County GOP continues to make a sham of nonpartisan races

Genoa Township businessman John Conely and the Livingston County Republican Party are at it again, and they are determined to stomp out Democrats, even in a nonpartisan race.

In a story in the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus, a story on Conely’s latest exploits fails to mention his past activities. According to the article, six months before the next school board election in November, Conely is on his favorite kick and posting signs around Brighton. This latest sign calls for residents to elect "competent" members to the Brighton Public School Board who can "balance a checkbook and spend taxpayers' money wisely."

There are two seats up for election on the school board. Republican Bill Anderson is not running for re-election, but incumbent Joe Carney plans to run for another four year term. Carney is the former chair of the Livingston County Democratic Party, so Conely’s campaign is targeting just Carney.

Gee, no surprise there.

Back in February 2007, the county GOP was not content with controlling the entire county Board of Commissioners, the state Senate seat, the two state House seats and all but a few Township board positions, so they went after the nonpartisan school board elections.

In the spring of 2006 the county GOP started endorsing candidates, and Miles Vieau a former Brighton School Board member, a member of the GOP executive committee and an associate of Conely‘s, took the next step and began recruiting and training Republicans to run for school board. He also offered GOP volunteers to work on their campaigns.

Fast forward to the fall of 2008, and the Livingston County Republican Party and Conely ran an illegal campaign to try and stop a combined building millage and technology/bus bond that would equal about 1 mill.

Conely again used signs as one weapon, Bulldog orange signs that said, "Vote no on the Brighton School millage."

The millage failed, and it was revealed just two days after the election that a group calling itself "Parents Union Local No. 1" was pushing to reopen the teacher contract that was just approved in April 2008.

The so-called leader of that group was none other than Conely, and the rest of the group consisted of members of the county GOP executive committee; attorney and former University of Michigan GOP regent Neal Nielsen, county assistant prosecuting attorney Bill McCririe and Vieau.

The deadline for filing for school board seats is Aug. 11, and it remains to be seen if Conely will run for the board or if he is just clearing the way for other Republicans.

The bottom line is we need independents, progressives and liberals to run for school board to combat this naked GOP power grab. Nominating petitions and affidavits for anyone 18 or older wishing to run for a four-year term are available at their county clerk’s office, municipal clerk’s office or school board office.

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.

County GOP naked power grab exposed

The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus gets the award for understatement in a story today on the county Republican Party’s recent decision to trash the nonpartisan tag on school board races.

“Political parties and community groups are raising the profile of the campaigns and injecting a partisan atmosphere.” You think? You really mean one political party.

In last spring’s election the county GOP Executive Committee endorsed two members of that committee for the Howell School Board, and we were stuck with current board member Wendy Day and the negative statewide and national PR as closed-mined book burners.

Just a few weeks ago, the county GOP’s new chair circulated an e-mail to their members urging them to run for school board and offering candidate training and its membership as campaign workers.

An excerpt from the e-mail said, Miles Vieau (Treasurer of the Brighton School Board and a member of the GOP executive committee) and his team will help you with your campaigns by providing you with packets on “All the In’s and Out’s of running for School Board.” Miles and his team will also provide an overview of School Funding in Michigan, followed by questions and answers. The Republican Party has many concerned volunteers who may be willing to volunteer for your campaign should you be interested in running for the school board.

“It's always been political; it's just been kind of a quiet politics," Vieau said in the news article. "It's becoming more political."
But Vieau said it's naive to think the school board and judicial elections are not political, even if they are nonpartisan under the law. "Only in name ... they're not really nonpartisan," he said.

That’s a crock. The only good news is his seat is up for election, and he may not run. As someone who has paid attention to school board races in Michigan for 12 years that’s the first time I have ever heard that false observation.

An even scarier development in the school board races was the emergence of an anti-gay hate group known as the so-called “LOVE” PAC - (Livingston Organization for Values in Education) last spring, and one of its endorsed candidates, Day, won a seat in Howell. Ironically, the county GOP and the so-called "LOVE" candidates are the same people.

Vieau said the main issue Republicans care about in terms of schools is fiscal responsibility in the face of budget cuts. Vieau said there are basically two sides: "Some are for wages, and some are for fiscal responsibility."

He can’t be serious? That’s the only thing school board members have to be concerned with? He can’t possibly believe it's as simple as one side is for wages and one for “fiscal responsibility” We saw some of that Republican fiscal responsibility with the largest federal budget deficit in our nation’s history, and on the state level we saw the former Republican governor flee the state as fast as his sturdy legs could carry him leaving his predecessor with a $4 million hole. We can afford that kind of GOP “fiscal responsibility” in Livingston County.

Another disappointing thing is hearing that former long-time Howell School Board member Roger Dresden, who resigned in 2004, plans on running and pandering to the so-called “LOVE” group for their endorsement.

The group started a book banning controversy some three months ago by trying to ban a book called “The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them.” Since then, they have also tried to ban Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison's first novel, "The Bluest Eye," and an acclaimed memoir written by Richard Wright in 1945, "Black Boy." Both books address social issues of blacks in 1940s America and have been used for at least two years in an American literature class.

GOP Chairman Allan Filip said the party's Executive Committee will not issue endorsements, although individual members of the party are free to do so. Last year, a charged political questionnaire to judicial candidates was withdrawn by the party after it was deemed inappropriate.

That seems funny after endorsing last year and taking a huge active role in recruiting, training and offering campaign volunteers for the school board race this year the party is not going to endorse, too.

We need independents, progressives and liberals to run for school board to combat this naked power grab. Nominating petitions and affidavits for anyone 18 or older wishing to run for a four-year term are available at their county clerk’s office, municipal clerk’s office or school board office. The filing deadline for local, nonpartisan – at least in theory thanks to the Republicans - school board elections in May is 4 p.m. Tuesday.
Pinckney Community Schools has three seats up for election, Brighton Area Schools has two seats, Howell Public Schools has two, Fowlerville Community Schools has two seats and Hartland Consolidated Schools has one seat.

Republicans try and do away with nonpartisan races

Last spring we saw the Livingston County Republican Party make a mockery of the nonpartisan school board races by endorsing candidates, and this spring they are taking the next step in their unmitigated power grab by recruiting and training candidates for school board races.

For the first time ever in Livingston County last spring the county GOP Executive Committee endorsed two members of that committee for the Howell School Board, and as a consequence of that unprecedented move we were stuck with current board member Wendy Day and the negative statewide and national PR as closed-mined book burners.

A friend of mine who is not happy with the direction his party is taking - and there are a lot of those in the county – forwarded me an e-mail from new Chair Allan Filip to all Republicans in the county urging them to run for school board.

However, it took that a step further and offered candidate training and its membership as campaign volunteers.

Miles Vieau (Treasurer of the Brighton School Board and a member of the GOP executive committee) and his team will help you with your campaigns by providing you with packets on “All the In’s and Out’s of running for School Board.” Miles and his team will also provide an overview of School Funding in Michigan, followed by questions and answers.
The Republican Party has many concerned volunteers who may be willing to volunteer for your campaign should you be interested in running for the school board. People interested should contact Miles at; kmvieau@comcast.net Thank you in advance for your interest.

The GOP in this county holds almost every partisan seat, including the Congressional seat, the state Senate seat, both state House seats all nine County Commission seats and control of all the township boards in the county, but apparently that’s not enough.

In the past, Democrats were allowed to serve the community by running for and serving on the two nonpartisan city councils and five school boards in the county because candidates were elected based on their character, qualifications, resume and community involvement and not the R after their name.

Spurred by their 50 percent success rate in the school board race they endorsed in, the Republicans tried to also make a mockery of the nonpartisan judicial races by endorsing one of their own executive committee members for District Judge. They tried to base their unprecedented endorsements for all the nonpartisan judicial races on a disgusting questioner to all candidates. These are some of the questions on it:

How much money have you donated to the Livingston County Republican events and committees in the following calendar years? What is your party affiliation? What does it mean to be a Republican? Do you personally agree with the following Republican values?

They only backed off after they were exposed by the local newspaper, the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus. Instead they announced that nine judicial candidates have "core values" consistent with the party, but stopped short of issuing an endorsement.

We need independents, progressives and liberals to run for school board to combat this naked power grab. Nominating petitions and affidavits for anyone 18 or older wishing to run for a four-year term are available at their county clerk’s office, municipal clerk’s office or school board office. The filing deadline for local, nonpartisan school board elections in May is 4 p.m. Feb. 13.
Pinckney Community Schools has three seats up for election, Brighton Area Schools has two seats – including Mr. Vieau’s seat, Howell Public Schools has two, Fowlerville Community Schools has two seats and Hartland Consolidated Schools has one seat.