Maybe under the new administration we will get to the bottom of the tampering with court records issue know to be a problem in Washtenaw Citcuit Court.

How can court records indicate an order was entered striking a critical brief three days before the brief was even filed? How can audio and video tapes disappear and show up blank?

18 USC 2071

Lapeer County Clerk v Lapeer Circuit Court In re Lapeer County Clerk / Digest

Lapeer County Clerk v Lapeer Circuit Court In re Lapeer County Clerk / Opinion

See http://potifos.com/polygon (November 19th entry) for response to the preceding.

Larry,

Your tone is ridiculous. Ms. Haines has been nothing but 100% professional to everyone. I wouldn’t let you in to my office either before I was required to. First of all you’re an Ann Arbor Democrat and secondly an Attorney, oh boy, it is clear that trust would be a HUGE issue. Just because you want to take office before your term begins and Ms. Haines has a responsibility to continue to operate her office through the end of the year, you attack her. She offered you the opportunity to transition once you take office. Then, your comments about Northfield Township are ridiculous as well, you weren't at the meeting, where transition was discussed and you have no idea what was said unless you operate on word of mouth. If this is the way you plan to communicate, the people of Washtenaw County are going to be gravely disappointed in your lack of ability to deliver even half of the services that were provided by Ms. Haines and ethics obviously are not a concern of yours. Just be aware, we will all be watching your budget and your actions. Let's see if you can amaze us all and perform your duties ethically when you are sworn in, thus far with your actions, I have little hope that you will live up to the level of professionalism that Ms. Hanes has operated at for a number of years. Who knows, maybe I’m wrong and you might learn from your mistakes. I doubt it. What a shame.

Jan, I'm baffled at the idea that Larry should shut down his comments section because others might come to conclusions--totally independent of Larry--that you find ridiculous.

The staff is terrified? It must be your campaign picture.

No, no, it's that word leaked about about the terrible incident in Benin. You know, Larry was the only one to make it out alive, unless you count poor Johnson, and he's been stark raving mad since that terrible expedition--unable to speak other than to cry horribly "The macaw! God have mercy on our souls!"

Please, no need for any apologies (or sniping at each other). I think people will understand that only I speak for me. I can handle the politics. I appreciate what everyone has to say, and I have no intention of shutting down the weblog or the comment boards.

I have heard there are some crazy stories circulating. Perhaps this board can be useful in rumor control.

Ms. Wolter -- I see your point; however, I don't feel that I've "accused" anybody of anything, or said anything that anybody wouldn't have surmised on their own. Mr. Kestenbaum said that he had heard the staff were "terrified" -- is it unreasonable to suggest that terrified people, in this context, are exploring their options?
However, I do see your point, and shall refrain from this sort of speculation hereafter; indeed, had the hour been earlier, or I more rested, I would probably have refrained from writing at all.

Mr. Kestenbaum -- my comment was not intended to complicate things for you, and I do apologise if it has, and I in no way intended to suggest that you would replace the entire staff, simply that, from what I have heard, there is a vague unease about the transition. This is understandable, given the length of your predecessor's tenure as clerk: new management after fourteen years under one clerk is not a prospect to anticipate lightly in any circumstance.
I am confident that you will handle the transition wisely and well, and again, wish to apologise if my wild speculation has caused you undue concern.
-- gauche

Jan, what people are doing is presenting theories consistent with the facts. If I were to ignore the facts and post wild speculation, my posts might look a lot more like yours.

I don't think that Larry should get rid of this blog or the comments section. Public speculation about a great number of issues - particularly those surrounding this 'unexpected' transition of officeholder - will occur regardless of forum availability. Therefore, I think it could actually benefit Larry and the public to continue with the blog and comments, provided that Larry continues to exercise the discretion and diplomacy that characterize the blog and his personality in general. As far as 'random semi-anonymous people' are concerned, Larry knows who most of the posters are and is capable of chosing which comments merit a reply, which are best ignored, and finally, which comments are best deleted.

The world of political blogging appears to be staying put for a while, and, considering the local following Larry has built, it hardly seems appropriate for him to disappear into the fray at the precise moment people are trying to get a glimpse of him as a real person who is about to assume an important post.

Finally, given the local bloggers who follow county politics, if the comments aren't being made here, they will certainly be made elsewhere. Why not get them out into the open, where concerns can be addressed in a pro-active and constructive manner?

In the unlikely event that Clerk's office employees are actually reading this: I am very much looking forward to working with each and every one of you. My goal is to maintain and build the quality of the office and its services in 2005 and future years. If you do good work and treat customers with courtesy and respect, you have nothing to fear from me.

I would be very sorry to see the comments section of this blog go away although I can certainly see you point, Jan.

Oh, are we playing "let's concoct random conspiracy theories without reference to fact?" How about this one: There are no staff people at the clerks office! They are all holograms! What you see behind the counter there is actually a realistic three dimensional projection. If you tried to go more than two feet beyond the front counter you would run into a solid wall - the front surface of the vast alien computing engine that projects the appearance of a county clerks office to allow it to gather the vital statistics of the City of Ann Arbor as part of an alien xenosociology research project. This theory explains everything ... or it would if there was much of anything in need of explaining.

You know, even in workplaces where a boss's hiring decisions are not as visible to public scrutiny as those of a civil servant, departments hardly ever seem to get filled up with "kin and cronies". Most people have a hard time finding more than a few kin or cronies who actually want to work directly for them. Heck, my kin and cronies seem to prefer to move to other cities.

I can't think that public speculation about what horrors could conceivably lurk in the county clerks office is particularly helpful to smoothing Larry's transition in his new job. If the staff there are worried about the transition, having random semi-anonymous people publically accuse them in front of their future boss of various arbitrary things isn't exactly going to help put them at ease.

Honestly, I think Larry might need to think about whether this blog is entirely compatible with his new job. My personal inclination would be to keep the blog, but lose this comments section. One of the sad side effects of public office is that you need to be a bit more careful of your public statements, and letting people embellish them in this way just doesn't make sense to me. Silly comments posted about his team elsewhere on the net Larry can blithely ignore, but ones posted on his blog tend to demand a response from him. If he's silent it just starts people wondering whether or not he actually suspects them of being holograms.

The blog itself is good though. I can see the day when we'll have a President who keeps a personal daily blog. "Fireside chat" for the 21st century. Well, not within the next four years, but maybe after that.

I wonder what a check of familial connections and personal associations of staff to clerk would reveal. Could anyone in any office for so long not tap into known and trusted associates? When objective qualifications among applicants for positions appear equal, one chooses trusted cronies. "I don't want nobody workin' for me if I don't have their pecker in my pocket," said Lyndon Johnson. While I'm not an advocate for term limits on elected positions, I understand why some people are. Term limits bring their own abuses such as the current move by the state house to extend continuing benefits to early-quitting legislators who move back to their municipalities to assume elected positions there. Skip term limits, but throw the bums out before their tentacles suffocate advancement and loot the coffers.

Have other newly elected officials played games with the budget to get rid of, or demote, staffers? Concern about that type of action, sometimes necessary but many times calculated to get rid of a prior office holder's staff, can create anxiety. ("I can't fire you, but I can eliminate your position.")

The three political appointees are each titled "Chief Deputy".

Jan -
An "at will" employment arrangement is one in which either party, i.e., employer or employee, may terminate the employment relationship at any time, for any non-protected reason (protected reason being a legally protected status, particularly as it relates to gender, ethnicity, race and religion). An appointment is just that - a political appointee that serves at the pleasure of the elected official who appointed the individual. Very often, when the office changes hands, and especially when the officeholder is of a different party affiliation, at-will political appointees are replaced. Unionized "civil servants" are a different story, as Larry points out
below.

Of course, I am no attorney, only a Political Science/Public Administration (and let's not forget the equally useless undergraduate Econ minor) graduate, so I am confident that any inaccuracies I spew forth will be most expediently corrected.

What is an "at will" appointment?

Larry,
Without mentioning specific names, what are the titles of those three "at-will" political appointments? I presume that one would be "Deputy Clerk", but what about the others?

I am sure that the other employees with feel far less "terrified" after spending just one day under your leadership. But you might want to leave the fake scar at home, just in case. And definitely rethink the Dick Cheney-esque hand motions you so carefully cultivated after watching the debates. Eyepatch? Optional.

Perhaps there is some misconception here. There are only three "at-will" political appointees in the office. I hope all other employees will be willing to continue and work with me.

Mr. Kestenbaum,
My roommate, who will remain nameless, works in the county office, and related the incident to which you are referring to me over lunch yesterday, and the both of us expressed our shock and disappointment at Ms. Haines' handling of the incident. Her behavior shows both rudeness and unprofessionalism.
However, you are correct that the staff are, if not terrified, certainly very very concerned with the security of their jobs. According to my roommate, just about everyone in the offices which are not unionized has been actively looking for work since the election.
Accordingly, I have to wonder whether part of Ms. Haines' motivation in setting you up for a rocky transition is to force you to work closely with the staff, in the hopes that you will be less likely to sack them en masse once the transition is over. While I understand that this hypothesis may be more charitable toward your predecessor than you are inclined to believe, it does sound like the sort of thing she might think to do. My roommate is adamant that Ms. Haines is concerned for the continued employment of her staff.
It's just a thought: take with a grain of salt. Anyway congratulations, and I wish you much luck and smooth sailing.

--gauche

I think Larry's interpretation is consistent with the mindset displayed in the Ann Arbor News - that this election result was the result exclusively of "straight ballot" voting (suggesting quite plainly that smarter voters, who knew enough to split their ticket, wouldn't have voted for Larry). There was an interesting follow-up letter in the A2 News a couple of days ago, where a voter took some umbrage at that characterization.

I expressly noted that the outgoing clerk may have some other motive for her choices. But given the context, and the fact that she hasn't stated other motives, how much "benefit of the doubt" does she deserve?

I think some of the respondents here are making a bit too much of this. Larry said he'd been asked not to come to the office till January 1st, and he mentioned Republicans in the legislature destroying records. To jump to the conclusion that Ms Haines would even consider destroying records is rather a wild leap from what he said. I don't know any of the people involved (except Larry), but given the good reputation of the clerk's office locally, I'm confident that you can trust in the professionalism of Ms Haines and her staff. Preserving records is what the heart of their trust.
<p>
Honestly, I'm not sure that Ms Haines isn't taking a perfectly sensible course. The minute Larry walks in that door, Ms Haines' term is over. Future boss trumps current boss. Why shouldn't Ms Haines retain complete authority over the County Clerk's office until December 31?
<p>
On January 1, Larry moves in. Then he's in charge. Nobody has suggested that Ms Haines won't be available for consultation and advice at that point, if Larry requires it. Her staff certainly will be. This way the staff will know exactly who is in charge on every day from now through Larry's terms. The lines of authority are kept clean. If Ms Haines comes in after January 1, her presence interfere with Larry's authority. Previous boss does not trump new boss. This isn't the only way to handle a transition. It might not be the way Larry will choose to do it when his term ends, but it seems to me a very viable and orderly way to do it. Alarm is premature.
<p>
Relax. You'll have plenty to do in January, and plenty of good people to help you.
<p>
As for not having a chance to talk to the staff, um, I'll bet all or most are reading this blog.

My suggestion: find out the name of the office manager, and call for a private meeting at a neutral location. After all, you will be that person's boss a lot longer than your vanquished opponent's. If the O.M. won't meet, work your way down a list of employees. Find out what the hell is going on in there.

     D.J. Jones has a good point. You should get a court order forbidding the current clerk from destroying any records or files of any kind. Republicans play dirty politics all the time, and then Democratic leaders stand around whining that they weren't playing fair. Ordinary Democrats in this country are tired of wussy leadership. Take for granted that the bastards are going to screw you, and fight back hard. Justify it to the press as that the people's business can't be done properly without an orderly transition, and your opponent is behaving unprofessionally and may even have something to hide. Put her on the defensive publicly NOW.

Perhaps it is human nature to get so wrapped up in self-pity, or to obsess over slights (real and/or imagined). That type of thing happens all the time outside of politics, so it really shouldn't be surprising when it happens within the political sphere.

In a regular work environment, assuming opportunity for transition, there is usually some sort of check on this type of behavior. Sure, some people will quit without notice, or on such short notice that their successors may not have even been selected, let alone trained. Sure, some will take a bad reference over training a successor or making sure that there is continuity in office procedure. But most people will, happily or grudgingly, work to ensure a reasonably smooth transition.

In social and political spheres, often there is less to answer for. And some people take a rather scorched earth approach to their "revenge". Does a County Clerk have a legacy with which to be concerned? Or is it more rewarding for her to hope that you stumble more than a few times as you try to pick up the ball she intentionally fumbled, and perhaps even to gloat over mistakes for which she is primarily responsible?

Perhaps I'm treating the outgoing clerk as too small a person - she may have some other motive for her conduct. But it is hard to see how she could be helping anything but her own bruised ego through this type of conduct. (And whatever visceral satisfaction may be derived by making life 'difficult for the new guy' will likely be short-lived. I think that most people who hope (or obsess) for somebody else's failure or unhappiness end up primarily making themselves unhappy.)

The staff is terrified? It must be your campaign picture. I told you that the fake scar and eyepatch were a bit over the top, but did you listen? ;-)

Edited by author 11-11-2004 10:33 PM
And this sort of thing sometimes happens when the incoming and outgoing incumbents are of the SAME party, especially if one defeated the other in a primary.

It's unfortunate, but not altogether unusual, that defeated incumbents treat the victors with contempt (and is an affliction of both parties) and try to keep them in the dark until "the day" arrives when they leave office. Even as a fairly partisan Republican, I would at least want to make sure my successor (especially in a record-keeping office), regardless of party, knew the day-to-day operations of the office and would try to make sure most of my staff members were retained and would similarly help the incoming officeholder with any problems to have as smooth a transition as possible. In any event, I'm sorry to hear you're being given a rough time on this. Let's hope you don't find a nastier surprise on New Years' with destroyed files and records. :-(