Well there ya go. I have been vindicated. I have spent over a year telling the good folks of Plymouth Township that this Board, The Plymouth Township Board of Trustees, were impostors.
I have been trying to convince my fellow Republicans in Plymouth Township that the majority of the Board of Trustees were Democrat tax and spenders, who simply called themselves Republicans, in order to get elected.
I even took great risk and effort to actually produce Supervisor Richard Reaume's 1991 voter registration card, which clearly showed that he identified himself as a Democrat. The man voted for Slick Willy Clinton. I put that on my blog for all to see. I put his voter registration card on Patch for all to see.
I clearly showed absolute proof that the man was a proud Democrat until the moment that it became necessary for him to become a "proud" Republican in order to get elected to his six figure salaried position.
I also gave you proof of Treasurer Ron Edwards Obamian tendencies of rewarding his friends and punishing his enemies. I gave you proof of him welshing out on a debt he owed, only to have the poor business owner have to take him to court in order to get paid for a debt incurred at his Good Old Fashioned Picnic.
I showed you proof that 2 hours after he cut a personal check at the Plymouth Courthouse, he magically found a 3 year old unpaid tax bill from the poor lady that had to sue him to get paid for a banner for his precious picnic.
Reward your friends, and punish your enemies: The Ron Edwards rule of politics. Boss Hogg Edwards. He does all his dirty little deals in secrecy. Ron Edwards obviously went to the Obama School of Transparency. Heck, based on some of the lawsuits I have seen that have been settled, I think he may have a graduate degree from the Bob Filner School of Human Relations, but that is a matter we will talk about another day.
I flat out guarantee you that Big Ron Edwards is not a Republican.
I could tell you about Nancy Conzelman's antics too. I could tell you about all of the liberal comments she made anonymously at Patch before she was elected. I could tell you about how she called our firefighters lazy in order to further the narrative of the board members who were funding her campaign. I could tell you that after I sent her an email showing that I had outed her fake patch name, she deleted her account. That fake name? Nuffsaid
There is a lot I could tell you about Fancy Nancy Conzelman, and I guarantee you she will not come to this site and deny anything. She wont deny anything because just because you delete an account, does not mean your comments disappear. If she is smart, she will not deny anything because I have undeniable proof of my claims.
One word: Screengrabs. Should that be two words? Screen grabs? Whatever. You get the point. I have safely tucked away every single nasty, liberal, comment that Fancy Nancy has ever made at Patch under her assumed name.
Heck, truth be told, I also have every single nasty comment her Deputy Clerk Michelle Lozier has ever made under a fake name. The same goes for Big Ron Edwards.
Here is a warning for these three stooges: You can send all the detectives you want to my apartment to try and intimidate me, you can send a police officer to accompany me out of the shams that you call public meetings, you can smear me under fake names. None of these things have worked for you in the recent past, and they won't in the future. You will never be able to shut me up. I will continue to ask questions. I will continue to confront you about the crony politics. I will continue to tell the truth about this Board of Trustees. Truth matters.
Okay. Now that my rant is over, and my blood pressure is easing, I will get to the meat of my story. The part where I feel vindicated.
I sat down to watch the online video of the Plymouth Township Board of Trustees meeting the other night. To toot my own horn, we have these online meetings because I filed a complaint with the Attorney Generals Office over a kerfuffle involving Fancy Nancy & Richie Rich Reaume raising the prices of DVD copies of these meetings from $3.00 to $50.00. This happened the day Nancy Pants took office.
Their response to the complaint, was to make them available online. It was a way to comply with the law, without giving me total victory. I don't win many battles against this regime, so I got a good laugh over this one. But I digress.
So I am watching the public comments, and I see a new face at the podium. A gentleman named Duane Zantop. I had seen a comment by him at the Plymouth Eagle, and I can tell you, he is pissed.
Mr. Zantop is not happy about the recent approval of the sale of bonds for all of the frivolous things throughout Plymouth Township.
He is not happy that they called a "special meeting" at the last possible minute to ram this bond through, without informing the public, or fellow Trustees, what they intended to do.
He is not happy that he supported their decision with his vote to make devastating cuts to the fire department, because they said that there was simply no money to support the fire department, only to find out that a year later they were going on a taxpayer paid, two million dollar, spending spree.
He was not happy that they also started giving hefty raises to their political allies at the Plymouth Township Hall. Are you hearing this Michelle Lozier?
Yes, prior to the 2012 election, Michelle Lozier attacked anybody who said a negative word about Edwards, Reaume, or Conzelman. She continues to do so. For that, she got a nice hefty raise. No money for firemen, but Michelle needs a raise.
Mr. Zantop said that he felt that he was lied to. Well, you are right Mr. Zantop, they lied about everything. They lied right to your face about everything. They told you that they were conservative Republicans. That was a lie. They told you there was a financial crisis, and drastic cuts had to be made. They lied to you about everything, and once they cashed your donation checks, and received your vote, they threw you to the curb, and went on a spending spree the likes of which would make a drunken sailor proud.
They even lied about the costs of the new "necessary improvements."
This pavilion they are building, was originally supposed to cost $85,000 according to documents at the Plymouth Township website. Then, six months ago, it was supposed to cost $350,000 according to the lying liar, Richard Reaume. There was actually a vote on the pavilion at that $350,000 price. Three months later, the cost somehow rose to $625,000.
This is big government out of control. Does that really sound like Republican leadership?
I could go on and on about this. I could talk about the wisdom of spending a quarter million dollars or so on an outdoor amphitheater, that nearby residents absolutely do not want, because of the noise it will create. Of course, they never knew about this until after the secret, err, "special meeting" convened to approve it.
I guess I could also tell you about the hundreds of thousands dollars or so that they are throwing at the golf course that Plymouth Township bought. This would be Hilltop Golf Course, which sadly, lost somewhere in the neighborhood of $95,000.00 last year alone.
Let's examine the golf course for a second. The Plymouth Township taxpayers paid to buy a golf course, and the golf course lost roughly $95,000 last year, according to Plante Moran. So in essence, the Plymouth Township taxpayers paid the greens fees for 3,392 golfers. It could surely be looked at that way.
The taxpayers paid the greens fees for 3,392 golfers if we make them walk the course. It would be less if we were to give them a cart to ride, and personally, having golfed Hill Top twice in my life, I strongly recommend the cart.
How did I come up with this number? I made a call to the golf course, and asked them what the greens fees were on a weekend. $28.00 for 18 without a cart, and $38.00 for 18 with a cart. Do the math, and you'll find that the Plymouth Township taxpayers subsidized the greens fees for 3,392 golfers. In a manner of speaking.
In my opinion, they should give out 3,392 coupons for a free 18 holes to Plymouth Township taxpayers. Big Ron is in charge of the property tax rolls. Enter each Plymouth Township homeowner into a pool, and draw out 3,392 addresses. Seems the only right thing to do.
What a boondoggle. Hill Top Golf Course. Bleeding taxpayer money.
So what is Rich/Ron's solution? Throw money at the problem! Lose a hundred grand? Throw another few hundred grand at the problem. Why not? It's not like it's their money. It's YOUR money. It's the Plymouth Township taxpayer's money. No big deal.
Is this really your idea of conservative Republican leadership?
To quote Ron Edwards at the August 20th meeting, "it's cheap money."
So let me get this straight. It's "cheap money" to throw at a pavillion, or an outdoor amphitheater, or a money bleeding golf course, but it is "expensive money" to throw at firefighters who may be called upon to save your family's lives?
Here's a funny thing. During my call to the fine folks at Hill Top Golf Course, I just happened to ask if any of the Plymouth Township Board members actually golfed there. In my mind, I was thinking they probably golf for free, and use it as their own private little club.
I was stunned to find out that according to the guy in charge, the only township board member who has ever golfed there was Big Ron Edwards, and he has only golfed there once in the last three years.
So, none of the Board of Trustees even bother to show up? Hell, that's even worse than getting freebies. I won't lay this on the Trustees, but for Big Ron to only show up once at the place, and Richie Reaume never showing up, in all the time they have owned the darn course is really pathetic.
How the heck do you have any idea how things are going? How the heck do you get a feel for the customer experience? How on Earth do you know what potential changes need to be made, if you don't even bother to show your face there? The place is bleeding money, and you can't take 4 hours out of your precious time to actually golf the course, and get a feel for what's going on?
Maybe they don't like the course. I didn't. I golfed there twice and never went back.
Bottom line is the golf course is a boondoggle that may end up being worse than the DeHoCo swampland debacle winding it's way through the Wayne County courts.
So having said all this, I get back to Mr. Zantop. Here is a guy, a decent taxpaying Republican from what I can tell, and he quite naturally supported all of the Republicans running for local office if his words are to be believed. He now sees things for what they really are. He now sees that these so called conservative Republicans aren't so conservative, and truth be told, they aren't so Republican.
The reality is that they are nothing but impostors.
But wait.
I have been accused of being a conspiracy theorist in the past by these clowns. No proof offered of course, just the name calling. I thought maybe I should check out Mr. Zantop's bona fides before I take everything he had to say at face value.
He called himself a conservative Republican. I did a little investigating online, and found that to be absolutely true. He considers himself taxed enough already.
He claimed to have been a supporter of Reaume, Edwards, and Conzelman. Well, in my opinion, money talks and poop walks, so I did some checking of the campaign statements of the trio above, and Mr. Zantop's words are indeed correct.
So here is the deal. Mr. Zantop is the real deal. He is a good Republican, who felt he was helping out a few fellow Republicans. He was lied to. He found out that he was lied to. he is now pissed. He told his friends to support these clowns, so along with being pissed, he is embarrassed.
Mr. Zantop, as much as I want to sing the I Told Ya So song, I won't. You weren't the only person who fell victim to these lies. Most people did. They looked at the "R" next to the name, and believed that these impostors were who they represented themselves to be. They listened to the tales that Rich/Ron spun, and believed them.
I'm a little different. I'm a political junkie. I make it my business to know what my elected officials are doing. Especially the locals. I've been around politics long enough to know a Democrat from a Republican. I've been around politicians long enough to know when I'm being lied to.
Richard Reaume is a liar. Richard Reaume is definitely a tax and spend Democrat. I put the proof of that right here on Patch, and he did not deny it. He is a master of disguise. He is a master of lies.
He used to run around town with a license plate that claimed he was a Vietnam Veteran. I knew for a fact that he had never come within a thousand of miles of Vietnam, and as an American, I was insulted by this, and I told him so at a meeting. He had no answer for me. I was disgusted.
Ron Edwards is not a Republican nor a Democrat. He is all about Ron Edwards and nothing more. In the end, when more of the truth comes out about Big Ron Edwards, he will wind up like soon to be former San Diego Mayor, Bob Filner. Neither party will want to claim him.
Nancy Conzelman could be the worst of the three. The reason I say this, is that much like Kay Arnold, she is nothing more than the paid puppet for Rich/Ron. She didn't show up for any debates during the election. She never articulated any sort of stance on anything. The only thing she ever did politically was to pay for a letter written by Mr. Reaume to be sent to the voters of Plymouth Township. The problem was that this was an attack letter against her opponent, and the facts that were stated to be true, were lies. I exposed those lies, and the Plymouth Township Observer, a week later, backed up what I exposed after their investigation.
Do any of these things sound like good Republican values? Hell no!
So here's the deal. I've been writing about this for well over a year now. I have been called all sorts of names by this Board of Trustees, as well as Michelle Lozier who is the Deputy Clerk.
Ron Edwards actually told my former editor that I must be some sort of liberal freak. My former editor laughed, and asked him if he had ever met me. My former editor knew damn well that I had not one liberal bone in my body. It was just an attempt to discredit me.
The truth is that I will never allow anybody to embarrass my Republican Party without calling them out, and more importantly, I'm damn sure not going to allow people to claim the Republican moniker just to get elected.
That is what Richard Reaume did. That is what Ron Edwards did. That is what Nancy Conzelman did. That is what Kay Arnold did.
Don't believe me? Ask Duane Zantop. Don't believe either of us? Look at their voting record. They can't lie about their votes. They are a matter of public record, and easy to access.
My words to Mr. Zantop? Thank you sir, for recognizing what is happening, and having the courage to expose it. It is never an easy thing to admit a mistake, and believe me, I speak from experience.
Instead of being quiet, and walking away, you spoke up. You took accountability for your actions, no matter how uncomfortable doing that may have been.
Truth & accountability. Those are definitely Republican values...
