Shiawassee Prosecutor Race – Colbry v Gamboe Hall

Republican Shiawassee Prosecutor Randy Colbry faces Ann Gamboe Hall this November. Ann is the Democratic candidate and an Owosso attorney. You can see the Argus Press article on this race here.

The thought of Colbry winning this one just makes me sick. Randy Colbry should have been recalled after the way that he handled the situation with Drain Commissioners Gary Holzhausen and Bernie Butcher.

1. He held a major hearing into Gary Holzhausen’s activities in the Drain office, and discovered nothing.
2. Shortly thereafter, he charged Gary Holzhausen with fraud, because Gary reimbursed expenses using a county-approved procedure that had been in place for Randy’s entire tenure.
3. Shortly thereafter, he charged Bernie Butcher for the same thing.
4. Shortly thereafter, he handed off the case to the MI Attorney General, because the situation got too hard for him to handle.
5. Shortly thereafter, the MI Attorney General said that Colbry’s case was “unjust.”
6. Shortly thereafter, Colbry tried to call a closed session of the Board of Commissioners, to tell them that the MI AG had thrown out his case. When Commissioner Jack Johnson questioned the reason for the closed session, Colbry laughed and said, “forget it.”
7. Shortly thereafter, Colbry dropped the charges against Bernie Butcher, and whined like a child about how it wasn’t the real AG, just someone in the AG’s office. He didn’t explain why he kept the AG decision a secret from the Board of Commissioners and the public, for 21 days.
8. And then he wanted the county to sue the Drain Commissioners.

Even if you assume that Colbry was acting in the best interest of justice by prosecuting the Drain Commissioners, you have to wonder why he felt it necessary to keep the AG opinion a secret from the Board and the public. Why did he attempt to call an illegal closed session of our government?

The Drain case is obviously a sore spot with me, but it is not the only reason that I think Colbry is bad for Shiawassee. How about when he went to the newspapers to tell them that the Owosso City Council was guilty of violating the OMA? He didn’t have enough evidence to prosecute, so instead, he just told the newspapers that these people were guilty.

A prosecutor’s job is not to harass people. There’s a reason that our legal system requires evidence: we are innocent until PROVEN guilty. If Colbry doesn’t have evidence to prosecute, then he needs to put his personal feelings aside and move on. He doesn’t seem capable of that. He seems like he has a pathological need to defeat the accused, even if the accused are legally vindicated.

Furthermore, Colbry takes the wrong approach to his position as counsel to the Board of Commissioners. He inserts his opinion into Board meetings, and attempts to become part of the governing process. That isn’t his job. His job is to make sure things stay legal, and since our Board engages in so many illegal closed sessions and illegal FOIA denials, he’s not doing that job very well.

As for Ann Gamboe Hall, I don’t know her well. I like her energy and her intentions. I think she will take a more humble approach to the job than Randy Colbry does. I don’t think she has Colbry’s sense of entitlement to the job. And I think she will have a less biased approach to the Margaret McAvoy situation. If nothing else, electing Ann Gamboe Hall will make it harder for this county government to keep secrets. That’s a good thing.

If you read the Argus article about the race, you can see Randy Colbry’s arrogance regarding his job. He goes on and on about how Ann Gamboe Hall couldn’t possibly replace him, because she doesn’t have the experience. Well, he’s absolutely right. Ann Gamboe Hall doesn’t have experience in supporting illegal employment contracts, supporting illegal closed sessions, wasting county and state tax dollars on fake crimes, and publicly insisting that the accused are guilty even when the law says that they are not. No, Ann Gamboe Hall is not Randy Colbry. That’s why we should elect her as Prosecutor.