Collusion with Connect Franklin
This e-mail came from a FOIA request looking into corruption in our village government.
Here we can see that Pam Hansen is driving a “voter education” initiative. The purpose of this voter education was not to provide unbiased information including both sides of the issue, but it was to push for a vote YES as is clearly indicated by the statements “we are asking for voter approval” and “I agree on simplicity and alignment of village messaging with CF.“
This email also shows the misinformation campaign of informing residents “Why the charter needs to be amended”. The village was mislead for many months with council members claiming the only way to install sidewalks along Franklin and 13 Mile Rd was by approving this charter amendment.
We have 3 trustees Pam Hansen, Michael Seltzer, and Mark Hanke working with the 2 founders of “Connect Franklin”, utilizing our village PR person and the village administrator.
Unfair Advantage
The Michigan Campaign Finance Act (MCFA) is a law intended to remove the unfair advantage that people in a position of power have over the voting public.
This act strictly prohibits any use of government resources in promoting a particular stand on an issue. The reason this is important is to protect the public from being overrun by a small majority in government who are abusing their power.
Clearly when we have a village trustee who is preparing “voter education” materials to “align village messaging with CF”, all the while using village resources like mailers, our webpage, letters from the clerk, along with using a highly paid PR person, and the village administrator we have a huge problem of corruption that MCFA was intended to prohibit.
Misleading Voter Education
The result of this unfair advantage is that voters received one sided information that included major factual misrepresentations that has affected the way people voted.
The most important fact left out is that the Village Charter does not need to be changed for residents to approve sidewalks. The charter amendment is taking the rights of the residents and giving it to the council. Thankfully 18 days before the election we finally see the truth from our village in our weekly newsletter.
Unfortunately, the Bias is Still Present in a FAQ
The village “voter education” material was updated but done so in a manner to confuse and mislead voters into thinking the process is very complicated and unlikely to really be implemented.
Updates
The following public letter from the village attorney to the village administrator was released on Tuesday 4/27.
Mike Seltzer went ballistic when he found out this public letter was released to the public. He demanded an full independent investigation into how this leak occurred.
Why The Concern? This completely blows up the false narrative that Mike Seltzer, Pam Hansen, and Brian Gordon were pushing which was that a charter amendment is required. Remember the FOIA fact that they had to explain “Why the charter needs to be amended”.
President Bill Lamott told the Village administrator to include this letter in the weekly e-blast so residents could have all the facts when voting, but the Village administrator refused to include it.
Was there any doubt that the council majority wanted to release this only after the election?
Why did they not update the FAQ this time like they did immediately for the difficult, convoluted process previously mentioned?
Why couldn’t we have a fair election where voters are simply provided the facts and vote?
Why did we have to see totally one sided “voter education materials”, and have our village resources working with a vote yes campaign committee?
Future
In the future, our village needs to ensure any “Voter Education” is truly unbiased.
This could be easily accomplished by forming a diverse committee that includes council members from both sides of the issue.
A public hearing should be held to present the voter education materials to the public. The final released materials should consider feedback from the public and to get input from residents before releasing the materials.
Franklin Villagers 