Week in Review: "If nothing else, some further education"

Commissioners; County Sheriff and County Clerk Primaries

Week in Review

County Commissioners, Tuesday, July 23

• Benzing indicated the Public Safety Committee’s support for the “public safety radio upgrade.”

• Ingles reported that “the final walkthrough” at the Hillsdale County Courthouse has taken place and that the scaffolding should be down soon.

• IT Director Dave Holcomb informed the Commissioners that the Caller ID portion of Central Dispatch was down for about eight hours in the midst of “the Crowdstrike affair,” and that he is looking into possible legal action against the third-party vendor responsible (in regard to what appears to be a contractual dispute about the distribution of admin passwords).

• Leininger sought ideas for how the County can make use of its $2.5 million worth of opioid settlement funds, money which cannot be used for anything useful punitive.¹ He also reported that a 350-acre, 150-megawatt solar project has been approved in the county.

• In his capacity as Lifeways board member, Wiley arranged a meeting between Homeless Task Force secretary, Josiah Lippincott, and Lifeways staff. Wiley thought the “hour-and-a-half meeting” went well and that “if nothing else, some further education” was accomplished.² He also defended against Ingles the sluggish pace of Lifeways’ relocation project, and reminded the board that an extension of 6-12 months had been given.

Upcoming Events

Miscellaneous Primary Races, August 6

Our coverage so far:

• Incumbent grades for County Commissioners and City Councilmen.

• County Commissioner and Hillsdale City Council primary races.

• Primary ballot millage proposals.

• The State Representative primary election.

Hillsdale County Sheriff

Every few years we are treated to the reenactment of a drama that must have begun in the narrow halls of Hillsdale High School in 1984, or some such setting. Welcome to the 2024 season of Hodshires v. Rutans.

Scott Hodshire

Is it Hodshire’s fault that there is no jail space? Not really. Has Hodshire publicly pressed the Commissioners for increased jail space or some other solution to the problem of lax law enforcement? No, at least not at the Commissioners’ meetings of the past year. Has he tried to send criminals to other counties’ jails, a fairly common practice? Not very successfully, at least. Are there hundreds of unserved warrants? Yes.

Hodshire’s advertised achievements and skills are as follows: grant writing; reinstating a “community service” program (an alternative to jailing); and launching an inmate GED program.³ Some of his campaign flyers also advertise the acquisition of 800 MHZ radios for all county officers, whatever that means with respect to the forthcoming millage.

Jon Rutan

This is Rutan’s fourth go at the office. He is running on a platform of millage skepticism, his understanding of the role of law enforcement in a republic, and his strong conviction that jury trials are more in accord with the Sixth Amendment than our current and predominant practice of plea deals. He claims to have superior legal knowledge and a more thorough understanding of the budget than Hodshire. He believes that a new jail is not strictly necessary—particularly if it is to be financed by a new millage—but that the issue could be largely resolved with proper “inmate classification,” which seems to mean something like jailing the highest priority criminals first.

County Clerk

Abraham Dane

Like many among the establishment “elite” in our county, Dane sees himself as a loyal foot soldier in the war against President Trump’s Republican Party in Michigan. He will have you know that he is both TRAINED and EXPERIENCED, that he is deeply committed to “rubbing shoulders” with our state’s top career bureaucrats, and that the county might be deprived of his august presence if he loses to Miss Scott. Local endorsements include P. Swan Political Activist (like Dane, a hometown correspondent for the ultra-liberal Guardian) and, at least implicitly, our seasoned local reporter, Corey Murray. Dane has had the following things to say about the past four years:

• I’m a conservative christian election administrator who believes our elections are secure and am PRO-LIFE, WOMAN, and 2ND AMENDMENT, but I’m ANTI-TRUMP. What political party do I belong too? Twitter.

• I’ll just say flat out, like, “I don’t think there was election fraud anywhere. I think people have a different worldview than you and you can’t accept that.” Guardian.

• Candidate Etiquette Lesson #999: Remember that you are responsible for the accuracy of your paperwork. If a clerk takes the time to review before you walk away, don’t question our integrity after we do you a favor. Twitter.

• I vehemently oppose any accusations that this office participated in unethical or illegal activities. Hillsdale Collegian.

• Our elections are too important to leave ambiguous what should be a clear line of what is improper for an election worker to do while under oath. Michigan Advance.

Stephanie Scott

In the scrupulously neutral words of Corey Murray, Scott is “a supporter of former President Donald Trump and a far-right Republican.” She is in the process of being lawfared into oblivion by “Trailblazing Queer Jewish Mom” and Attorney General, Dana Nessel, who believes Scott undermined the “very essence of the democratic process” when she tried to exercise her own discretion during the 2020 election. The County’s bureaucratic apparatus—embodied by Dane—has been mobilized against her.

Will Carleton Farm Festival, August 3

External Links

• “Registered voters in Hillsdale County will have an opportunity to cast their ballots for nine days leading up to the Aug. 6 primary election.” Corey Murray’s voting guide.

• “What if I told you that 118 townships have nobody running for Clerk this year.” Michigan Advance.

• “Beyond the strangeness of the moment, a general trend in American politics counsels against a resurgence of party power.” Adam Carrington.

• “These ideas—natural law, consent and equality before the law—define our nation.” Larry Arnn wants to have his cake and eat it too.

• “A Michigan man used an an all-terrain vehicle to run over and critically injure an 80-year-old man who was putting a Trump sign in his yard, in what police have described as a politically motivated attack.” BBC.

• “A Manhattan federal court sentenced Bevelyn Beatty Williams, a 33-year-old pro-life activist, to three years and five months in prison July 24 for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.” Catholic News Agency.

• “California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered state agencies Thursday to start removing homeless encampments on state land.” Associated Press.⁴

• “We have now witnessed three left-wing veritable coups.” Victor Davis Hanson.

• “The degree to which American politics is manipulated seems to simply escape much of our own British media class . . . Peculiarly synthetic characters are a growing feature of America’s postmodern politics, but Harris is particularly strange.” Sebastian Milbank.

• “Teaching the great how to be good—to be at once aristocratic and human, even Christian—was a difficult and dangerous undertaking for most of Western history.” Daniel McCarthy.

• “We are busily wiping away all the boundaries and borders of civilised life in the suicidal pursuit of some ill-defined vision of justice and equity.” Jacob Howland.

1. Our recommendation is that the County should do what every organ of government does when it receives entailed cash: invent a new bureaucratic office, perhaps to fund and oversee safety updates at our local drug dens.

2. We are certain Lippincott has a lengthier and more colorful account of the meeting.

3. Grant-writing and program-starting—the most vogue skills of our ruling class.

4. Once again, quality-of-life governance makes its return in an election year.