Saturday, April 24, 2010

Back to the Future in Hamburg

Watching the Hamburg Township trustees in action last week feels a little like watching the movie "Ground Hog Day."

Trustees beat up on one of their own fellow Republicans and threaten a recall, throw Clerk Matt Skiba out of office. Rewind and repeat with Treasurer Patrick Evon.

Mind you, these guys are all Republicans. There is no Democrat in this fight. Democrats didn't elect either of these totally incompetent guys and offered two highly qualified opponents who, if they had garnered just a few more votes, would have done their jobs without any of this chaos.

It was Republicans -- including current members of the township board -- who created this mess. In fact, Township trustee Bill Hahn promoted Evon for treasurer back in 2008, taking him around and introducing him to groups and urging people to vote for him against the incumbent Republican in the primary.

How did that work out for Hamburg?

Looking at Evon's performance, you have to wonder how Hahn possibly thought he could have been qualified to do the job. What sort of criteria did Hahn use in deciding to back him?

Now Hahn and the rest of the all-Republican board want Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm to fix Hahn's mistake and kick Evon out of office -- lest voters be constantly reminded whose bad judgment created this mess in the first place.

So now that Hahn, et al have recognized their error, they hope to be able to hand-pick his successor, which we know from the selection of Skiba's replacement will be another Republican.

Hahn owes the public an apology for inflicting Evon on the township.

But don't hold your breath. The last thing he wants to do is remind voters of his role in foisting Evon onto voters in the first place.

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