Political jaws dropped across Livingston County after the local Republican party — in an unprecedented, spectacularly gangster move — excommunicated four of its members who also sit on the Brighton Area Schools Board of Education.
The Brighton Four, as they are being referred to, are: Roger Myers, president of the BAS board of education; Jennifer Marks, vice president; Katie Tierney, treasurer; and Alicia Urbain, trustee. They are all highly regarded community and party members.
Surely these four committed a high crime to earn retribution so severe. Child porn? Sexual assault? Embezzlement? Cringy meme-ing?
No. Their high crime was voting to put the district’s $156 million bond issue before voters. Like school boards do.
Does this make any sense at all?
Apparently it does to the LCRP’s executive committee, which party chair Deb Drick said voted unanimously in a secret meeting to carry out the political excommunications.
And what did we think was going to happen anyhow, Drick asked in a recent blog post in which she vigorously defends the honor of John Conely, the controversial ex-Brighton Area Schools Board of Education member who almost single-handedly financed the campaign against the $156 million bond issue, which went down to defeat by a couple points.
You can check the campaign filing here:
In true Donna Corleone fashion, Drick demands the LCRP be respected and given a seat at the school board table.
“In short, Republicans are not opposed to bonds,” Drick wrote. “They are opposed to being told to shut up and pay a tax that we had no say in.”
And while one of her official LCRP podcasts was devoted to bashing the BAS bond issue with Conely, Roger Myers said Drick denied his request to make the district’s case on that same episode.
According to Myers, Drick said he wasn’t “conservative” enough. Drick said Myers wasn’t a member of the LCRP at that time, and that she would have accepted any of the three other excommunicated folks she said were members.
When you get right down to it, it’s clear the reason all this silliness taking place is that Drick and the LCRP are grievously butthurt that they didn’t personally get to pick and choose what was included in the bond issue. (And for the record, I can’t imagine Drick would’ve welcomed such a demand from the county Democratic Party back when she served on the Howell Public Schools Board of Education.)
“Do Republicans fight expenditures on children’s safety? No. Do they fight large amounts of school dollars spent on a state-of-the-art kitchen? Yes,” Drick wrote. “Do they fight STEM Centers built for students to learn? No. Do they want large amounts of dollars going to a Center for Performing Arts – that charges admission and should be self-sufficient? No.
“But what Republicans resist more than anything is the fact that their concerns are dismissed. They are not heard, they are not compromised with, they do not appear to matter. They are ignored, and in some cases ridiculed.
“We don’t like being shut out of the process. And until we are heard – not obeyed, just sincerely part of the conversation – we are going to fight bonds and anything else that says our concerns don’t matter, our concerns aren’t relevant.
“We are a big part of this community. It is not an unreasonable expectation that we are respectfully heard.”
Sounds like a major case of political butthurtedness to me.
For all this durm and strang on the part of the LCRP, you’d almost think the bond had passed. In reality, the bond lost. Not by much, but by enough. And, of course, according to Drick in her position as chair and spokesperson of the LCRP, it’s the Brighton School Board’s fault.
“I have no doubt the Brighton School Board is figuring, has figured or will figure out a way to get a bond back on the table in the near future,” Drick wrote. “And they may choose to try to come out swinging, trying to pay back Republicans for all the terrible things they have said to keep it from being passed. And that will of course encourage the Republicans to come out harder against the bond. Rinse and repeat.
“Or maybe they can try something different. Maybe they can invite some of us to sit at the table that is figuring, has figured or will figure out a way to meet their needs. Maybe their expectations of being welcomed as guests in our homes should extend to inviting us as guests in their homes.”
To think that after receiving the most extreme punishment the LCRP could possibly dole out, the Brighton Four would invite Drick and Conely over for tea and crumpets seems quite silly.
But stranger things have happened. And, as the old adage goes, politics makes strange bedfellows.
It’s interesting to note that there was no outcry one way or the other on Howell’s huge $258 million bond issue two years ago. Jason Bedford of the Howell Public Schools Board of Education — also featured in the LCRP’s recruitment video — voted to put the bond issue on the ballot and worked to help it pass.
According to the criteria Drick laid out for Republican support of a bond issue, there are things Howell voters approved that would merit nailing it to a cross.
Drick said that since she was “neither chair nor on the executive committee in 2023,” she could not “comment on what they found acceptable or unacceptable.”
But Drick was chair when the Livingston County Board of Commissioners went after the Veterans Services Millage in March. And unless we missed it, there wasn’t a peep out of the LCRP, and no one excommunicated Commissioner Wes Nakagiri, who spearheaded the effort to strip Veterans Services of a good deal of its money.
In another recent blog post, Drick criticized the Michigan Republican Party’s attempt to remove controversial state grassroots coordinator Chris Long because he expressed opinions on the GOP’s gubernatorial primary contrary to the state party’s position. Drick went so far as to say the MRP was “shooting itself in the foot” in its attempt to remove him.
I asked Drick how she could square what to me are two polar opposite points of view on the First Amendment and the rights of party members.
“Apples and oranges,” Drick said. “Chris Long is only answerable to delegates.” (You can read that blog post by clicking here.)
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