Treasurer Miles Vieau.

Nielsen is a former Republican Regent for the University of Michigan, and an ardent Mike Rogers supporter. You may recall he caused a major controversy when he refused to take down a Rogers for Congress sign on property he donated to Genoa Township for a fire station in violation of campaign law.

McCririe and Vieau are both members of the Livingston County Republican Party Executive Committee. Vieau decided not to run for reelecting to the school board last year. Instead, he began recruiting Republicans to run for the nonpartisan school board seats in an underhanded attempted to do away with the nonpartisan designation.

Republicans are not content to control the majority of partisan seats in the county, and now they are apparently trying to make nonpartisan races a sham.

The Brighton teachers had been working without a contract since August 2007, and after some often bitter negotiations and with the assistance of a state mediator, the school board approved the three-year contract by a vote of 4-2. It included moderate annual raises from 1.13 percent to 2.26 percent and teachers must pay more toward their health care benefits.

According to the P & A, the anti-school group has previously called on school board members Joe Carney, Beth Minert and Joyce Powers to resign from the board. The three all voted for the teachers' contract. You have to wonder if it has anything to do with their ties to the Democratic Party. Carney is the former chair of the county party.

Not a cent from the recently rejected millage would have been used for teacher salaries, benefits or even to operate the schools. But the group admitted they bought and paid for the yard signs discovered stacked in the GOP "Victory Center" opposing the recent school bond and sinking fund millage

Now, I seem to recall that any group spending money to influence the outcome of an election must be registered as a Political Action Committee. I checked the Michigan Secretary of State's web site, and I could find no listing for "Parents Union Local No. 1" or anything to do with Brighton Schools.

GOP talking points focusing on Bush tax cuts expiration

We can expect to see more of the kind of letters and misinformation like the one that appeared in the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus today from Jay Drick, a member of the Livingston County Republican Party's executive committee and a former Republican District Court Judge candidate, as Bush’s tax cuts for the rich are set to expire.

This propaganda piece from Drick throws figures around like 100 million Americans will pay an extra $1,716 a year in taxes a year if they expire, and, of course, there is not one reference or attribution as to where these figures came from. However, a good guess would be the state or national Republic parties

He also used the Bush catch phrase the “death tax” in place of the more accurate estate tax. This is a tax that not one single family in Livingston County will be effected by. It will affect families and people like Paris Hilton and Dick “The Amway Guy” Devos, and God knows those people need all the financial breaks they can get. In fact, more than 99 percent of estates pay no estate tax at all. A better name for the tax is the inheritance tax, and an even better name is the "Paris Hilton tax cut.”

These taxes will only affect the richest 1 percent of the taxpayers at a time when the gap between the rich and the non-rich is growing and the middle class is under assault and disappearing. According to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, making the tax cuts permanent would increase the national budget deficit and thereby add to the national debt.

“The interest payments needed to service this higher level of debt would amount to about $500 billion over the next ten years. Thus, the total cost of making these tax cuts permanent, including the related interest costs, would be $3.5 trillion over the ten-year period Once the tax cuts are fully in effect, their annual cost (not including debt service) will amount to about $400 billion per year. In 2006 terms, that amount is more than 7 times what the federal government spent last year on K-12 and vocational education and almost 10 times what it spent on hospital and medical care for veterans. In today’s terms, that amount also exceeds the combined 2006 budgets of the Departments of Education, Homeland Security, Veterans’ Affairs, State, and Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency.”

Watch for these GOP talking point inspired letters in your local newspaper today.

Local GOP convention chooses leaders in secret smoke-filled back room behind barred doors

According to the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus, “Allan Filip was chosen as the new leader of the Livingston County Republican Party Thursday at its convention at the historic Livingston County Courthouse in Howell.”

The real telling important and telling detail was this from the article, “The news media were not allowed into the meeting.” Have you ever heard of any party convention where the local newspapers were barred from a convention, be it county or state convention? Me either. So much for openness and transparency for the local Republican Party. I wonder what they have to hide?

I really don’t know much about Allan Filip. The only thing I could find, if its the same Allan Filip, is he ran for Washtenaw County Commissioner from Ypsilanti in 2002, but he got only 29 percent of the vote.

The other officers elected were Russell Spencer as recording secretary; Allan Herdman as treasurer; Rick Pine, husband of Cindy Pine, as database secretary; and Jay Drick as treasurer of the Lincoln Club, which puts on the party's annual Lincoln Day Dinner.
Other members of the executive committee — which also includes 18 county- and state-level Republican elected officials — elected Thursday were Vicki Fyke, Bruce Hundley, Anne Belser, Debi Drick, Cindy Pine, Bill McCririe, Miles Vieau, Bill Vailliencourt, Teri Olsen, Sue Dolato, Cindy Denby and Lana Theis.

For the most part, these are quality people that I know, but there are a few I’m not so sure about. The sad part is blogger and wing nut Dan Wholihan AKA “republican michigander, is no longer on the executive committee. We could use more people with his mindset on the committee.

It’s funny, back when the local GOP put out the disgusting judicial questionnaire last summer when it took the unusual step of endorsing in a nonpartisan race, Filip and former chair Cindy Pine told candidates not to answer the biased questionnaire, but Wholihan took the opposite position, saying they choose to not answer it “at their own peril.”

Now he apparently supports him; saying, “He's not an extremist, nor a liberal (how can a republican ever hope to be a liberal?). He's a mainstream conservative and oftentimes filled the role being a consensus builder while he was vice-chair. That's what we need in a chair.” The Democrats will miss people of his ilk.