Self described fiscal conservative, Treasurer Ron Edwards, proposed not one, but two separate tax increases for Plymouth Township residents at the November 12th meeting of the Plymouth Township Board of Trustees. As near as I can figure, if these proposals pass, it will be a roughly 75% tax increase on Plymouth Township homeowners.
How is that for getting your attention?
I just love the fact that I can sit home and watch the Plymouth Township Board of Trustees meetings on my computer. Now that they post the video of their meetings online, I can sit with a cup of coffee and enjoy the circus. This last meeting was another memorable one.
Supervisor Reaume continued to show absolutely no leadership. Treasurer Ronald Edwards continued to be the playground bully of the board, and publicly attacked any and all who came within his line of sight. Heck, he even went on a tirade about a member in the audience who did nothing more than attend the meeting. Called him out by name too.
Nancy Conzelman was her usual snarky clueless self, which is a danger when watching her at home. More than once she has made a statement so ridiculous, that I almost spit coffee all over my laptop. Bless her heart, she tries, but she's just not the sharpest tool in the shed.
So let's get to the highlights. Public comments started with a gentleman named Don Soenen speaking on behalf of a group called the Plymouth Arts and Recreation Complex. (PARC) Basically, this is a group that wants to explore the possibility of converting Central Middle School, in downtown Plymouth, into a cultural and recreational center after Central Middle School closes in 2015.
Basically, Mr. Soenen was there to give a Readers Digest version of their vision, and ask the Board of Trustees if they would designate a couple of people to sit down with all the stakeholders to see if a project of this magnitude is feasible.
Now I'll be the first one to tell you that I simply do not have enough information to even form an educated opinion either way about this, but here is what I know. Mr. Soenen is a 43 year Plymouth Township resident. Mr. Soenen has experience with this sort of community re-purposing effort, having been a major part of the effort to restore, and save the Penn Theater in downtown Plymouth, as well as working on the Village Theater project in Canton. Mr. Soenen also sits on the Board of Directors for the Michigan Philharmonic, and is currently serving as President of that board.
Mr. Soenen by all accounts is a very successful, and well rounded businessman. Having never met the man, I asked around, and he has the respect of folks that I respect. He has been described as a man that has been very successful, and goes out of his way to give back to the community with both his time and money. Another person called him a "pillar of integrity, and a brilliant businessman." Those are pretty strong words. All in all, he seems to be the real deal.
So Mr. Soenen, having worked with a group of folks to come up with a fairly comprehensive vision, simply came to the Plymouth Township Board of Trustees, and invited them to appoint representatives to come aboard with the stakeholders, and examine the options. Everybody so far, has been willing to look at this. The City of Plymouth is willing. The Plymouth Canton Board of Education is willing. A great many outside groups are willing. They are all willing to sit down at a table and talk about the feasibility of this project. It costs nothing to do this. Not one nickel.
Like I said, I currently have no opinion on the matter yet, but I do feel that it would behoove the Plymouth Township Board of Trustees to take up the invitation extended to them. Why wouldn't they? It has only one cost, and that is time. When you get an invite to be part of a project by a fellow that almost single handedly saved the Penn Theater, and was a driving force behind the very successful Village Theater, why wouldn't you at least want to give the guy and hour or so, and hear him out?
Mr. Ronald Edwards gave a simple explanation. "It's not in Plymouth Township." The Treasurer of Plymouth Township said the problem with the plan is that the proposed Arts and Recreation Center is in the City of Plymouth, and not only that, he further stated that he has his own plan for a recreation center.
His own plan? I never heard about any Plymouth Township plan for a rec center, have you? None of the Trustees on the Board of Trustees had ever heard of such a plan either. This is interesting, because Mr. Edwards said that they had been talking about this "plan" for years.
So as Treasurer Edwards sat back and declined the invitation that was extended to the Plymouth Township Board of Trustees, I was curious to see how the Supervisor would respond to Mr. Edward's comments. I was curious because an issue like this should at least elicit some direction from the boss. Supervisor Richard Reaume has been elected as the man who sets the direction of the Board of Trustees. He sets the agenda. He chairs the meetings, and following protocol, he should have been the one to respond to Mr. Soenen's invitation. He should have had the last word, and he definitely had the authority to accept Mr. Soenen's invitation.
Mr. Reaume had nothing to say. Not a word. Once again, Mr. Reaume voluntarily ceded his authority to Mr. Edwards. Truth be told, Mr. Reaume is the political equivalent of a eunuch.
Moving on, I will say that Mr. Soenen was much more gracious than I would have been, given the circumstances, and the comments. My guess is that he is rather confident that he doesn't really need Mr. Edward's personal blessing to move this project forward.
Bottom line, is that Mr. Edwards, and Mr. Reaume by extension, continued an unsettling trend of treating their constituents very poorly in a public forum, and that is a shame. Mr. Edwards was unnecessarily argumentative with not only Mr. Soenen, but also, later in the meeting, he was rather rude to Ms. Debra Madonna, who is the head of the Miracle League, which is a baseball league for special needs children.
Plymouth Township Clerk, Nancy Conzelman's lone contribution to the meeting was to persistently ask anybody and everybody whether they were willing to consider building a recreation center in Plymouth Township. I guess she didn't get the memo that the whole purpose of PARC was to study the feasibility of re-purposing Central Middle School. She came off looking like a clueless parrot for Mr. Edwards, rather than an independent thinker.
So with the public comments out of the way, we now get to the meat of this important Board of Trustees meeting. The budget hearing. There were a couple major surprises. I guess all of it was a surprise to the rest of the boardmembers, based on their comments.
The first surprise was that Mr. Edwards announced that Plymouth Township will be bringing a one year, 1-mill bond to the voters, to pay for equipment for the fire department. This is the first anyone has heard of this, and the first anyone on the Board of Trustees had heard of this as well.
My first thought is that the fire department is in dire need of this infrastructure. My second thought is that this equipment should have been purchased with the two million dollars that the township borrowed to pay for their pet projects, like the amphitheater that will host one man plays, and the $625,000 air conditioned pavilion at the park.
My biggest thought is wondering how this came as a surprise to the rest of the board? My experience, going back to my days on the Board of Education of Clarenceville Public Schools, is that when you think you want to ask voters to pay a 1-mill tax increase, you get all of the board input you need, before you even mention it at a public meeting.
When Trustee Doroshewitz mentioned that this was the first he had heard of it, Mr. Reaume went all snarky on him, and in a truly condescending tone, asked "What? Do you want me to call you at home for these things?"
Well hell yes! You call every boardmember at home when you are going to announce a $125 hit on every home in the township! You not only call them at home, but you have a study session to discuss every single aspect of the plan. That's your job!
Too often I have seen Ron Edwards, and Richard Reaume use blindside tactics when ramming things down the board's throat, and it has got to end. You don't bring one and two million dollar tax increases to a public board meeting without floating the idea past it's members, and allowing for input. That is not the way functional boards do things. That is the way dysfunctional boards act, and that is why there is so much infighting among this board.
The blame falls squarely on Mr. Reaume's shoulders. You can't blame Mr. Edwards here. The petulant child will get away with whatever the Mom allows.
Bottom line is that hopefully the fire department will get the life saving equipment they sorely need, despite the ineptitude of the leadership of this board.
The final surprise of the night, and this would be hilarious if it wasn't going to cost $50,000 of the taxpayers money, is that Mr. Ron Edwards, the esteemed treasurer of the Township of Plymouth announced that he has earmarked $50,000 to "study the feasibility" of a Plymouth Township Recreation Facility.
Again, jaws dropped around the table. What? Recreation center? Where? In Plymouth Township? You said we have been talking about this for years? Where the hell was I? I don't remember this! Those were basically the words of Trustee Doroshewitz when Ronald Edwards dropped this bomb.
We'll get to Mr. Edward's "plan" in a minute. First I want to share how he brought this plan to light. He started out ok, by informing us all that he has been talking and thinking about this plan for years, and then he suddenly began a verbal attack on a member of the audience. That member is Mr. Duane Zantop, who by the way was a contributor to Mr. Edward's campaign this last election.
Apparently, Mr. Edwards is angry because Mr. Zantop, who seems to be a conservative Republican, criticized as unnecessary, the borrowing of 2 million dollars for the above mentioned pet projects, when the fire department is in disarray. Mr. Zantop, based on comments made at a previous meeting, feels that Mr. Edwards has misled many of his conservative supporters. There are a great many Republicans who feel exactly like Mr. Zantop, and feel that Mr. Reaume, and Mr. Edwards ran as Republicans, but once elected, turned into tax and spend liberals. The evidence seems to bear that fact out, as you will soon see.
So Mr, Edwards went on his attack of Mr. Zantop, and Mr. Doroshewitz stepped in and called him out for his bullying tactics. I was extremely impressed by Mr. Doroshewitz's leadership here. While the "Supervisor" sat there silent once again, Mr. Doroshewitz stepped in and confronted the bullying tactics of Mr. Edwards. This was a truly embarrassing moment, as Mr. Edwards became incensed, and started yelling at Mr. Doroshewitz, and actually began reciting his own campaign promises dating back into the early 90's.
I've got to hand it to Mr. Zantop, his mere presence in the audience was enough to make Mr. Edwards blow a gasket.
This was supposed to be a budget hearing. A very serious and important function of a municipal government, and the leader of that conversation turned it into an attack on a fellow boardmember, and an attack on a constituent sitting in the audience minding his own business.
The back and forth between Mr. Edwards and Mr. Doroshewitz was absolutely priceless. Not only did Doroshewitz defend the members of the audience from further attacks, but he also made the biggest point of the whole meeting.
While talking about the $50,000 price tag for this study, Mr. Doroshewitz simply pointed out to Mr. Edwards that while he wants $50,000 to study this issue, the other gentleman wanted nothing. Not one red cent.
In boxing terms, I'd say that Doroshewitz won the first round decisively.
The next flurry of verbal punches came a minute later, when Mr. Edwards countered with the argument that home prices have dropped because of the lack of amenities in Plymouth Township. Mr. Edwards blamed the lack of recreation in Plymouth Township as the reason home prices have plummeted. Mr. Doroshewitz just laughed at him and said "Our property values dropped because people didn't have jobs. It was the economy! It wasn't because people didn't have a soccer park. It was the economy."
Round 2 was clearly won by Doroshewitz.
Heck, Bill Clinton won an election with a line like that. The only difference here, was that an actual Republican used the line on the tax and spender, Ron Edwards.
At this point, with Edwards bleeding, and against the ropes. Kay Arnold jumped in to Edward's defense, and instructed the Supervisor to "use your gavel or hand it to me." Basically she was telling Reaume to take control of his meeting. Mr. Reaume just sat there. Silent.
The knockout came when Mr. Doroshewitz pointed out that "The board is gonna borrow 2 million dollars for moving the township forward, but you swore that wasn't a tax increase, but we have to do a tax increase to pay for the fire equipment, how about using some of that money we're going to borrow, and use that to buy fire equipment. How about that instead of raising taxes." BAM!
I could hear Howard Cosell's voice in my head screaming: "Edwards is down! Edwards is down!"
Knockout!
Robert Jacob Doroshewitz had just destroyed Ron Edwards with half his brain tied behind his back.
Kay Arnold began pleading for "Supervisor" Reaume's gavel again, but at this point, the damage had been done. There was no saving Mr. Edwards.
You can find this whole exchange beginning at the 59 minute mark of the Board Meeting video. Click on the link below, and then click on the video feed for the November 12th Regular Meeting. I urge those of you who have never witnessed this Board of Trustees in action, to grab some popcorn, view this, and think about it at election time.
http://plymouthtwp.org/ReferenceDesk/AgendasMinutes/BOT/BOTDates.htm
So now we get to Mr. Edward's proposal. The proposal that he had been apparently campaigning on for over ten years. A proposal that he designated $50,000 of the taxpayer's money on. A proposal that one would assume was well thought out, at least by him, as the Trustees on the board had never heard a word about it.
When he brought up the next picture on his fancy power point presentation, I thought he was joking. I thought maybe someone had hacked his computer. It was a picture of an athletic field, apparently in California. That's his proposal? Really?
Thinking that there must be more to his plan, I waited, and was rewarded with a picture of a Lifetime Fitness building. Unbelievable. That was the sum of over ten years of "thinking" about this. This was the fulfillment of his many campaign promises.
Based on these two pictures, one of which he claimed to have taken himself, he wants to spend $50,000 of the taxpayers money to "study and see if residents want this."
Well guess what folks. I just caught Treasurer Ronald Edwards in a lie. A big fat lie. It didn't hit me until I watched the meeting again, but he said he saw these fields when he was in California, and said, "I took these pictures." It's right there on the video. "I took these pictures."
This whole thing starts at the 1:48 part of the video, and is worth the few minutes it takes to watch it.
My first thought was I hope the taxpayers didn't pay for his trip, but my next thought was how the heck did he take that picture? Did he hire a helicopter to take him for a picture taking tour? Yikes! Did the taxpayers have to pay for a helicopter ride too?
Well, being the distrusting soul that I am when it comes to Ron Edwards, I decided to put his words to the test. I bet myself a box of Twinkies that I could find his very picture, the picture that Ron said he took, on the internet in 5 minutes or less. The results were incredible!
On the first pic? The athletic fields? It took me 22 seconds to find the exact picture online. I went to google and typed "multi turf athletic fields in california" and hit enter. Then I clicked on the images tab, and found it immediately. BAM! Same darn picture!
The next picture took me longer. It took me 37 seconds to find the Lifetime Fitness picture because there are so many of them. I wanted the same exact one, and I used a white pickup in the parking lot as my guide. It may have taken me 15 seconds longer, but I am nothing if not a perfectionist.
Bottom line is that it took me exactly 59 seconds to produce the entire content of Treasurer Ronald Edwards presentation that he used as the impetus for wasting $50,000 of the taxpayers money. He went to Google, stole two pictures, and called them a plan. If you don't believe me, try it for yourself. I don't type very fast, so you may be able to beat my time.
It seems that Trustee Chuck Curmi was as skeptical as myself. Mr. Curmi, usually doesn't waste words, and his only question while staring at the pictures was "And this is the detail we're going to talk about on December 10?" Mr. Curmi also stressed one important point by noting that the cost of this project will require a 2 mill tax increase, which will be a 50% increase on the Plymouth Township taxpayers.
A 50% increase for the Plymouth Township taxpayers. That is on top of the 1 mill fire tax. 75% Tax increase?
Tax increases aside, how much would you like to bet that the PARC plan is, oh, a thousand times more detailed, and thought out than Mr. Edward's "Google" plan?
How much do you want to bet that the folks from PARC will do a much more thorough and thoughtful feasibility study than Mr. Edwards $50,000 "Google" plan?
And remember, PARC is doing it at no cost to the taxpayer.
The PARC plan, if implemented would require a .7 to 1 mill tax increase, and Mr. Edwards plan will require a 2 mil tax increase. Plus the $50,000 of course, which will be spent whether they build a rec center or not. That money is gone no matter what.
The last, and most shameful thing that Plymouth Township Treasurer Ronald Edwards did, was to be verbally abusive to a woman named Debra Madonna. While I have never met Ms. Madonna in person, we have had a chance to speak on the phone. We spoke about the Miracle League last spring.
The Miracle league is a wonderful program that allows special needs children to compete safely in a baseball league. If you ever feel the desire to donate any of your time or money to a worthwhile cause, I wholeheartedly recommend the Miracle League.
Just in a couple of conversations with her, I have found her to be the most compassionate community volunteer I have had the pleasure of speaking with in my time in the Plymouth community. She is devoted to our children, she is devoted to our community, she doesn't profit from anything she does, and she possesses an incredible amount of integrity.
If you look at the 3:17 mark of this meeting, you will see not only how passionate Ms. Madonna is, but you will also see Mr. Edwards verbally attack her because she supposedly did not support the Amphitheater that Plymouth Township is borrowing the money to build. Now, while compassionate, Ms. Madonna is also no shrinking violet, and she quickly pointed out that she supported with her own money the PlayScape that is at the Township Park. Apparently Mr. Edwards has selective memory.
At this point, Clerk Conzelman once again reiterated her silly question. "Would you support recreation somewhere in Plymouth Township?"
Now what the heck do you think Ms. Madonna is going to say? She worked for years to get an $800,000 field built on the Central Middle School property! Of course she doesn't support that! Like I said, Nancy Conzelman is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
It gets worse.
Suddenly, Ms. Conzelman decided to play lawyer, and cross examine her opponent. She asked Ms. Madonna if she had ever considered building the Miracle League field in Plymouth Township? Ms. Madonna's answer was stunning!
Her answer showed just how heartless and disconnected Reaume/Conzelman/Edwards are. Ms. Madonna informed Nancy Conzelman that yes, in fact she had tried to get the Miracle League field located in Plymouth Township.
Ms. Madonna stated that years ago when they were looking for a spot to build the field, they met with Supervisor Richard Reaume, and he informed them that there was no spot in Plymouth Township for the Miracle League field, and that they should go to Northville and ask them.
This field takes up 1 acre of space. One lousy acre. The Plymouth Township park is 80 acres, and Richard Reaume had not one acre to devote to these children.
Richard Reaume told them that he did not have one single acre of space to allow the Miracle league to build a field for special needs children, with their own funds. It would have cost the township nothing. Not one red cent.
Richard Reaume sent them packing. He sent them to Northville.
The Miracle League field is now, one of the many jewels in the City of Plymouth, and Mr. Reaume stupidly and selfishly threw that opportunity away.
For those of you who may think that Reaume actually had no space, you are absolutely wrong. Mr. Edwards clearly stated that Plymouth Township has 3 or 4 locations for his 30 acre recreation plan.
The one site he prominently mentioned was the Detroit House of Corrections (DeHoCo) site that Plymouth Township bought in 2011. The problem with the prison site is that, as it turns out, the land was improperly assessed by the Supervisor, and therefore, it is a certainty that Plymouth Township is going to lose the develop-able chunk of that land back to the City of Detroit, who is the rightful owner. That lawsuit is currently winding it's way through the courts.
So to conclude, if I had to choose between Plymouth Township building a rec center, or the PARC proposal, I would choose the PARC proposal hands down. They have folks with a proven success record, whereas Plymouth Township has a record of ineptitude and dysfunction.
The mere fact that Mr. Edwards googled two pics, threw them up on the screen, and said he needed $50,000 to ask folks if they wanted a rec center, kind of says it all.
So that's all I'm going to say about the competing recreation projects.
Now I am going to remind Plymouth township residents one more time about this trend of taxing and spending.
When I say that Mr. Edwards, and Mr. Reaume are tax and spenders, I say this because in the last few months, they have borrowed 2 million dollars for pet projects, while the fire department infrastructure is falling apart.
I call them tax and spenders because they proposed two tax increases with no warning, in one single meeting. Two tax increases that will mean a roughly $375 tax increase on every house in Plymouth Township.
If they are successful, it will soon cost every single household $375 more a year so that Treasurer Ronald Edwards can proudly exclaim that he has fulfilled all of his campaign promises. No wonder Mr. Zantop is so angry.
With that, I am off to enjoy some well earned Twinkies. Shhhh Don't tell my doctor...
