AN EDITORIAL BY
LAWRENCE SOBCZAK
PUBLISHER
The Record Newspaper is not giving an endorsement to either Christine Malzahn for reelection as president or Katherine Trapp as village clerk.
The duo has been nothing but a constant source of bad news for Romeo including:
- The lack of an action plan for the closing of Ford’s Romeo Engine Plant. See last week’s editorial;
- Pursuit of cityhood despite a strong desire of village residents to remain a village;
- Lack of input and communication with the public over the cityhood proposal;
- A pay raise of more than $50,000 per year for Malzahn for a position that is supposed to be a part-time chair of meetings as well as signer of documents;
- Property tax increases at the beginning of the pandemic despite warnings to municipalities from the Michigan Department of Treasury which was trying to assess the budgetary impact of the crisis;
- Water and sewer rate increases despite the same warnings from the Michigan Department of Treasury;
- Annexation of land from Ray Township and Armada Township which has alarmed and severely undermined trust with officials in all of the neighboring townships;
- A marihuana ordinance that appears to have no net benefit for the residents;
- A lack of transparency over a ransomware attack on the village computers. Malzahn and Trapp paid the extortionists their ransom and still ended up having to pay an IT company to restore the computers;
- Continuance of a questionable vendor contract, specifically with The Mitt.TV, a 501(c)(3) public entity plagued by a history of legal entanglements.
- A general lack of transparency with the required posting of legal notices as well as answering residents’ questions or addressing their concerns;
- The questionable handling of a supposed gift from Ford Motor Company for park improvements;
- Lack of public input on changes proposed to the Romeo Village Park;
- The disappearance of family events such as the weekly farmers market, the July downtown sidewalk sale and St. Valentine’s Day events;
- Ignoring repairs and maintenance of infrastructure in the neighborhoods;
- Needless confrontations with residents, businesses and village employees which can best be described as “bullying.”
- The harassment of this very newspaper, confiscating our vendor box from a public location under duress and without due process.
Romeo can do better than Malzahn and Trapp.
