County Results and early Paul Scott results.

Some results are in.

Howell will be making some changes.
Mayor:
Phil Campbell - 669
Geri Moen - Incumbent - 499

Council:
Al Schlittler - quasi incumbent - 749
Doug Heins - 716
Steve Manor - incumbent - 615
Victoria Hertich - 454
Daria Devantier - 420

I'm not surprised by this. Joe Hune isn't as popular in the City of Howell as he is in Fowlerville. He's rather disliked by many of the establishment there. Joe still defeated Paul Rogers in the City of Howell in the primary. That was an opening set for challengers to the city government. Streetscape and its tax increase were the big issues there.

With that, I think one strategy backfired severely. Right before the election, the old boys/girls club circled the wagons. They came out with a letter of four former mayors (including Paul Rogers) backing the incumbents on the council and their favored challenger (Devantier). I think that hurt them bad and reinforced the status quo, streetscapes, and the like. Schlittler led the council votes, but was viewed as a moderate as a recent appointee and was supported by folks on both sides. Heins was a challenger and ran strong. Manor was the long term incumbent who survived. Moen was caught offguard by a strong challenger. Campbell worked extremely hard on this campaign and won.

In Brighton, all the incumbents win, as expected.

The millages in Green Oak are passing easily, as I expect. 2-1 margin+ for both of them. I also think this is helping the MEA/BEA in the Brighton School Board races. Minert (unofficially endorsed) will win, and Trombley started to pull away when Green Oak started reporting. What was a near tie is now a 190 vote deficit with six precincts to go. That's a small lead, except that the Green Oak precincts in so far both had major leads for Trombley over Rassel. Fiani is in the pack and won't catch Trombley.

Paul Scott's recall can go either way. Currently he's up 171 votes with 86% in.
Yes to Recall - 10,851
No to MEA - 11,022

Five precincts to report. I hope it's not Mundy Township that has yet to report. That's the roughest part of Paul's district.

It's going to be a close one tonight.

Annoying laws

Everybody does it....

That's the response from the City of Brighton. They cited some similar ordinances from Fowlerville and Green Oak, among other places.

From the Argus:

Brighton gained national notoriety for making amendments to its harassment ordinances, which were dubbed its "annoyance ordinances," but it's certainly not the only place with such rules.


Seventeen other communities in Michigan have similar rules, including Fowlerville and Green Oak Township in Livingston County.

Fowlerville has an ordinance identical to that of Brighton, and it states, "No person shall insult, accost, molest, or otherwise annoy, either by word of mouth, sign, or motion, any person in any public place."

Green Oak Township's harassment ordinance says it is unlawful for a person — with the intent to harass, annoy or alarm another person — to "engage in a course of conduct, or repeatedly commit acts that alarm or seriously annoy another person and that serve no legitimate purpose."

Although the laws are on their books, law enforcement officials said the rules rarely result in actual tickets being issued for civil infractions. Typically, police officers only have to show up to get compliance.

One common saying among gun owners is that there are over 20,000 gun laws on the books. One other saying is that everybody breaks the law every single day. Part of the reasons for that is that there are hundreds of thousands of laws on the books that are unknown, vague, unenforced, but still there.

That does not mean that we should ignore them. If it is a bad law - REPEAL IT! The POTENTIAL of a current law on the books being enforced in arbitrary situations that are vague, hard to define, and hard to defend, is bad enough. I don't care if it is "only a civil infraction" and I go irate when it is "only a misdeamenor." Misdeamenors are a very big deal for me. I do not have and can not get them on my record. I can go to jail for misdeamenors, and even civil infractions cost over $100 when court costs are figured into the matter.

Chetly Zarko, an Oakland County political consultant, covered this is depth on his site, Outside Lansing. There's some good reading there.

Green Oak's officials are going to get a call or visit from me real soon about this. Harassment I can understand. Annoy or Alarm are tough to define, and tough to defend against.

These "catch all" laws are ridiculous, especially when there is adequate laws for the real problems. Disturbing the peace has solid definitions. Disorderly conduct (Drunk and disorderly in some other states) despite it's vague sounding to the public, has solid legal foundations through statutes defining the conduct on the state level, as well is common law foundations and precident.

The City of Brighton continues to dig a hole with there comments.

First, from the Cops.

He said these rules help people resolve neighborhood disputes that aren't of a criminal nature. As a civil infraction, he said, police have more opportunity to use these rules to deal with problems "that seem to not be resolving themselves."

Civil Infractions are a ticket. Is this a budgetary measure turning law enforcement officers (LEO's) into revenue enhancement officers? (REO's) Tickets are rarely contested in court as well, since it often costs less to pay the fine rather than go to court and hire a lawyer to fight this. (And I never recommend being a fool for a client).

That doesn't account for the laws already on the books. Disorderly Conduct. Disturbing the peace. Etc.

Kinaschuk pointed out the rules are necessary today because society has changed.

"We don't go and talk to our neighbors, and we don't know our neighbors as we used to," he said.

Officer, who is "We?"

A more reasonable comment comes from Fowlerville, although they have the ordinance.

Although the laws are on their books, law enforcement officials said the rules rarely result in actual tickets being issued for civil infractions. Typically, police officers only have to show up to get compliance.

Fowlerville Police Chief Tom Couling said the harassment ordinances are "very infrequently" enforced with a ticket. He said cases typically involve neighbor disputes over noise or barking dogs.

Noise ordinances are constitutional, and dogs certainly can qualify. Those are different than these vague "annoyance" statutes. The more telling quote is that they rarely result in actual tickets being issued. That shows that frankly, this law is not needed.

It's time for the City of Brighton to man up and admit it did something stupid in following Royal Oak's annoyance law and repeal it.

You don't win if you don't show up

I often use a lot of sports sayings and sports related terms in my writings here. One of my favorite sayings is "You don't win if you don't show up." It explains itself. I already voted, so I'm unbiased when I say this.

I got a surprise in my mailbox today. Many of the local democrats know who I am. It's not a secret, some of my comments made the Argus. I've only voted for a democrat in the general election twice ever for any partisan office whatsoever, and I wasn't always a Republican. If I don't vote for the Republican candidate, I almost always vote for the Libertarian candidate. That's if the Republican candidate really ticks me off either by who he is, or by his votes. Don Sherwood, Bill Riordan and Ted Stevens are examples of Republicans who would not get my vote if I was in their district. Sherwood for being scum, Riordan for his social views, and Ahnold for his economic views. My views are a mix of ideology (those three above) and pragmatism (McCain and moreso Bush aren't my favorites, but clearly better than their opponents).

The surprise in the mail was a postcard election mailing from Matt Evans. He's the democrat running for Green Oak Supervisor. I've met Matt once, and he's a nice guy even if I don't agree with him on everything. After the primary election, I wondered which Matt Evans will show up on the campaign. The one who had a respectable showing in 2006 or the one who didn't get on the ballot for the primary, but got enough write ins to make the ballot. I can't speak for others, but I assume if this Republican got the mailing, others of all parties did too. My guess is that the mailing went to those on the absentee list or level "7+" voters list (those who almost always vote or in my case, always vote contested elections).

I did get a Mark St Charles mailing as well awhile back. I know Mark as well. I expect a mailing from him more with my GOP leanings so I was not surprised. He's gotta keep working since I do expect a competitive race in Green Oak.

One thing that bothers me as a voter is when a candidate does not do anything except put a name on the ballot in a contested election. That's a quick way to get me to throw off on an election to a libertarian candidate. As I make an effort to inform myself, if I don't know you or at least know of you, I'm not voting for you. Effort matters, and I will not blindly vote.

If nothing else, I can respect both Mark St Charles and Matt Evans for running real campaigns. You don't win if you don't show up. They know that. At the least, expect something in the mail if you are in Green Oak. One request though to both. Don't robocall me. I hate robocalls even more than I hate reading editorials from Mitch Albom.