Calumet resident explains reasons for ballot petition
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ermain last summer circulated a petition for a referendum asking the voters to decide if they, or the village council, should select the village's clerk. Friday, Germain said she believes it is important for the voters to understand "why an elected or an appointed clerk in the Village of Calumet will make a difference and why someone would circulate a petition to find out what the voters want."
She circulated the petition to give the voters the right to decide whether they want to elect their own clerk, or "have the few individuals on the council make that decision for them by appointing a person of only their choice."
An elected person must live within the village, said Germain, and will continue to be re-elected as long as they do a good job and have the confidence of the residents who voted for them.
A person appointed has no residency requirement, can live outside the village, and is not impacted by bad decisions such as to defund the police, eliminate garbage service, or spend monies in the village coffers on ordinances that do nothing to improve the quality of life as the infrastructure crumbles, she continued. That person can just drive away to a town that provides safety and cleanliness at the end of the work day.
Allowing the board to appoint positions led to situations such as the previous village manager, Caleb Katz, who resided in Portage Township and the current manager, Amber Goodman, who lives in Keweenaw County.
"The first three word in the Constitution are 'We the people,'" said Germain. "Not only do we have the Constitution, but the Bill of Rights strengthens the rights of the people. The first of the 10 amendments is, in my opinion, the most important one: Freedom of speech, press, and the right to petition our government. That is why such a powerful tool is the way residents can have a voice in their own government."
Germain said it is very significant that her petition went missing, while a petition circulated by Virginia Dwyer was mishandled. Those actions denied the right of the voters to state their preferences of whether the clerk and treasurer are elected or appointed.
"By voting, the residents could keep their power," she said, "and not give it away unless it is their decision made in the sanctity of the ballot box."
The July decision of the council to pass two ordinances, one to make the clerk appointed and the other to make the treasurer appointed, were challenged properly under Michigan law, she said.
"Both petitions, I believe, had the required number of signatures to be placed on the ballot; but at a recent special council meeting on Jan. 11, the council rescinded both the ordinances and stated that they would simply start over, completely ignoring the fact that the petitions were turned in in August 2021, and needed to be honored," said Germain.
Germain pointed out that the vote was 3-2. Of the five who made the decision, only two were actually elected, three were appointed.
"No official cared to investigate what happened," said Germain. "The clerk was not even present (at the Jan. 11 meeting) to shed some light on the issue, and it is not feasible for the council to pass the same two ordinances at a later date and expect that we would circulate petitions again. No one even acknowledged that the people had already properly spoken and had already properly requested the right to vote."
Germain said that the council's adoption of Ordinance No. 160, which repealed two previous ordinances that transfered the authority of deciding the clerk and the treasurer from the election process to council appointment only added another element to the issue.
"It is important to find out why the first amendment of the Bill of Rights -- the right to petition our government -- was violated," she said.