OAKLAND CONFIDENTIAL Oakland Confidential is a periodic column of political/government news and gossip, gathered both on and off-the-record by staff members at Downtown newsmagazine. We welcome possible items for this column (all sources are kept strictly confidential) which can be emailed to: OaklandConfidential@DowntownPublications.com. Numbers count: Now that we’ve all recovered from our collective national election hangover, we’re examining the vote, looking at who voted and where the turnout was. While only 13 percent of registered voters in the city of Detroit turned out to vote on November 8, locally, voter participation was much stronger, with 79 percent of registered voters in Bloomfield Township, 76 percent of voters in Birmingham and 76 percent in Rochester Hills. It appears that straight party ticket that Michigan Republicans fought against so hard actually benefitted them more than Democrats on Election Day. In Rochester Hills, clerk Tina Barton said 10,644 people voted straight party Republican, while there were 7,953 Democrats circling the straight party oval. In Birmingham, same story – almost 55 percent of voters (3,193) were Republican straight party voters, versus just under 44 percent (2,547) of Democrats. Bloomfield Township also had more Republican straight party voters, with 8,052, or almost 57 percent of straight party voters. Countywide, Oakland County had it flipped, with 53 percent voting straight party Democratic, for a total of 178,242 votes, and 149,861 (45 percent) Republicans voters going the straight party route. Voter turnout in Oakland County was 72 percent. Absentee ballots were also up. Statewide, the Michigan Secretary of State reported nine percent of voters did it absentee. Almost 11,000 of the 35,212 Bloomfield Township ballots were absentee; Rochester Hills processed 13,215 absentee ballots election night out of 52,553 total ballots, and Birmingham had 4,445 out of a total of 17,412 votes cast. By the way, while Rochester Hills went for president-elect Donald Trump, Birmingham and Bloomfield Township both supported Hillary Clinton. Movin’ on up: Far be it for us to comment on rumors, or to hesitate to check them out. So when word trickled down that Michigan Republican chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel, a native of Bloomfield Hills and currently a resident of Northville, was possibly being considered as the chair of the national Republican Party, to replace soon-tobe chief of staff Reince Preibus, we were on it like flies at a picnic. Communications director for the Michigan Republican Party Sarah Anderson said, “We are not commenting on that story right now.” But a highly placed sourced said, “Of course MCDANIEL she’s being considered. Has she been offered the job yet – not yet.” Romney McDaniel is the niece of former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and daughter of G. Scott Romney. C’mon on down: While scare tactics may have worked at the top of the ticket, it didn’t seem to have worked for Republican treasurer candidate John McCulloch, whose campaign mailers repeatedly stated that county treasurer Andy Meisner, a Democrat, “has been working to bring Syrian refugees to Oakland County,” referring to a Pontiac housing project Meisner supported, but which did not come to fruition. Meisner said the development was like a lot of others he supported – finding owners to buy tax foreclosed properties. McCulloch brought along county exec L. Brooks Patterson, who has had some nasty things to say about immigrants, including in September that he’d sue the federal government to stop Syrian immigrants from being settled in Oakland County – although he claims to love other immigrants who bring foreign investment to the county. McCulloch also quoted Sheriff Mike Bouchard as not being a fan of the current vetting process of refugees. Turns out Bouchard, who along with Patterson was reelected on November 8, and is of Lebanese descent, told the House Committee on Homeland Security on September 21, 2016, “The current vetting process for refugees is entirely insufficient...All refugees allowed to enter the U.S. should be closely monitored by the federal government,” noting that the wife of the San Bernardino attacker had fraudulently entered the country on a fiancee visa. Just a note: according to the U.S. Department of State, there have been a whopping total of 482 Syrian immigrants settled so far in Oakland County. As an aside, Meisner noted that he never heard from McCulloch after he won. Not classy, John. Money matters: Nearly a half-million dollars was spent during the 2016 election cycle on Oakland County’s 39th District state legislature seat, one downtownpublications.com
Democrats have been trying unsuccessfully to overturn since 2012, when it fell under Republican control, won by incumbent Klint Kesto. The race was the most expensive in Oakland County this year, and the 11th highest of all Michigan’s House races, according to a spending analysis of 110 districts by the Michigan Campaign Finance Network. About $484,958 was spent on the race, with roughly $410,410 spent on Kesto’s side, and $74,548 in documented spending on Democrat Mike Stack’s campaign. Those amounts, which include broadcast television spending, candidate fundraising and disclosed independent spending reported to the Federal Elections Commission by the candidates or other committees on their behalf, are expected to increase in the coming months as additional spending is disclosed, said Craig Mauger, who heads up the Michigan Campaign Finance Network. “The money tracked there wasn’t as high as expected,” Mauger said, citing the $734,000 spent on the 39th District seat during the 2014 election. Mauger noted spending in Birmingham’s 40th District, by comparison, was virtually non-existent. Still, the 6.96-percent margin of victory reached by Republican Michael McCready over Democratic challenger Nicole Bedi made that race one of the closest state House seats in the county. Oakland County Democratic Party Chairman Frank Houston said Stack’s bid for the 39th District seat was a top target of the party at the state level. “From an Oakland County party perspective, we wanted to make sure our countywide positions were re-elected, which they were by good margins, and wanted to make sure we had a competitive candidate against Brooks (Patterson), which we did with Vicki Barnett.” The party also targeted the Oakland County Commission’s 5th and 14th districts. “Those were targets, and Stack was a top target.” Spending was also heavy for the state’s 8th Congressional District, where about $2.512 million was spent on Republican Mike Bishop’s and Democratic challenger Suzanna Shkreli’s campaigns. Bishop, who won his second term in Congress, raised about $2.1 million through the election cycle, with just $165,694 raised in the quarter before the election. Shkreli, whose campaign was launched in July, raised $411,421 in the quarter prior to the election. In total, candidates and supporters spent the third highest amount of any congressional race in the state, behind the 1st and 7th district seats. Mickey Mouse election: In the “count ‘em contentious” category, the guy who lost the election to be the Republican candidate for Bloomfield Township supervisor, Dave Thomas, in the August primary to incumbent supervisor Leo Savoie, decided to register as a write-in candidate for November. Problem was, it was so late in the game – Thomas filed on Thursday, October 27, as a write-in candidate; the final date to register was Friday, October 28 – that most people were unaware he was even running. Savoie handily won re-election (there were no Democrats on the entire THOMAS township slate), receiving 17,459 of the 18,100 votes cast. Thomas had 161 write-ins in 32 precincts, said township clerk Jan Roncelli. “There were all kinds of write-ins, Donald Duck, their whole family. It’s anyone’s right to put in their own name, or anyone else’s. But we’re not going to tally it,” she said. Sorry, Mr. Thomas. You got outvoted by a whole motley crew of characters. TSL: State Senator Marty Knollenberg’s vote in late October against a pair of bills intended to stop bicyclists from being hit by passing vehicles on the road earned his return to the list this month. However, we must give the senator props for breaking a pattern of non-communication by returning our call and offering a thoughtful explanation of his vote. Introduced by Dearborn Heights Democrat David Knezek and Kalamazoo senator Margaret O’Brien, the bills are two of several introduced in response to the fatal crash that killed five bicyclists this year in Kalamazoo. Specifically, the two bills would require motorists to give bicycles at least five feet of clearance when passing. On October 20, Knollenberg was one of only two senators to vote against the bill, which passed the chamber 34 to 2, with one senator excused from voting. An avid cyclist himself, Knollenberg supported an associated bill to increase driver education and instruction on bicycle awareness, but said the five-foot rule would be impractical from an enforcement standpoint. “It would have been easy to vote yes and feel good, but from a practical perspective, I don’t think it’s practical. How will an officer measure it? It creates a lot of confusion,” he clarified. “These injuries are unconscionable and shouldn’t happen. Usually, they are the fault of a distracted driver, and that scares me more than anything else.”
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