The Sumpter Township Board of Trustees had a light agenda on Tuesday, with only two items for a vote. But, there was a lot of talk and raised voices and personal attacks that got added into the meeting agenda.
It wasn’t pretty. And, Supervisor John Morgan, who was in control of the meeting, just let it all happen. Finally, he shut it all off and the meeting continued.
Trustee Matt Oddy was shaking and speaking loudly as he tried to convince the audience that Treasurer Peggy Morgan was lying about him. But, Treasurer Morgan insisted the tape she had of a previous meeting showed that he wasn’t telling the truth.
It had to do with Trustee Oddy bidding on township tax-reverted property and whether he did or did not tell the board he was bidding on the land. Treasurer Morgan said her tape of the meeting shows he only said he was recusing himself from the votes because he took people around to look at the properties. He called her a liar over that and demanded she show the tape.
It occurred to us that this would never happen in Van Buren Township where they are getting real persnickity about how township officials talk to each other.
Trustee Oddy would be called out of order for speaking to another board member this way in Van Buren Township, where they want people to be civilized in their discourse. But, this is Sumpter.
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3 Comments
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Sumpter is a smaller community than Van Buren Township and doesn’t have the same formality and attendance at board meetings. That’s actually a plus for citizens who want to speak and participate at the meetings. Sure there are definitely issues in Sumpter that will need to be resolved, but why should The Independent play one community against another in an “editorial?” The best thing for Sumpter Twp would be to get the cameras running again for local access television so that the Trustes are on better behavior.
Sumpter Township is the same size as Van Buren Township but has less population. Typical townships are 36 square miles. Sumpter did not have the building boom in 2004 as VBT did with all the new subdivisions which brought more population. Sumpter is still very rural making it a very desirable place to live, however a grocery store would be very helpful.
Actually, Sumpter is bigger than VBT. Sumpter is the largest township in the LP at 37.6 square miles versus the standard 36 and VBT is only 35.8 per Wikipedia.