Mr. Nakagiri: Have you no sense of decency, sir?

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Just imagine the outrage if Gov. Gretchen Whitmer refused to appoint a Republican to a minor state board, and justified it by saying something like this: “With today’s Republican party supporting the insurgency at the U.S. Capitol over the Big Lie that the election was stolen, indoctrinating children with fear of masks in the middle of a global pandemic, celebrating tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations at the expense of the middle class, it is difficult to envision a card-carrying Republican being appointed to any board or commission in Michigan.”

My goodness, I imagine there would be a huge, red tornado of a collective scream swirling up from red, red Livingston County — sort of like the sound of the monthly emergency siren testing — followed by busloads of angry Republicans speeding to the state Capitol to demand Whitmer’s resignation.

The quote I made up above really isn’t much different from what Wes Nakagiri, chairperson of the Livingston County Board of Commissioners, said himself in a statement to WHMI today about the hyper-partisan and supremely cheesy move to keep a Democrat from serving on the county jury commission. As blatantly partisan as the move, Nakagiri’s defense of it is worse. Much, much worse. Here it is, word for word:

“With today’s Democrat Party standing for policies allowing boys to compete in girls’ athletics, allowing men to enter womens’ locker rooms, indoctrinating children with hate-filled systemic racist ideology, denying our children a full education by locking down our schools, defunding the police, opening our southern border to a free flow of cheap labor, and denying Livingston Seniors fair access to COVID health care, it is difficult to envision a card-carrying Democrat officer being appointed to any committee in our county.”

His own hyper-partisan words make him sound more like infamous commie-hunter Sen. Joseph McCarthy than the top elected official in Livingston County. If the more reasonable Republicans on the county board don’t step up and demand he step down, I will do it for them:

Wes, for the good of Livingston County, you’ve got to go. You’ve done enough. You need to do the decent thing and turn the reins of the commission over to someone capable of running the county for all its residents and taxpayers, not just the ones who subscribe to your own radical views.

From here on in, should Nakagiri refuse to do the right thing, every single decision made by the board will be tainted by his fealty to the radical wing of his national party over the wants and needs of Livingston County’s taxpayers for a constructive, well-run board.

All of us in Livingston County — Republicans, Independents, Democrats and political agnostics — deserve much, much better.

 

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Maria Stuart worked at The Livingston County Press/ Livingston County Daily Press & Argus as a reporter, editor and managing editor. These days, she runs The Livingston Post.

4 Comments

  1. The Livingston County Post is a local fake-news tabloid, not a legitimate source for actual news. Will you print Mr. Nakagiri’s response? Probably not.

  2. Our county deserves better as a leader of the board of commissioners . . . someone who respects and values the contributions and inputs of all of the residents of our county, regardless of their political affiliation.

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