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.