For those who aren’t tuned in to the City of Howell election — and I am guessing it’s quite a few of you — the most interesting thing about it up until recently was that despite three of the four candidates being current council members, whoever wins on Nov. 7 will be elected to council for the very first time.
Let me explain: The three incumbents — Erin Britten, Alex Clos and Nick Hertrich — were all appointed to council. So, while they’re incumbents, none was elected to their seat. With the strong candidacy of Adam Smiddy, the fourth council hopeful, it’s hard to say who will win.
That, to me, was what was interesting about the race until I was made aware of a comment by Larry Parsons — Hartland resident, former Mike Detmer campaign manager, and Livingston GOP executive committee member who fashions himself a master of the meme — that touched off a social media war surrounding the race in which incumbent Howell Mayor Bob Ellis is being challenged by former Mayor Nick Proctor.
Proctor was Howell’s mayor from 2015 to 2021, when he decided to not seek re-election. He then went on to run unsuccessfully in the Republican primary for the Livingston County Board of Commissioners in 2022.
Ellis served on the Howell City Council from 2015 to 2021, and then as Howell’s mayor since 2021.
For the most part Howell’s mayoral race was kind of a snoozer. The two candidates were doing their own thing.
Then, as far as I can figure, Proctor posted on Facebook that local Democrats volunteered on the Ellis campaign, which he feels violates the spirit of a nonpartisan race. (For those who are curious about partisan and non-partisan races in Michigan, here is a good explanation.)
Here’s Proctor’s post:
There’s nothing wrong with Proctor’s post. It’s his opinion.
But Parsons commented on it with an ugly, ugly meme that claimed the mayor was “just another left wing extremist Democrat embarrassing Howell,” and it went on to scream “GROOMER ALERT” and “LBGTQ CULTIST” over a photo of the mayor at a diversity event.
Heads exploded, as they tend to do on social media, and a war of words and memes erupted attacking both candidates.
When I asked about Parsons’ comment, Proctor said this: “I was asked to remove Parsons’ comments and told the mayor that I wouldn’t commit either way until I had an opportunity to reflect on First Amendment protection versus civil discourse. I will likely be removing his posts with a Facebook blast that I’m sickened by the state of discourse on both sides.”
I just don’t understand the need to “reflect.” When people post crap like that on this website or on The Livingston Post’s Facebook page, it is removed as soon as we are aware of it.
That said, Proctor did the right thing and took Parson’s ugly comment down. But then Proctor prolonged the agita in his “Facebook blast”: “I know Bob Ellis to be a good husband and father,” Proctor wrote. “Not some ‘groomer’ as has been alleged.”
Now, who besides Parsons alleged such a vile untruth about Howell’s mayor?
The only person who “alleged” anything was Larry Parsons. (Did I mention he’s on the county GOP’s executive committee?)
(In the spirit of full transparency, Larry Parsons is as banned as banned can be from both The Livingston Post’s website and its Facebook page for precisely the same reason that Proctor removed his comment: Parsons’ social media presence is as toxic as it is unhelpful.)
Proctor went on to say that there are “partisan and social issues” that “serve to divide us” and have no place in a non-partisan election. I am not exactly sure what those issues are.
Now, it seems bizarre to have to mention this, but there are LGBTQ people who live — and vote — in Howell, and there are plenty of Democrats, too. Consider that in 2022, in both the cities of Brighton and Howell, voters went all in for Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who won Howell by nearly 4-1/2 points. (You can read my post about the slowly changing political dynamics in Livingston County by clicking here.)
Proctor said he is running to “return nonpartisan governance to the city.”
“This is a Pandora’s box that our mayor opened,” he said.
But for the life of me, I can’t figure out what Ellis is supposed to have unleashed from that box. Proctor says he supports “people being happy and spending life with those they love.” Since both candidates support LGBTQ issues, the only thing I can figure is that those Ellis volunteers — the ones who belong to the local Democratic Party — didn’t sit well with Proctor. That said, I heard no protest from Proctor when the local GOP was up to its neck in the non-partisan 2022 school board races.
As the only mayoral candidate this election to have run in a partisan race — the 2022 Republican primary for a seat on the Livingston County Board of Commissioners — I’d say Proctor is the de facto Republican candidate for Howell mayor.
Since members of the Livingston County Democratic Party volunteered on the Ellis campaign, he’s the de facto Democrat in the race.
In addition to that, Proctor received a back-door nod of sorts on a website run by Jennifer Smith, chair of the Livingston GOP, in a post addressing the social media battle that brought up Drag Queen Bingo — the big brouhaha of the 2021 Melon Festival — and threw in Kasey Helton, the local GOP’s favorite piñata, for good measure.
Here’s what Smith’s website said:
“It seems every time a communist supporter (under the guise of “democracy”) makes a statement the majority of people in the community don’t like ALL people of our county become (let me get this label tirade straight for accuracy) LGOP, MAGA, bigot, racist, KKK sympathizers.
“Maybe people in this community just believe sexual preferences and proclivities should stay where they belong… in the bedroom. Not everyone likes having other’s sexual preferences shoved down their throats or in their children’s faces. It’s really that simple!
“As for the mayoral race, we aren’t going to make an endorsement, but Nick Proctor certainly seems to walk and talk the bipartisanship required for the job.”
(How rich that the local GOP is respecting the bipartisanship of the Howell mayor’s race after it went all in on every single NON-PARTISAN school board race in the last election.)
So, now that our two candidates for Howell mayor have retreated to their respective corners, it’s anybody’s guess who will win. I put the race at a toss-up. Both men have served the city well, but, in the spirit of a little levity, Ellis should get an extra non-partisan point for the removal of the first of Howell’s universally disliked teeny-tiny roundabouts (or swerve-abouts as I call them) on his watch.
All that said, there is a lesson to take from all this: the uproar caused by that ugly Larry Parsons comment illustrates what happens when Facebook pages aren’t strictly policed, when people aren’t skilled at using social media and digital communication, and when people don’t understand that freedom of speech doesn’t mean we can say whatever we want wherever and whenever we want without consequence. While the internet makes it easy to blast those with whom we disagree, that doesn’t make it right — or smart or constructive. And while technology makes it easy to create vile media, that doesn’t mean we should.
It would sure be nice to focus on issues rather than toxic talking points. For political candidates, especially, social media should be used to promote ideas and thoughts, not the work and ramblings of people who are corrosive to the process.
CORRECTION: The previous version of this post incorrectly stated Nick Proctor’s endorsement in the 2021 Howell mayor’s race. Proctor did not support either candidate.
