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Health & Fitness

Laughter Turns To Anger At Township Board Meeting

Just weeks before the primary elections, Trustee Robert Doroshewitz attempts to change the process of collecting absentee ballots.

A Plymouth Township Board of Trustees meeting is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. This was my first thought as I tried to wrap my head around what I had just witnessed after my very first Plymouth Township Board of Trustees meeting on Tuesday.

I am not going to profess to being a veteran of these City Council or Township Board of Trustees meetings, but I have been to a few of them throughout the years for one reason or another, and they can be very mundane at times, almost to the point of watching paint dry. If you are lucky, you may get a few laughs, or depending on the issues, things can get rather heated as well. Mostly though, I have found them to be rather boring until the issue I am interested in comes up for debate. I find myself watching the clock, and then staring at the agenda, while eating Altoids, trying not to think of the Marlboro they are replacing. Then back to the agenda, and the clock, another Altoid. Why am I here again? Oh ya, I want to finally see these folks in person.

I have written a bit about some of the antics that have been going on with the Plymouth Board of Trustees, and I just wanted to finally attend a meeting in person to have a look at some of the players in person, face to face. I wanted to be in the same room as Plymouth Township Treasurer Ron Edwards, and look him in the eye, get a measure of the man so to speak. I consider Mr. Edwards, Plymouth Township's resident loose cannon, and I wanted to see if he really existed, I wanted to make sure that he wasn't just a YouTube myth.

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I also wanted to see Plymouth Township's Supervisor, Richard Reaume. I wanted to see how he runs a meeting, how he interacts with others. My first impression was that he dresses and looks the part of Supervisor very well, and is quite the polished politician. So my question, the one I have been wondering about for almost a year now, is how does such a dapper and polished guy, who seems to be in control at all times, allow all this nonsense to go on at his meetings? They ARE his meetings. He is the Supervisor, so he chairs these meetings. He is the Supervisor so while he only has one vote, like all others, the fact remains, he is the Chairman of this Board of Trustees.

To be honest, I thought it was going to be an anti-climatic night for me. I show up, and lock eyes with Mr. Edwards, and survive to tell the tale. I observe Mr. Reaume in his environment, while listening to the elected officials of Plymouth Township do the people's business. This is how things went until Trustee Bob Doroshewitz turned it into what can best be described as a bizarre, election year Saturday Night Live skit.

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Things are moving along, the agenda is getting towards the end, I can almost taste the post meeting Marlboro, and then BAM! Mr. Doroshewitz starts talking about absentee ballots, and Ron Edwards and I are woken from the beginnings of slumber. I say this because Mr. Edwards tends to lean back in his chair with his eyes shut, and just when you think you're gonna get a snore out of the guy, he opens them when something gets his attention. Everybody has their own way of concentrating I guess, but as for me, I was trying to stay awake by scribbling random notes, which by the way, some guy next to me was reading over my shoulder until I looked up and caught him. Am I being paranoid?

So Mr. Doroshewitz starts by telling us all how the absentee ballots suddenly need to be protected, and he feels that no elected official who is running for reelection should have control over absentee ballots. I can say, because I was actually there to witness this, that the folks in the audience started looking around at each other, seeming to wonder with puzzled looks if this guy was actually serious.

Mr. Doroshewitz now has everyone's attention, and he senses it, so he now starts using a tissue box and his nameplate as props trying to explain how the Township Board of Trustees is going to tell the United States Poatal Service how to handle their mail. Or something like that. I got confused because I couldn't tell what he was taking out of the tissue box and putting into his nameplate. At this point, you could hear the titters of laughter throughout this suddenly captive audience. I am serious, you can't make this stuff up.

While Mr. Doroshewitz is holding court, I wiped the tears from my eyes enough to get a look at the reactions of the other Trustees. Dapper Rich had his head down, Ron Edwards looked like he was passing a stone, and Kay Arnold, had a slight smile on her lips, with a fixed stare forward. Hers was the most interesting, because to me, she had the look of someone who knows what is coming, probably warned what the consequenses would be, and then resigned herself to the fact that if you give some people enough rope, they just insist on hanging themselves with it. I could be totally wrong though. Maybe she was just smiling at me, because being a fellow smoker, she was feeling my pain.

So for awhile the audience is chuckling, ballots are coming out of the tissue box, and heading straight into the nameplate, and I'm not sure, but I think Mr. Reaume's laptop was guarding them both from ballot thieves. What I wanted to know is, what if someone sneezed and needed a tissue? Would that ballot be spoiled?

Everything was funny for awhile. Then it wasn't so funny. It became clear to me, and others in the audience that what Mr. Doroshewitz was implying, was that Mr. Bridgman shouldn't be trusted with the ballots. Mr. Doroshewitz rather lamely stated that "It protects the Clerk's Office from an accusation somewhere in the future."

At this point, people in the audeince were no longer laughing, and some were getting outright hostile in their muted complaints. Mr. Reaume actually had to call people out of order a couple of times when they were so mad they couldn't hold their tongues anymore.

Now this is my opinion, and with Mr. Doroshewitz being a lawyer and all, I need to make clear that this whole blog is my OPINION. I think that Mr. Doroshewitz is playing dirty politics. I think that even though Mr. Doroshewitz took great pains to imply that he was only looking out for the Clerks Office, and wanted only to protect the integrity of the election, he was most definately aiming an arrow straight at Mr. Bridgman. I think that he was openly questioning the integrity of the Clerk's Office. I think it was a stupid political stunt that went horribly wrong. I think Mr. Doroshewitz at best embarrassed himself, and at worst, made a mistake that could lead to him losing his seat in his reelection effort. I think it was his turn, on this night, to be the tip of the spear aimed at Mr. Bridgman, and quite frankly, the guys throwing these spears are like the gang that couldn't shoot straight. Seriously, if I was Mr. Bridgman, I would make Ron Edwards, Richard Reaume, and Bob Doroshewitz the heads of my campaign team, because everytime they take a shot at his heart, they end up shooting themselves in the ummm foot.

In the end, Mr. Reaume didn't seem so dapper and in control anymore. Mr. Mann, the lame duck on the Board took a lame duck shot at Mr. Bridgman, wondering why Mr. Bridgman would be against such a thing, and Mr. Doroshewitz made a motion that none of the other members were foolish enough to support.

I came to this meeting searching for answers, and while I was entertained to be sure, I also came away with many more questions.

Does Mr. Doroshewitz know that the City and Township Clerk Offices in this country are the ones that run the elections?

Does he know that the Township Clerk was elected by the people of Plymouth Township to faithfully carry out this duty?

Does Mr. Doroshewitz think that the people somehow didn't know that when they voted for Mr. Bridgman?

With all due respect to the late Johnny Carson, does Mr. Doroshewitz think that Mr. Bridgman is gonna be able to hold an absentee ballot in his hand, and have a "Carnac The Magnificent" moment and be able to stare at an envelope and determine whether the vote was cast for Nancy Conzelman or Joe Bridgman? Really?

The final question I have for Mr. Doroshewitz is where was his concern in 2004 about current Clerks handling absentee ballots when they are running for reelection?

Marilyn Massengill was the Clerk when she ran for reelection, and was reelected in 2004. I am gonna go out on a limb, and assume her Clerks Office handled the absentee ballots just the same as Mr. Bridgman's office will in this election.

Where was your concern about the integrity of the absentee ballots back then Mr. Doroshewitz?

Be careful how you answer this question, because if you are planning to try and tell us that you were not a sitting Trustee at the time, I will just say that you were a candidate, and had a platform to voice your concerns if you had them. So if you try to spin things, Mr. Doroshewitz, your voice will fall on the deaf ears of smart voters.

The smart thing for Mr. Doroshewitz to do, would be to stand down, and let the duly elected, and sworn in Township Clerks Office do the job they were elected by the people to do.

Mr. Doroshewitz, as a proud Republican, I reject your type of politics...

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