Absolute Power

Absolute power is a scary thing. When a person or group has absolute power, they can do anything they want to do without fear of retribution. Their decisions are final, there is no need for debate, and there is no point in arguing another opinion. There is no doubt in my mind that in Plymouth Township, Ron Edwards, Richard Reaume, and Robert Doroshewitz have absolute power over all decisions concerning Plymouth Township.

They decide how the taxpayers' money is spent. They decide who has a job and who doesn't. They decide how much money folks are paid. They decide what projects will move forward, and which ones won't. Mr. Kelly and Mrs. Arnold have had no say so in these matters for as long as I have been watching. They go along to get along. They don't make waves, and they are allowed to keep their seats.

Rewarding your friends and punishing your enemies is the standard method of business on the Plymouth Township Board of Trustees. These three men play Chicago-style politics here in Plymouth Township, and they do it well.  If you are bold enough to have a dissenting point of view, those who hold the power will punish you.

If you are a citizen and express a differing point of view, they use their power to belittle you, and intimidate you at public meetings, in front of all who attend. They sit there on their bully pulpit and literally eviscerate folks. Their goal is to verbally beat into submission all who dare to disagree. They do this to the point of having people never wanting to return with a differing viewpoint.

There are a few, though, who do not cow to this board, and one example is Mr. Don Schnettler. I sit and smile when this man walks to the podium. He is no shrinking violet, and he can think on his feet. I truly believe he is the cause of many Maalox moments for one Ron Edwards. There are none of the usual smirks on the faces of board members when Mr. Schnettler comes a callin'. Mr. Schnettler is a patriot.

If you are one of Plymouth Township's elected officials, and you don't go along to get along, they use their power and their money to destroy your political career. They lie about your record, knowing full well that they are secure enough in their current position to withstand the political fallout of getting caught in the lie. They are willing to gamble on the short-term memory of the voters in order to erode the confidence that voters have in their perceived political enemies.

Case in point: Township Supervisor Richard Reaume that was full of misinformation about one of his enemies. This letter had no evidence to back his claims, other than his word as Plymouth Township Supervisor. As Plymouth Township Supervisor, he enjoys an added level of trust from some folks as far as what he communicates with his words. While he may have had the confidence of some, I chose to check his facts, and it took me all of one hour to discover a blatant, bald-faced lie about Mr. Joe Bridgman's attendance record during his tenure as Plymouth Township Clerk. Mr. Reaume claimed that Mr. Bridgeman missed more meetings than any other board member in the last four years. Simple statement, and even simpler to check. He lied, pure and simple.

Mr. Reaume sent out a letter, and he lied. Your Plymouth Township Supervisor is, in my opinion, a liar. In my opinion, if you write a letter to the voters designed to damage a man's reputation and the facts are wrong, it is a lie.  Not a mistake, but a lie.

He lied to the residents of Plymouth Township, and he got caught by me, and he got caught a few days later by the Plymouth Observer. He even admitted it. Well, kind of. He admitted it in the way any politician admits it when they get caught in a lie. He told them that there were other meetings that Mr. Bridgman missed that they didn't check into. So they went back and checked, and Richard Reaume was STILL a liar. He was a liar, his pants were on fire, and there was no firefighter willing to put that particular fire out. I don't blame them.

He has since blamed Mr. Bridgman for not having all of the meetings published. He is wrong about that as well. I checked his facts the very day I received his letter, and his claim that Mr. Bridgman missed more meetings than any other board member was a lie. The meetings and the numbers were right there on the Plymouth Township website.

I had the numbers correct right out of the gate, and in the end, the Observer agreed with my facts, but by this time, Mr. Reaume was long gone, and he had done the damage to Mr. Bridgman's reputation that he had set out to do. He had done enough damage to account for at least eight votes, which was the margin of his defeat in the election. Eight votes. Eight votes now equals absolute power for Mr. Reaume, Mr. Edwards, and Mr. Doroshewitz.

I had an interesting conversation with Mr. Reaume this evening, and when we discussed this, he ended up doing what all politicians do. He blamed somebody else for his lie. He told me on the phone that his staffers compiled the numbers, and that they made the mistake. A letter with false information that you sign and send to the voters to damage a man's reputation is a lie, not a mistake. It should be a crime.

So the man lied about Mr. Bridgman supposedly not having all the meetings on the website, then he compounded things by throwing his staffers under the bus. The problem is that he signed his name to a letter with a bald-faced lie, which damaged the reputation of a man. If this letter was not sent out, maybe Mr. Bridgman may not have lost by a scant 8 votes.

This is very similar to another case that is garnering much attention. Thaddeus McCotter recently. Documents that his staffers put together that contained false information. McCotter resigned his seat in Congress over this, and four staffers are facing criminal charges as well. This is an interesting connection.

Mr. Reaume did much the same thing as Mr. McCotter did. He signed his name to a document that he says contained information collected by his staffers. He sent this signed document to all of the voters. This document damaged a man's reputation. McCotter is gone, Reaume remains in office. Those are the facts, and there is nothing that Mr. Reaume can say to change this set of facts.

It should be noted that while Mr. Reaume was proven beyond the shadow of a doubt to have lied about Mr. Bridgeman's attendance record, he also sunk about as deep into the mud as one can possibly sink. He somehow forgot to mention the reason Mr. Bridgman missed some of the meetings that he missed, and this is where the story gets downright disgusting.

Many of the meetings that Mr. Bridgman missed were because he had to travel to care for his father, who had cancer. Mr. Reaume conveniently left this bit of information out of his letter to us voters. He admittedly lied about Mr. Bridgman missing the most meetings, and he never mentioned that some of the meetings he DID miss were to care for his father who was battling cancer.

That is one of the most disgusting and despicable things I have ever seen an elected official do. He did this to destroy the man's career. Mr. Bridgman has a wife and kids to support. Mr. Bridgman dealt with family issues that none of us ever want to face.

Unfortunately, he angered those in power by having a differing point of view, and they used their power to destroy the man. Family be damned, sick father be damned, the man had to go. He had angered Richard Reaume, Ron Edwards, and Robert Doroshewitz, and he had to go. Absolute power.

This is what happens when you have absolute power. You can lie, cheat, and steal to get what you want, and there isn't a darn thing anybody can do about it to hold you accountable. For the life of me, I simply cannot understand how Mr. Richard Reaume can sleep at night. I do not know how he can look at himself in the mirror and like what he sees. I do not know how you can lie about a guy, especially knowing his family situation, and sleep at night.

I do not know if Mr. Reaume is a religious man or not, but if he is, how does he reconcile this with his God? Does he rationalize it by convincing himself that this is just politics? If so, I will respectfully remind him that Mr. Bridgman is a man with a family to support. A man with a house to pay for, and kids to feed.

If you are a churchgoing man, Mr. Reaume, ask your clergyman about Exodus 20:16 this Sunday. You are in direct violation of Exodus 20:16. But heck, it's just politics right? Say a couple Hail Marys and get on with the election, right?

The three who now hold absolute power were not done with Mr. Bridgman, though. Mr. Reaume's lies were just the first salvo.

At a public meeting of the Plymouth Township Board of Trustees in June, Mr. Robert Doroshewitz took his turn. Mr. Doroshewitz has a very sneaky way of doing his dirty work. Mr. Doroshewitz is a lawyer, and lawyers are usually very adept at leaving themselves plausible deniability when they do their dirty deeds.

Shortly after the "Reaume Lie" was exposed, the Rich/Ron/Robert troika revealed the second phase of their plan to destroy Mr. Bridgman's career. Mr. Doroshewitz openly questioned Mr. Bridgman's ethics in handling absentee ballots. He did this in his classic sneaky way, with his customary smirk painted all over his face. He has a habit of smirking, and rolling his eyes at the audience when attacking a political opponent in a meeting. I guess that is what they teach you at the Wayne State School of Law.

This strategy of his never seems to work for him, though, as the audience always sees through his bumbling shenanigans, and gets PO'd. This usually ends up with Mr. Reaume having to bang his gavel to restore order. Why doesn't Mr. Reaume bang his gavel to keep his board members in control of themselves? He chairs that board, and then just sits there with his head down while his board members run amok. Plausible deniability.

The moderator at the League of Women Voters candidate forum knew how to handle Bumbling Bobby Doroshewitz though. When Bumbling Bobby D broke their rules in personally attacking a candidate, the moderator immediately shut him up. I think she was reaching for the duct tape when he finally quit talking. Mr. Reaume could actually take a few lessons from the LWV in how to run a meeting properly. But I digress.

So Mr. Doroshewitz attacks Mr. Bridgman's credibility, and makes a motion to usurp the clerk's office of its sworn duty to run the election. Not one single board member supported his motion, and it died. They never planned on supporting his motion. It was just political gamesmanship designed to further erode the public trust of Rich/Ron/Robert's enemy.

There has never been any reason to question Mr. Bridgman's honesty or integrity. They had no evidence whatsoever of him ever tampering with an absentee ballot. Mr. Doroshewitz made baseless insinuations, and tried to wrap this pile of dung into a motion designed to somehow protect the integrity of the election process. Yeah right.

He did this knowing fully well that the motion would not be brought to a vote. He did this knowing fully well that there is, and never was a shred of evidence that could possibly put Mr. Bridgman's ethics in question. He did this knowing fully well that this was nothing more than the troika's attempt to smear an enemy. An effort to use their power to destroy a man's career. Absolute power.

I had a conversation on the phone with Mr. Doroshewitz this past Saturday morning. I wanted to talk to him about the story he leaked to the Free Press about a political opponent, and I wanted to know how he could do that, all the while ignoring the power-hungry atrocities that are constantly committed by his buddy, Mr. Ron Edwards, who is the Plymouth Township Treasurer.

I offered the Graphic Visions small claims case that Mr. Edwards lost as one of the many examples of Mr. Edwards' bad behavior. He claimed not to know of the issue I was referring to, and when I asked him if he had read my blog about it at the Patch, he claimed that he did not read Patch. I found this hilarious, because he himself has blogged on Patch and has even commented on my blogs with his real name.

Of course when I reminded him of this inconvenient truth, he called me, and I quote: "That guy who writes smear s**t." Yes, Mr. Clean swore at me. For the record, I never once cursed at him. I laughed a lot, but never cursed.

He finally admitted that he has read Patch, but claimed that he doesn't read it anymore. While I thank Mr. Doroshewitz for finally being honest about his Patch visits, I must question him about his insinuations about me.

If I write nothing but "smear poop" why has Mr. Doroshewitz not publicly challenged any of my facts? For that matter, why haven't Mr. Reaume, Mr. Edwards, and Mr. Doroshewitz ever publicly challenged any fact I have ever presented?

Not once have they challenged the veracity of my blogs about their record. Lord knows I have given them plenty of opportunity, but all I hear are crickets.

They don't bother to challenge my facts for two reasons. One, they cannot challenge my facts, and two, they do not care what I say. They have absolute power. They have all the money, and all the power, and I am lower than whale poop on the bottom of the ocean.

My words mean nothing to them. The truth means nothing to them. Power means everything to them, and they have it.

I will give Mr. Doroshewitz credit, though. While he "wasn't reading" Patch, he made a couple of comments on one of my blog posts. He didn't really challenge any specific fact, or bring any evidence of me "pulling a Reaume" and lying, but at least he had the stones to actually comment.

Of course, in true Doroshewitz fashion, he quickly deleted his comments. He deleted his words. This is how these three operate. They "Pearl Harbor" you, hope their words stick to you, and then, like the cowards that they are, they cut and run.

Mr. Doroshewitz, my words are still here. Every last one of them. I stand by my words, while you delete yours, and lie about even visiting the darn website. You can't get in trouble for reading Patch, Bob. To be honest, all public officials should read Patch simply so they can get a feel for what is going on in their community. So why do you not read it, Mr. Doroshewitz? Too many uncomfortable truths, maybe?

Here is the bottom line on this. Mr. Doroshewitz used Patch to post his blogs. He used Patch when it was to his perceived advantage. When it became uncomfortable for him, though, he shunned Patch. You can't have it both ways, Mr. Doroshewitz.

One more thing, Mr. Doroshewitz, if you are thinking about trying to spin my facts on our phone calls, I will tell everybody about the other two words you almost said, and I am sure that Pastor Brad would not look kindly on that little tidbit.

In the end, this self-proclaimed "seasoned board member" hung up on me. Actually, I think he hung up on me twice, but I am gonna give him the benefit of the doubt on the first one. Maybe I lost my cell signal the first time. ;)

He hung up on someone he was elected to represent. He hung up on a person who helps to pay his salary. Yeah, he is a real "seasoned board member."  Again, I digress and apologize.

Note to Patch: I humbly apologize for having been the cause of you losing a valued reader and blogger.

So Mr. Doroshewitz, in his comments, his blogs, and in his campaign literature tries to wrap himself up in God and Country. He brags about his "regular attendance at the Northridge Church (most times!)" Note the wiggle room he leaves himself?

Mr. Doroshewitz would have you believe that he is Mr. Clean. An All-American, a Boy Scout, a defender of all that is good and just.

If all this is true, it leaves me wondering how he reconciles his baseless insinuations about Mr. Bridgman's ethics? How does he reconcile this behavior with his religious beliefs? I guess it brings me right back to Exodus 20:16. I would suggest that on Sunday, Mr. Doroshewitz seek out Pastor Brad over at the Northridge Church and have a conversation with him about Exodus 20:16, and how it relates to his behavior towards Mr. Bridgman.

This brings me to Mr. Ron Edwards. He is Plymouth Township's Treasurer. If Mr. Bridgman was the big loser on Tuesday, Mr. Edwards was definitely the big winner. Mr. Edwards got rid of one of his political enemies, and he didn't have to lift a finger to do it.

He had his cronies firing all of the shots, while he sat back in his chair and whined about all the negative campaigning. I wanted to hurl when I heard his words. This man is a shark, and he is gonna get all self-righteous about negative campaigning? Really? REALLY?

I'll give him credit for one thing: He is a very cunning adversary. If you cross this man, you will pay. Make no mistake about that. You will pay. He wields his power with startling efficiency, and he is absolutely ruthless in using it to destroy his enemies.

He has used his Treasurer's office, and Mr. Reaume's Supervisor's office to force his will upon folks. He has used these offices to exact revenge on all those that cross him.

Much like Richard Nixon, he has his enemies list, and he apparently digs for dirt on every soul on that list. He also takes great delight in using all of this to vanquish those who dare to question him. That is a fact, and I have presented many examples of this in the past.

Here is the scary thing. He now has the Clerk's office as a tool to use for whatever purposes he chooses. He now has all three offices of power in Plymouth Township. With Mr. Bridgman gone, Mr. Edwards is now the most powerful and, in my opinion, the most dangerous man in Plymouth Township. He now has absolute power. If I was a police officer in Plymouth Township, I would be nervous. Heck, if I worked in Plymouth Township in any capacity, I would be nervous.

So these three men rewarded their friend, Nancy Conzelman, by choosing her as their new Township Clerk, and when faced with future decisions, all she has to do is look at the history. Mr. Bridgman angered the "Three R's" and they destroyed him. They used their power, their lies, and their money, and they threw him out on the street. They did it ruthlessly and efficiently. They will do the same to Nancy Conzelman, too, if she doesn't comply with their wishes.

If Nancy Conzelman does not comply with the wishes of Mr. Edwards, Mr. Reaume, and Mr. Doroshewitz, they will do to her what they did to Mr. Bridgman. I have no doubt in my mind that they have already had this conversation with her. They didn't need to, though, as any fool can see the writing on the wall. Go along to get along. Fail to do that, and you're gone. Have an independent thought of your own and you're gone. Don't vote the right way and you're gone. Say the wrong thing and you're gone. Absolute power.

Reward your friends and punish your enemies. Nancy Conzelman, by the way, is said to be a neighbor of Bob Doroshewitz. I can't prove this, though, because I have never laid eyes on the woman, and she has been kept out of the public eye since being chosen to replace Mr. Bridgman. Did Mr. Doroshewitz, or any of the others forget to mention the whole neighbor thing? Friend rewarded.

Steve O'Conner is Nancy Conzelman's husband, and just happens to sit on the Board of Compensation, which of course decides Rich/Ron/Robert's salaries. Did they forget to mention that? Friend rewarded.

Richard Reaume donated money to the campaign of Nancy Conzelman, whose husband has been making the decisions regarding his salary. Now if that doesn't sound like how Robert Ficano has been running things, I don't know what does.

Rewarding your friends and punishing your enemies is the Robert Ficano model for Wayne County, and it sure does look like it is happening here in Plymouth Township right under our noses.

I spent a lot of time Tuesday being a part of the election process, and talking to candidates and residents of Plymouth Township. One common thing I have heard is that there are those who are not hanging it up. They are not taking a break and waiting for the next election in four years.

They are staying prepared, ready to act, just in case a special election is needed to replace an elected official that may suddenly have to resign. Could this really happen here in Plymouth Township? I don't have the answer to that question, but I know one thing. Absolute power is a dangerous thing and it can corrupt an individual, and even a whole elected body.

Absolute power can corrupt people. Absolute power can give a person the false feeling of being untouchable. Absolute power is a dangerous mistress who, in the end, can and will destroy the person who abuses her.

At the end of the day, I will say that I have always believed that eventually good will always triumph over bad. I woke up Wednesday morning, walked outside, and the sun was in the sky right where it was supposed to be, and I still hold that belief to be true.

Eventually, good will always triumph over bad.

Note to Mr. Reaume & Mr. Doroshewitz:

Exodus 20:16 — You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. Or: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Take your pick, fellas...