(In response to ‘OCSO:‘Nothing of criminal nature,’ The Citizen, Feb. 6, page 5)
Cart before the horse
Dear Editor,
Do I understand this correctly? Last July 1st, Groveland Township authorized $25,000 of taxpayer money to investigate the veracity of an anonymous letter disparaging its Fire Chief Kevin Mason. The contents and allegations of that letter have not been disclosed to the taxpayers.
In November, the investigation by Jane “Jane Doe” Boudreau, owner of a firm recommended by Township Attorney William Hosler, concluded that there was no merit to the still “unspecified written allegations”. At that time, the Township authorized further expenditure of taxpayer money for an investigation “to help identify the person or persons that deliberately sent out this erroneous and incorrect information”.
Then, after apparently fruitlessly pursuing information from Michigan State Police and the FBI through “informal” investigation, the Township approved enlisting the services of the Oakland County Sheriff Department to “utilize the whole gamut of possible investigation including subpoenas and fingerprinting”.
Before getting involved, the Oakland Sheriff had the Oakland County Prosecutor take a look at the letter, and they determined that, regardless of the identity of the writer, the letter constituted “nothing of criminal nature”.
Too bad the cart was put before the horse. Had the Township Attorney initially determined lack of criminal nature, the Township could have saved some taxpayer money (federal, state and local), all wasted on an apparent personal vendetta, trying to identify and pursue a non-criminal! Frank Porretta, Groveland Twp.
A desire for unity
Dear Editor,
As we Michiganders often say, “Everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it.”
Then politicians often say, “Our desire is to unify the people!”, but they do nothing about it. If unity is being united and joined together as a whole, then the road to unity is not by driving a wedge through the middle of the whole.
In November of 2020 the popular vote clearly demonstrated that our nation is split just a fraction left of center. With 74 million Americans voting Republican leaving 81 million voting Democratic. With this in mind, it is important for the current administration to understand that not everyone that voted Republican were necessarily voting for Donald Trump. But they were voting for the platform he stood on. What first two steps should President Biden take to unify our great nation?
First, with only a few days in office, the new administration has focused most of its energy on undoing the very things 74 million Americans wanted done over the past four years. By executive order, President Biden has actually widened the divide rather than unified. The role of president is not the role of king. As of today, 21 executive orders have been signed by President Biden. The first 6 presidents of the United States, combined, spanning the first 40 years of our great nation, signed only 17 executive orders. Our founding fathers understood that America, to be unified, must be a government of the people and by the people. Not by executive order. The new administration should allow our system of government to work through our representatives please.
President Biden desperately needs to put action to his words in unifying the “United” States of America. How can we fight a war on two fronts effectively? So, secondly, for President Biden to facilitate bringing our nation closer together he will have to make one, specific and very hard decision. Encourage the cancellation of the impeachment proceedings. If we are at war with COVID, why focus so much energy on an impeachment?
If President Biden is striving to bring our country back together, he will have to do the hard things not just the things that are popular for the half that voted for him. Slow down the executive orders that are a slap in the face to the 74 million Americans he is trying to bring back into the fold, and boldly end the impeachment proceedings and focus on the real battles ahead; COVID, economy, global leadership, and climate change. The executive orders and impeachment make America look foolish in the eyes of the rest of the world and causes an ever-widening divide in our own country. Jerry Boritzki, Brandon Twp.