By Pat Maurer
Correspondent
Three recall petitions authored by Redding Township resident John Thompson have been approved placing two Township trustees and the Township Supervisor on the November ballot for recall.
The three Township board members facing recall are Supervisor Bruce Scarborough, Trustee Marlene McGlasan and Trustee Nancy Scarborough.
Each of their recall petitions reads the same. “for the following reasons – voting to adopt Public Property Safety Ordinance No. 33 at a Redding Township regularly scheduled meeting on November 15, 2022.”
The wording of a fourth recall petition submitted by Thompson was not approved during a meeting Tuesday. That petition was for the recall of Township Clerk Susan Brower. It said that on February 1, she had made the statement “We Just take comments during our meetings and they get mad because they want to go in depth and…us to answer all these questions and … We don’t do it, and they don’t like it.”
He said the statement “was made at the Election Commission meeting to review recall language [which was] held at the Clare County Building…”
Thompson went to the Clare County Board of Commissioners last November where he played a video of part of a regular township meeting which revealed a racist remark made by a transfer station volunteer. He said he realized that the County board could not “do anything about the township board’s actions, but said he didn’t believe that the township board should “condone” things like that. In a November, 2022 Clare County Cleaver article, Thompson said, “This is some disgusting behavior by my township supervisor and some of the board members. This has been going on for quite some time – there’s so many different elements to this that it’s not even funny.”
He also reported that FOYA (Freedom of Information Act) requests he made to the township were ignored or thrown away and that he had been accused of assault in the township offices and he and his wife had experienced “gay bashing.”
Thompson said he had began working on the recall petitions about a year ago, after he had received a blight ordinance notice about property he owned that was “grandfathered in.” He said he discovered many things that were incorrect when he was trying to get more information about the legality of the notice.
He said the issue with the board had started over “property owner rights,” that his property is “non-conforming and the supervisor didn’t understand that.”