It’s time for Wes Nakagiri to step down as county board chair

I would like to remind Wes Nakagiri that his job as chair of the Livingston County Board of Commissioners— his ONLY job — is to guide the work of the board in doing what is best for the residents of Livingston County.

That said, it’s time for Nakagiri to step down as chair because he demonstrates each and every day just how unsuited he is for this leadership position. On top of that, he’s showing the county that he doesn’t give a damn about it.

Most of what Nakagiri does these days is work on his particular political vanity projects, and battle his culture wars and whipped up controversies du jour, while the work of Livingston County — including getting us high speed broadband internet access — languishes. I don’t much care how Nakagiri chases his political fever dreams, as long as he does it on his own time; but it is, frankly, downright offensive that he’s doing it at the expense of Livingston County from his perch as the chair of the Livingston County Board of Commissioners.

If Nakagiri can’t commit to working on behalf of all of Livingston County, then he shouldn’t be chairman of the county board.

The latest in Nakagiri’s string of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad decisions?

Nakagiri denied U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin — our direct representative to Washington, D.C. — a spot on the agenda of the Livingston County Board of Commissioners. You can read WHMI’s excellent coverage by clicking here.

Imagine the red howl rising up from Livingston County had the chair of the blue Ingham County Board of Commissioners given U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican, the middle finger instead of a spot on its agenda when he requested it. At the time when that could have been possible — when Rogers was our congressman and I was the editor of the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus — rest assured that I’d have written a blistering editorial calling out the Ingham County board for being short-sighted, for playing petty politics, for not doing the work of its constituents.

Knowing my flair for dramatic turns of phrase, I may have even called it a political blunder of apocalyptic proportion. And I would have been as right then as I am today when I tell you that I am struggling to find words to adequately express how stupid, how awful, how ignorant Nakagiri’s rebuff of our congresswoman is on so many levels.

And as horrible and contemptful his actions are toward U.S. Rep. Slotkin, Nakagari is also showing Livingston County that he doesn’t give a crap about what we want or need or care about. The job of the chair of the Livingston County Board of Commissioners is to guide the work of the board, as well as be the public face of Livingston County. These days, Nakagiri isn’t doing much guiding, and the stress his political provocateur-ing creates on the board is showing.

Trust me when I say that experienced, respected public servants like Kate Lawrence don’t just up and quit in the middle of a meeting because things are going well, because their work and opinions are valued, because they’re being productive. Nope. That kind of a resignation happens because a lot of shit’s getting stirred behind the scenes. Lawrence’s abrupt resignation screams out that something’s rotten on that board.

If you don’t believe me, join a meeting via Zoom (click here for the county board’s Zoom link for a live meeting, or click here for previously recorded meetings), and watch carefully because the body language says it all: many times, Lawrence and some others on the board looked a whole lot more like hostages than commissioners — (Lawrence said that was a “funny observation” when I shared it with her) — and who among us would blame her for fleeing what I think was an untenable situation?

Livingston County needs a steady, strong leader to represent us on the state and national levels. Instead we get the dude who burst onto the international political scene in Cleveland at the Republican National Convention in 2016, dressed up as Hillary Clinton in handcuffs while sporting a “Hillary’s Lies Matter” button.

I don’t care who Nakagiri dresses up as behind closed doors or when he’s out there doing his best political provocateur impersonation. I do, however, take great offense at how he’s treating his position as chairperson of the Livingston County Board of Commissioners.

That he would deny our Congressional representative a spot on the agenda of the Livingston County Board of Commissioners meeting is gobsmackingly unconscionable. Short-sighted political partisanship isn’t what being the leader of the county board is all about, and he owes Slotkin an apology — as well as a spot on the next agenda.

The time has come for Nakagiri to step down from the chairmanship of the county board.

And if Nakagiri can’t understand how deeply he’s hurting our community, or if he won’t do it because he loves the political platform he’s created for himself, then the people who selected him as their leader — his fellow commissioners — need to step up and remove him themselves.

This is all about what’s good for Livingston County.