Lawn Signs & Change.org Petition Reflect A Growing Disdain For Plymouth Township Board

As I traveled towards the location of the Plymouth Township 4th of July fireworks show to do a story about the lavish VIP viewing party that Treasurer Ron Edwards hosts every year, I stumbled on a story that has been gaining strength over the last several weeks.

To bring you up to date, the Plymouth Township Board of Trustees held a special meeting last year, and without public input, and with only two days notice to the Trustees on the board, Treasurer Ron Edwards, Supervisor Richard Reaume, and Clerk Nancy Conzelman pushed through a 1.9 million dollar bond sale.

Two of the projects that they are spending this money on, are an air conditioned pavilion, at a cost of $650,000, and an outdoor amphitheater with a price tag of $350,000 - $400,000. All this, while we have an aging fleet of firetrucks, ambulances, and almost all of the other equipment needed to keep our community and our firefighters safe.

This was all done under a cloud of secrecy, at least until the last couple of months. Now folks are starting to find out more details about these projects, and there are many in our community who are quite upset about these projects, and the manner with which they were approved.

So while driving to the fancy VIP fireworks bash, I began to see signs along the road protesting the amphitheater. This is an important thing, because for months, the trio of Reaume, Conzelman, and Edwards kept parroting the same ridiculous meme. “It's five or ten malcontents that are against this”

It seems that the dreaded sunlight has shown itself on the doings of this board, and it's gone from “five or ten malcontents” to an uprising within our community. There are signs opposing the amphitheater popping up everywhere, and I have just now discovered an online petition at Change.org.

Now I can tell you one thing from my experiences following this board for years. They are indeed narcissistic enough to truly believe that the overwhelming majority of the community support them 100% even though Conzelman and Edwards barely squeaked by in their respective primaries.

I can tell you that they lied, cheated, and stole their way to victories in the last election. Reaume and Conzelman lied in their campaign literature, and got caught in the lie by myself, and it was also backed up by a follow up story in the Plymouth Observer. Reaume and Edwards repeatedly stole campaign signs, with Reaume even getting caught on video stealing them. This was reported on by Channel 7 Action News.

So in the end, this shady deal on the amphitheater project was no big surprise to me. It was however, a huge surprise to many of the former supporters of this trio. There are a large number of Plymouth Township residents that are shocked and angry that there was absolutely no public input on these costly projects.

There is a groundswell of anger, and it has been showing up at the Board of Trustee meetings, and now it is growing even bigger with these signs sprouting up all over the community. I will be interested to see how this online petition plays out, and if our elected officials finally decide to bend to the will of the taxpayers.

Look, folks just want a little honesty, and integrity. They want to be treated with some civility at the board meetings by their elected servants. They want some transparency, and they want to have some sort of voice in these major expenditures of their money.

Is that too much to ask?

You can sign the Change.org petition here: http://www.change.org/petitions/plymouth-township-board-of-trustees-we-the-signers-of-this-petition-...

More on this issue at The Bentley Blog---> http://plymouth-mi.patch.com/groups/bryan-bentleys-blog/p/complaints-about-township-pet-projects-fal...