This was originally posted as an open thread over on BFM. Refined and reposted here. Ok, yesterday, we left Darth Poo in the dustbin, and I had a new appreciation for law enforcement. That whole scenario was resolved in September of 2007. Fast forward to October, 2007. The Shiawassee County Commissioners approve raises for several of the county officials. The County Clerk, Drain Commissioner...

This was originally posted as an open thread on BFM. I’ve tweaked it a bit to bring it here to cbdc. Oh, you kids know how I love me some Mike Bishop. Sometimes I blog about him, sometimes I doodle - - sometimes we bring in some outsiders to expose his alter-ego. (Muwahaha!!) But do you all remember why I started loving him? Let me take you back. 2007, summertime. We had just opened...

I just saw the Re-elect Sheriff Jon Wilson site, and I have to say that it is one of the worst sites I’ve ever seen. I’ll give the man credit for the attempt; it has a donation link, a volunteer link, and all the other good links that you want in a political site. But it also has this: He mentions “negative residents” and “bad politics” in his front page welco...

Commissioner Dan Stewart (D-1) is under fire for changing his mailing address to a location outside of his district. Commissioners are required to reside in the district they represent. Stewart left his home a couple of weeks ago, when he and his wife agreed to end their marriage. Although Stewart has recently settled in to a house on Delaney Road, which is in his district, he has spent the a ...

Good news! The May 4, 2007 letter that is supposed to exonerate Wilson, has been leaked to a blogger. Chet Zarko reports that he received two copies of the letter, anonymously. This letter was first requested via FOIA in December. At that time, the county simply ignored the request for the letter … in their response, they neither provided nor denied it. I didn’t know about the lette...

There’s a letter to the editor in yesterday’s Argus, that’s a bit of a slam to blogs. Don’t give us half of a year-old story that you picked up from reading blogs. That does not seem very professional as we all know blogs are anonymous and self-serving. First of all I’m just going to apologize for all the self-serving stuff I’ve done on my blog. It’s been re...

A couple of weeks ago, I posted an article on my hometown Sheriff, Jon Wilson. The Argus also ran an article on the Sheriff, based partially on my investigative work. At the time, Sheriff Wilson told our local paper that they would not get any more information from the department, if they ran a story about him. Today the Sheriff made good on that threat … Before the story ran, Wilson thr...

Cross-posted at bfm. The Sheriff leaned in close to the door and strained to hear the conversation on the other side. If he was quiet enough, he could just make out what they were saying. He knew them all well enough to identify them by their voices. If he was lucky, he’d make a bust. If only he had remembered to check for the Office Manager, who was approaching him from behind. “Sh...

If you recall, I wrote a little about the Sheriff earlier this year; here and here. I never got anywhere with my inquiries into what’s going on in that department, because I couldn’t get any info from anyone. But the Sheriff’s recent complaints about his $3,000 raise seems to have been the last straw. It all started when the County Commissioners started handing out raises li...

It’s just $2.99 for the hottest 10″ of vinyl this side of the Shiawassee River. (Doesn’t matter which side you’re on) No markup; I’m not making anything on them. That’s the Cafepress base price. Want yard signs? T-shirts? I’ll do those next. Since you’re here, you might also be interested in: Sheriff Fails FOIA Sunshine Test What’s Up With ...

A few months ago I mentioned that Shiawassee was supposed to be targeted for Sunshine Week. Basically this is a matter of submitting a bunch of FOIA requests and seeing what pops up. We never went through with that, but I did finally do a little test of my own. Last week I sent the following to County Clerk Lauri Braid: Under the Freedom of Information Act, as amended, I am requesting a copy of ...

So I’ve been meaning to write about this grievance that was filed by Seargent Harkness (Road Patrol), regarding a schedule change. The grievance went before the board last week. Apparently the Department changed some work schedules in violation of the union contract. Sgt Harkness was required to go to training on a Friday, which would have required that he be paid overtime for that day. ...