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The News missed critical points in its headline story on Aug. 4 when they announced
total signatures for three school board members did not meet the threshold number necessary to trigger a recall? The front page story that day surely should have made mention that school board members Sarah Costain, Monica Dziesinski, and Eric Lawson retained the services of an out-of-town law firm, Butzel, to challenge the legitimacy of the recall effort based on the weakest claim imaginable.
Butzel claimed dozens of petitions, in their entirety, needed to be disqualified because the petition circulator used their home address, the same address listed on their driver's license and voter registration, as the "Location of their Residence." Butzel claimed petition circulators who live in a Township should have listed their Township as the "Location of Residence" rather than their city as their "Location of Residence." Just try to make sense of that. This assertion violates a Michigan recall law that stipulates the legitimacy of petition circulators and signers should be evaluated according to "reasonable compliance".
Unfortunately County Clerk Keri Bertrand wasted no time in eliminating almost 800 signatures based solely on this flimsy and unvalidated assertion, and with that, disenfranchised the 4,300 community members who had signed the petitions. Bertrand had already verified and certified the 50+ circulators and the addresses they provided as valid. How could she then legitimately reverse that decision?
Dan McNeil
Alpena Township