Township Board Meeting Tuesday-could be confrontative encounter
Nov. 17, 2014 PLYMOUTH VOICE.
Plymouth Michigan News
Trustee requests board action for ethics investigation
Tuesday’s board meeting could prove to be another quarrelsome encounter after six of the seven members of the Plymouth Township Board of Trustees now face the possibility of recall.
Two of the three handwritten recall petitions submitted by Township Supervisor Richard Reaume seeking the recall of Trustees Bob Doroshewitz, Michael Kelly and Chuck Curmi were approved by members of the Wayne County Elections Commission last Thursday.
The three-member commission, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Milton Mack, Treasurer Raymond Wojtowicz and Clerk Cathy Garrett, approved Reaume’s petitions seeking to recall Doroshewitz and Kelly, but refuted the language in the Curmi petition. The panel agreed with a letter from Curmi citing a double negative in the petition language as submitted and rejected the language for that reason.
Reaume, Township Treasurer Ron Edwards, Township Clerk Nancy Conzelman and Trustee Kay Arnold are also the targets of recall petitions filed last month. While Reaume conceded the language on the petition against him was clear, the other three have appealed the decision of the panel. A hearing is set on that appeal later this month. Those petitions were filed by a grassroots political action group who have been protesting the spending and decisions of the board members for months.
The petitions filed by Reaume against the three members of the board not targeted by the citizens’ groups were characterized by Reaume as an effort to demonstrate the flaws in the election laws.
Reaume listed a threat by Doroshewitz to file a lawsuit against the township as the reason for the recall on the petition. No lawsuit was filed by the trustee.
Doroshewitz, who did not attend the hearing, said that he did not want to “legitimize the whole process.” “Recalls are a tool for the citizens to use to express their anger, they not are weapons for electeds to use to wage war on one another. Reaume abused the judicial process and again showed his woeful lack of leadership,” Doroshewitz said.
Reaume cited Kelly’s vote in January to veto any intergovernmental agreement with the City of Plymouth for two years. The language against Curmi cited his vote against the same motion.
Doroshewitz has filed a proposed motion to conduct an independent and outside investigation of himself, “…and any other Trustee or Township Employee…” that led to the filing of his recall by Reaume.
The meeting at 7:00 p.m. Tuesday is at Township Hall, 9955 Haggerty Road, Ann Arbor Rd. and Haggerty.
Plymouth Voice.
