At the end of the March 6 meeting of the Van Buren Township Board of Trustees, Trustee Paul White held up a Michigan Township Association monthly magazine and announced that VBT was featured on its pages.
He said the story wasn’t signed so he didn’t know who wrote it but it was a very nice story. There was silence at the board table.
Then, Trustee Sherry Frazier said, “I did,” and then repeated her statement. Those at the board table continued their awkward silence. The meeting adjourned.
As board members were gathering up their things from the board table, Treasurer Sharry Budd left the meeting room briefly and then came back in and excitedly announced that Lisa Lothringer, deputy director of the Downtown Development Authority, had sent in the story to the MTA. It wasn’t Trustee Frazier at all.
“Put that in the paper,” Treasurer Budd said to the Independent.
At the March 20 regular board meeting, Treasurer Budd read aloud a letter she wrote to Lothringer thanking her for the story in the MTA magazine. She said “our trustee” took credit for submitting the story to the MTA.
Supervisor Kevin McNamara said once a month, one township gets featured in the MTA Focus and the story promoting the township VBT was a beautiful job.
“Credit was redirected and it was a mistake,” he said.
Trustee Reggie Miller commented on the question of credit.
“It was irrational behavior to take credit,” Trustee Miller said. “I saw it so different from how others saw it …”
Trustee Frazier said, “I regret saying that… It was a beautiful story. I came to see Lisa … I wanted to see Susan [DDA Director Ireland], but she was in Lansing … I sent a message to Lisa saying I am glad you are recovering [from surgery].”
Frazier said she sincerely tried to apologize.
“I jokingly said ‘I did’ several times” [after it was said they didn’t know who did the story, ]Frazier said, adding the article was not signed and, “I didn’t mean to take any credit for your article. … I sincerely am sorry.”
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3 Comments
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A special thank you goes to Trustee Frazier for announcing the morning meetings that take place in VBT with a resident, a current elected official and a former elected official. The statement by a senior official that township business is not discussed is indeed laughable but also disturbing. The 7 board members are lacking communication which is creating a disconnect. Mr. Delaney is correct that the 3 full time elected officials exclude a lot of information from the 4 part-time trustees, instead information is given to a resident so he can write letters in the local newspaper against elected officials. How can this township be governed efficiently when the voting members are ill-informed? I agree with Mr. Delaney that this current state of affairs with the township board is very similar to the recall debacle of 2009. There is currently one official left on the board that participated in that recall which created factions and had a very negative affect on the community.
If Trustee Frazier would like to take credit for a story, I hope it’s the one dealing with her shoplifting arrest. We are all awaiting to hear if there is more to it that it seems, or if she just feels entitled to take whatever she wants without consequences. I also hope the Independent is willing to publish her full account of the incident.
The best thing she can do now is attend the Public Hearing and submit her resignation; as she has obviously lost the trust of the majority of her fellow board members and the voting residents so it seems impossible for her to move forward with this lack of confidence.