A2Politico: Superior Twp. Residents Deserve More Than Middle School Conflicts From Gov. Officials

By P.D. Lesko

Campaign workers are expected to stay 100 feet from the entrance to the polling place. Candidates may not hand out their campaign literature within a polling place. However, there is no Michigan election law that precludes voters from entering a polling place with campaign literature. In fact, Michigan elections law (MCL 168.678) is clear: voters may bring campaign literature, including candidate literature, voter guides, and even written notes outlining candidate or ballot particulars into their polling places. Michigan Elections Bureau officials said precinct workers should be instructed to ask voters to conceal the literature while in line to vote, but it is the right of Michigan voters to discreetly refer to “their own personal notes, slate, or campaign literature while voting.”

In stating in her Aug. 19 report that she’d directed her precinct workers to confiscate voters’ campaign literature on Aug. 6, 2024, Superior Twp. Clerk Lynette Findley violated Michigan law and the rights of her Township’s voters. Superior Charter Twp. has about 14,500 residents.

That wasn’t even the most shocking part of Findley’s four-page report, a report that was brought to the attention of The Ann Arbor Independent by a Superior Twp. resident.

In her report, the Superior Charter Twp. Clerk reminded everyone she did not lose a single precinct in her 2020 re-election. She also assured residents that she’d endorsed a 2024 Sheriff’s candidate with “integrity.”

Ann Arbor Clerk Jackie Beaudry has never endorsed an Ann Arbor candidate, or any other candidate running for office. County Clerk Larry Kestenbaum, Superior Charter Twp. Clerk Lynette Findley, Ann Arbor Twp. Clerk Rena Basch, Dexter Twp. Clerk Michelle Stamboulellis, and Michelle Anzaldi, the Pittsfield Twp. Clerk, need to take a lesson in actual integrity from Beaudry.

What Lynette Findley (and every other clerk) did in endorsing in the Sheriff’s race was to exercise their legal right to endorse in elections. But by endorsing a candidate who was shown to be a serial fabulist, an unethical and dishonest man, calls into question the judgement, honesty and ethics of the clerks who endorsed him. These clerks, by endorsing Derrick Jackson, assured voters Jackson was the best candidate for the job. He wasn’t.

Clerk Findley spent two pages of her Aug. 19 report attacking incoming Trustee (and outgoing Supervisor) Ken Schwartz. It was an extraordinary display of unprofessionalism from a clerk who has shown she knows how to produce professional election reports, such as this one from 2022 (page 8).

Clerk Findley accused Schwartz of removing the campaign signs of certain candidates, of leaking privileged information to The Ann Arbor Independent, and of using his “connections” as Supervisor to “have candidate signs placed on properties of which some could be a conflict of interest.” Findley also accused Schwartz of campaigning in the [Township] Office.

On her Superior Twp. bio. page, Lynette Findley writes, “Public servant means placing all residents and taxpayers first which Lynette strongly believes is necessary in order to fulfill the responsibilities of the Clerk. She takes great pride in serving our residents and is firmly committed to the Oath of Office taken for the second time this past November, 2020, swearing to ‘Faithfully perform the duties of the Office of Clerk.'” For good (and ironic) measure in her township bio. Findley says, “In order for the Township to have continued growth and success, it is important for all Township elected officials to work collaboratively.”

In her Aug. 19 report, she put personal animosity first, ego second and the Township’s residents dead last. Clerk Findley neglected to explain why in 2024, while Township voter registration was up significantly, August 6 voter turnout was down 14.7 percent when compared to the 2020 August primary election. Instead of focusing on the precincts she won in 2020, defending her own integrity, and attacking Ken Schwartz, residents deserved to hear her plans to reverse the troubling trend of falling voter turnout.

But Wait, There’s More….

In the Aug. 19, 2024 Board packet (pages 49-71), was a copy of a campaign finance complaint against part-time Deputy Twp. Supervisor Irma Golden which had been filed in July 2024 by outgoing Supervisor/incoming Trustee Ken Schwartz. The complaint alleges Irma Golden festooned her car with campaign materials, then drove the car to the Township Hall, where she works. It was a harmless mistake by an inexperienced candidate. Schwartz, Golden’s supervisor, should have simply instructed her not to park the car on any township property.

Instead, Ken Schwartz filed a campaign finance complaint against Golden.

Prior to Schwartz’s campaign finance complaint, Golden had filed a complaint with the County Sheriff in which she alleged Schwartz was removing her campaign signs.

The “people” who had phoned Schwartz (as he alleged according to meeting minutes) to complain about Golden parking her campaign-material-festooned car at the Township office, should have been pointed to the Michigan Elections Bureau Campaign Finance Complaint online form.

Instead, Ken Schwartz filed the complaint against his employee Irma Golden.

Deputy Twp. Supervisor Irma Golden ran for Supervisor of Superior Charter Twp. in the Aug. 2024 primary election and lost. During the election, in a letter placed in the Trustee’s Board packet, Golden accused Ken Schwartz of trying to dissuade her from running. She says Schwartz “coerced” her. Schwartz says he encouraged her to run for Trustee before running for the top job.

Then, in April 2024, Golden filed an EEOC complaint (a copy of which Schwartz provided to the A2Indy). She alleged in the EEOC complaint that her $18 per hour pay was not raised to $34 per hour a few months after she began her job, because of racism.

In her EEOC complaint, Irma Golden alleged harassment and racial discrimination, because she had been given no “instructions to obtain business cards”; not immediately offered a township-owned “laptop for use”; was not immediately given a key to the front door of the township hall, and saw her part-time duties “marginalized.”

Golden also alleged in her EEOC complaint she had been paid less than other assistants, because she is Black.

As it turns out, Clerk Findley and Treasurer Lisa Lewis had, without Board approval, illegally raised their assistants’ pay from $18 to $34 per hour. Schwartz was out sick. Upon the Trustees’ retroactive approval of the pay raises illegally granted by the Clerk and Treasurer, Golden’s pay was raised to $34 per hour and she was given a lump sum to compensate her for the “missing” pay. She did not mention this fact in her EEOC complaint.

Superior Charter Twp. residents struggle to have the township install ADA compliant sidewalks. Residents complain about allegedly shoddy sidewalk repairs by Morris Concrete, the single source contractor hired to do the Township’s sidewalk work. According to the Township’s sidewalk ordinance (and one Trustee), Ken Schwartz, as Supervisor, was legally responsible for appointing a “director of sidewalks.” He never did. He was too busy allegedly stealing campaign signs, leaking top secret materials to the media, and filing campaign finance complaints, complete with photos of Irma Golden’s slick campaign-mobile.

Superior Charter Twp. resident complaints about their resident-paid trash and recycling pick-up provided by Priority Waste beginning July 1, 2024 prompted an apology from the owner. Residents complained of billing discrepancies, missed pick-ups, the Township’s inability to track resident complaints and, indeed, the fact that Township officials did not have the direct dial phone numbers for Priority Waste officials in order to help residents resolve complaints.

Ken Schwartz, Lisa Lewis and Lynette Findley are paid, collectively, over $400,000, including their salaries and very generous benefits (health, dental, vision, disability and pension match). Superior Twp. residents deserve to be served and represented by competent adults. People who take seriously the privilege of public service and the challenges that face Superior Twp. residents, especially crime. There have been 10 shootings in Superior Charter Twp. over the past six months, and 349 assaults. By comparison, there have been 468 assaults in Ann Arbor over the same time period.

Those facts, it would seem, took a backseat to a bunch of middle school malarky which was given star billing in the Aug. 19 report to the Trustees and the public.