Conzelman Not Fit For Plymouth Township Clerk's Office

The necessary disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not represent Patch in any way. I do not get paid by Patch, nor do I get paid by any political campaign, nor do I volunteer for any political campaigns. These are merely my opinions, and should be taken as such...

Having said that, I would like to share some opinions of a candidate for Plymouth Township Clerk in the upcoming election. This candidate is Nancy Conzelman. Here is a bit of her history. She served a term as the Plymouth Township Clerk from 2012 to 2016. She ran as a Republican, won a hotly contested primary by about 10 votes, and ran unopposed in the General Election. I repeat, she ran as a Republican.

I opposed Nancy Conzelman in 2012, and I strongly oppose her now. Why? Because she was a liar. Back in 2012, I knew she was a Democrat. I knew she was lying when she claimed to be a Republican. I had done my homework on her. I had read her rants on social media, especially Twitter. They were all anti-republican rants. The truth of the matter, is that she couldn't
run as a Democrat, and have a chance of winning in a Republican bastion like Plymouth Township. So she clicked her fancy heels, and poof! She became a Republican! She lied. The beginning of her
political career was a flat out lie, and I knew it. So I refused to support her. Politicians are prone to telling half truths, but she told a whole lie. There's a difference. She told a whopper. She lied
then, and just as sure as the Sun rises in the East, she most likely lies now. As they say, once a liar, always a liar. It's as simple as that. Anyway, here's a tiny bit of history about Nancy Conzelman.

She was the handpicked candidate of one of the most corrupt Plymouth Township Treasurers that the township had ever seen. A man named Ron Edwards. She was also supported by Supervisor Richard Reaume, who resigned in disgrace halfway through his term in 2014. Back then, they had a clerk by the name of Bridgeman, who had a bad habit of wanting to do the people's business
the right and lawful way. This didn't set well with Big Ron Edwards, so Nancy was recruited to be their puppet. She was happy to oblige, considering the almost six figure salary + bennies that came with the job.

I would say that Nancy Conzelman was simply a puppet for a corrupt regime, but that would be an
understatement, because Ms. Conzelman was a happy participant in all of their dirty shenanigans. Once Reaume resigned, and fled the state, a guy named Shannon Price, who had just been reelected to a seat on the Wayne County Commissioners, suddenly sold his home in Canton, and
moved to Plymouth Township.Why? Because he saw an opportunity to make more money. He became Big Ron Edward's new puppet. It is a long and sordid tale how Shannon was appointed, and I'm not going to get into all of it, because two grueling years later, in 2016. the
folks in Plymouth Township were finally fed up with these three people, and voted all of them out of office, in what the Plymouth Observer called an “historic election.” Even their fancy schmancy truck that they had people drive around town didn't help. They got trounced.

Shameless Shannon, and Big Ron, to their credit, took the loss, and moved on. Conzelman on the other hand, was angry and bitter. She was also delusional. She couldn't handle the fact that she got beat, and somehow she got the notion that she could beat Jerry Vorva as a write in candidate, even though Vorva handily beat her with about 61% of the vote, compared to Conzelman's 37%. Not exactly a good recipe for a write in campaign. As anybody with two or three brain cells could predict, she lost in the general election to Vorva, 96% to 3%. Yikes! I can't think of another election in the history of elections, that a candidate lost to the same opponent twice in one election cycle. Conzelman said “Hold my beer, or in her case Merlot” and she did it! She

actually lost twice in one single election! Again, yikes! For those keeping score, it's Vorva 2 – Conzelman 0, but it's early in the game.

So Price, Edwards, and Conzelman were all booted from office, and replaced by Supervisor, Kurt Heise, Treasurer, Mark Clinton, and Clerk, Jerry Vorva. You would think it would be all over, but Conzelman and Edwards had one last act of treachery that they somehow decided they needed to do. At least that's what I am given to understand about the incident, and it happened from afternoon, until the middle of the night on the weekend, just a day before the new administration was to take office. Nobody would be in the township hall on the weekend, and wasn't that
convenient.

According to my sources, they were seen on security cameras, with what looked like shredded documents, and walking out with trash bags full of said documents, as well as other items. There is security footage that was FOIA'd, and the Plymouth Township Police corroborated that this incident did indeed take place as well. Between 3:00 PM on a Saturday, until 9:00 AM on Sunday?
Nobody around at the township hall? The pictures always tell the story. So ask yourself, does this look like it is above board? Would you want somebody who was part of this to be your next Plymouth Township Clerk? Responsible for running fair elections, and a whole host of other duties? Having your personal information at their fingertips? I think not.

What were they shredding in the middle of the night? Nobody knows. What was in the trash bags that they took? Nobody knows. What we do know, is that they did all of this on the weekend, when nobody was around, and apparently some of it, in the middle of the night. Nobody does anything that is above board, in the middle of the night. Bottom line, is that if you're shredding
documents, and hauling away trash bags of documents in the middle of the night, it's a good bet that something nefarious is going on. No charges were filed, and nothing came of this event, because the new administration was more interested in moving forward, and cleaning up the mess that was left by the previous regime, than spending taxpayer money to investigate these troubling acts. They did however find an inordinate amount of missing files, and documents from the
Treasurer's office, as well as Nancy Conzelman's Clerk's office. That my friends is unsettling, when it comes to Nancy Conzelman wanting the people of Plymouth Township to place their trust in her. Unsettling at best.

I would like someone to ask Ms. Conzelman about that night, and see how she answers that question. One thing I do know, is that I would find it hard to trust someone in the Clerk's office, knowing that they previously found it necessary to do a midnight purge of township documents on their way out of office. There are many other questions that should be asked of Ms.
Conzelman, but I'll get to those later in this blog.

So fast forward to the 2020 election. Fancy Nancy, as folks around the township refer to her as, went back to her roots, and decided she was back to being a Democrat again. Honestly? She never quit being a Democrat. She was also back to being delusional. Fancy Nancy knew she couldn't beat Jerry Vorva in the primary as a Republican, so she decided her best way to get to the general election, and beat Vorva, was as a Democrat. No primary to get trounced in, so what could go wrong for her? A lot. A whole lot. Why? Because nobody in the township likes her.

You can be a lot of bad things as a politician, and still win elections. You can be corrupt. You can be a liar. You can be a lot of bad things and still win elections, but one thing you can't be, is unlikable, and Fancy Nancy is simply unlikable. Why? Because she is mean. She makes the Grinch seem like
your favorite Kindergarten teacher. But I digress.

So Fancy Nancy got together with four other progressive liberals, and they created an all female slate of candidates. It was hilarious. They all put on their masks, stood the covid mandated social distance from each other, and took the most ridiculous campaign picture in the history of campaign pictures. I can only guess that they considered themselves suffragettes. Or something like that. They must have taken their inspiration from AOC and her Squad. I don't rightly know, but one thing I do know, is that they all got trounced in the general election. Jerry Vorva beat Fancy Nancy by 17 points. Vorva 58% - Fancy Nancy 41%. For those keeping score, it's now Vorva 3 – Conzelman 0.

They didn't get beat because they looked so ridiculous. They didn't get beat because of their woke, leftist ideology. They got beat because they were horrible candidates, especially Nancy Conzelman, who by the way, is also referred to as “The Queen of Mean” because of the way she treated people during her disastrous term as Plymouth Township Clerk. Honestly, she was like the Leona Helmsley of Plymouth Township. She was that tyrannical. She was that mean. She still is. Not only is she still mean, but after the 2020 beat down, she became quite bitter too.

The other women on her slate have moved on, but Nancy Conzelman just can't let go. This election cycle will be her 4th try against Clerk Vorva, if we're counting the write in debacle, and she hasn't come close to beating him, so I honestly do not understand what she is thinking. Maybe she thinks the law of averages will somehow even out, and give her a shot. Maybe she feels like she might as well get some use out of her old campaign signs. Maybe, just maybe, she thinks that after almost a decade out of office, people will forget how nasty she was, and how corrupt she was.

Or maybe she just needs the paycheck. She calls herself a lawyer, but to this day, I've never seen any proof that she practices law, or has any clients. I honestly don't know. One thing I do know, is that when she was the Plymouth Township Clerk, she used taxpayer dollars to pay her yearly Bar dues. Yep, she billed the township for her yearly Bar dues, but the township already had a lawyer, and a much better lawyer than her, so this leads me to another question I'd like to ask her. I'd ask why she made the good folks in Plymouth Township pay the yearly Bar dues that she should
have been paying herself. That's not an unreasonable question.

Speaking of the township taxpayers paying Fancy Nancy's bills, let me get to the reason we call her
Fancy Nancy. This would be hilarious, if it wasn't so shady. Here's how it goes. Nancy Conzelman,got elected Clerk in 2012. Somewhere along the way, she must have decided that she had to dress the part. Either that, or she just likes fancy overpriced clothes. I can't remember exactly when this happened, but I believe it was in the latter stages of her term when someone, it was never revealed who, ratted her out for using the Plymouth Township credit card for a
pretty expensive purchase at Von Maur's. We're not talking $50 or some small purchase, we're talking somewhere in the neighborhood of $350 or more. I could never afford to shop at that store unless of course the Plymouth Township taxpayers were paying for it. She could afford it though, because she was making close to a six figure salary, and more, if you count benefits.

Apparently Nancy couldn't tell the difference between her Von Maur credit card and her Plymouth Township credit card. At least that's what she wanted the taxpayers to think. She claimed at a Board of Trustees meeting that I attended, that she “was mortified” when she was made aware of “her mistake.” I sat there thinking to myself, I know she's lying, but I'm not gonna say anything, because it was so much fun to watch her try, and bless her heart, she sure did try. Most folks in the meeting room were obviously thinking the same as me, because of the giggling that ensued, but they were also pissed because she actually thought we were stupid enough to believe it.

Bottom line is that Fancy Nancy Conzelman never passed up an opportunity up to use the taxpayer's money for her own purposes, political or otherwise. Again, this is from a person who was already getting a six figure salary plus bennies from the Plymouth Township taxpayers. Like I said, this would be hilarious, if it wasn't so darn shady.

So now let's talk about corruption. Here are some questions that go back to her stint as Plymouth
Township Clerk, that she should be forced to answer. Many of these “irregularities” to put it kindly, are what drove her constituents crazy, because she never even made an effort to try and
hide them. She felt so solidly entrenched in the Clerk's office, that she simply didn't care whether they were wrong or right, legal or illegal. Nancy Conzelman and Ron Edwards were pretty much running the township, and Reaume, followed by Price, weren't much more than empty suits, cashing a nice paycheck. So these questions pretty much revolve around her and the late Ron Edwards.

1. I am given to understand that Nancy Conzelman allowed Treasurer Ron Edwards to flaunt the rules, by allowing him to personally submit a bid for his favorite fireworks vendor back when the township was doing the 4th of July Fireworks shows. Why as Clerk, did she allow this to happen?
Everybody in the township knew that the fireworks shows, were basically a Ron Edwards campaign event. He had his little VIP tent, for all of his political supporters, he had his little picnic the day after the fireworks, and he most definitely had his fingers on every single detail of the whole weekend of events.

So when his favorite fireworks company, for whatever reason, didn't submit a bid, he sprung into action, and worked with them to submit a bid. A late bid. He probably looked at the other bids, and crafted a bid that the Board of Trustees would accept. Many folks still believe that he was getting kickbacks from not only the fireworks company, but from other vendors that were tied to all of these events, especially his VIP soiree.

Bottom line, is that Conzelman was responsible for maintaining these sealed bids, and submitting them to the board, once the time limit had come for them to be submitted. She failed to do so. This is just another example of Conzelman failing in her duties as the Plymouth Township Clerk. I for one, do not think it was a simple mistake, I think she did it on purpose. Why? Because she
constantly tells everyone who will listen, that she is the smartest clerk in the history of clerks. A certified master clerk or some such nonsense. The Super Clerk.

2. This one is a biggie. Why did Clerk Nancy Conzelman allow Treasurer Ron Edwards to make unauthorized purchases with Federal Drug Forfeiture Funds. This revelation came about near the end of their terms. Maybe in the 3rd or 4th year if my memory serves. The bottom line, is that former Police Chief, Tom Tiderington had to sign off on purchases with the Drug Forfeiture Funds, and he refused to sign off on them, because he was an above board Police Chief, and he knew many of these purchases were prohibited by law.

It's as simple as that. Ron Edwards used these funds like an Amazon gift card. He didn't care one little bit about proper use of them. Here's where Conzelman's failure as Clerk comes in. She was responsible for accounts payable, and actually issued the checks for Edward's purchases. She claims to be a hot shot lawyer, and she had the taxpayers paying her Bar dues, and yet she still allowed this to happen. So did she willingly allow Edwards to make these purchases, or is she not as hot of a lawyer as she claims to be? Me thinks she willingly allowed it to happen, but I sure would like to hear her response to this question.

Bottom line, is that the good folks of Plymouth Township found out about it when the Feds were spotted at the township hall, because all of this nonsense resulted in an investigation by the Feds into misuse of Drug Forfeiture Funds. I do believe that the township had to repay some of that money, but I do not know how much. Either way, no municipality wants the Feds to come
snooping around in their finances. Nothing good can ever come from that, and Conzelman and Edwards were responsible for all of it. Yes, I would like the township's “Super Lawyer” to explain her part in it.

3. Here's another financial question that I'd like the “Super Clerk” to answer. Why did Plymouth
Township have a habit of being late with their financial audits. When I say late, I'm not talking weeks, but months. When a municipality doesn't perform this basic task that the taxpayers elected them, and pay them to do, it threatens the revenue that they get from the state. This could be in the millions of dollars. Bottom line, is that the Clerk and the Treasurer are responsible for coordinating this, and Conzelman and Edwards just couldn't seem to get a handle on the audits. They spent more time making excuses, than they did in actually completing this important task. Maybe a good question for “Super Clerk Nancy” might be, “If elected, do you plan to actually get an audit in on time?” Or another question, “If elected, will you be willing to work effectively with the current Treasurer to do your job, and get an audit in on time?” Or maybe the best question would be, “If your such a hot shot lawyer and clerk, how come you couldn't, or wouldn't perform this basic function of municipal government?” Or all three questions.

There are many other questions about financial issues, like Conzelman failing to ensure that Treasurer Edwards was completing the monthly bank requisitions, which is an important checks and balances issue. Taxpayers who were reading the board packets, and keeping up with this stuff were calling them out for this, but at that point, Conzelman and Edwards were so convinced
that they'd win the next election, that they quite literally laughed at these folks when they would bring up these irregularities at Board of Trustees meetings.

At one point, after the Board of Trustees meetings began to get more hostile, Nancy Conzelman decided on her own, as Clerk of Plymouth Township, that she was going to begin censoring public comments from the taxpayers. Now public comments had always been published in the meeting minutes. As far back as I could go, this was the case. Now when most public comments began to be in opposition to many of the things that were being done in the township, and of course many of the shenanigans that are mentioned above, she decided that there would be no public record
anymore, of these blistering public comments. So she simply quit publishing public comments in the meeting minutes. She claimed that “Most townships in Michigan do not publish public comments in their meeting minutes.”

This was blatantly untrue, and I knew it. Yours truly did a little homework, and I talked to Township Clerks all over the state of Michigan, just to make sure. For the next couple meetings, I simply walked to the podium, and spent my three minutes of public comment time, reciting a list of townships in Michigan, that do indeed publish the public comments in their minutes. You can name a whole lot of townships in the space of three minutes. The audiences would giggle, as she sat in her seat fuming at me. She had that “Queen of Mean” look on her face that she's famous for around the township. As for me? I am an absolute delight! I just smiled and kept on reciting my list of townships, until my time was up. I believe that this lasted for two or three meetings, before she finally relented, and began publishing the public comments in the meeting minutes. For those keeping score, Bentley 1 – Conzelman 0.

There are other things, like the golden parachute checks that Ron Edwards wrote on their way out of office. According to my sources, and from what I remember, it was in the thousands of dollars, and it involved some sort of health savings thing for township employees. I am given to understand that elected officials were not supposed to be a part of this program, but that didn't stop her from taking that check on the last week in office, a check that was signed by guess who? If you had Ron Edwards on your bingo card, you are right.

I don't know all the details about this, but I do know that those checks were signed by only Ron
Edwards, and I do know that township checks are supposed to be signed by both the treasurer, and the clerk. Why do you suppose she chose not to sign them? Could it be that she knew that this was improper? I don't have the answer to that question, but I do know that these payments angered a lot of people. Especially seeing as how Fancy Nancy made almost six figures, and lived in close to a half million dollar home. It was one last poke in the eye of the taxpayers on her way out of office.

One last thing that I heard, and I wasn't there, but others were, is that in the 2022 election, she
decided to go full on “Queen of Mean” and create havoc at one of the voting precincts. Word on the street has it that she purposely tried to break a voting tabulator, by jamming her ballot along with
the privacy sleeve into the machine. Which by the way, would be a felony. I don't know for a fact that this is true, but it certainly falls within her character. I imagine it would be easy to find out,
and maybe a good question to ask her. Or maybe the current Clerk, Jerry Vorva could shed some light on this. Either way, it sure sounds like something that the “Queen of Mean” would do.

In closing, I will just reiterate a couple of things. You can be a liar, and still get elected. You can
be corrupt and still get elected. You can be a lot of things and still get elected. When your nickname though, is the “Queen of Mean” it makes it harder to get elected. When you are pretty much
unlikable in the town you live in, it makes it much harder. It can still be done though, but only if you are a competent elected official. In my opinion, looking at Nancy Conzelman's four years in
office, she has proven to me, that she is wholly unqualified for the job. She has proven to me that she is the opposite of competent. Either willfully or otherwise. Or both. You can make your mind up about that.

You can take my opinion as stated here, whichever way you choose, but I would caution you to do a little homework on this woman, before you go to the polls. Pretty much everything I have stated here, can be researched, and I urge any undecided voters to do just that. And remember, that these are just opinions. My opinions. Much of what I've told you, I witnessed firsthand, but there's other stuff that I relied on trusted sources for. Either way, I honestly think that the best outcome of this
important election for the taxpayers of Plymouth Township, is for the final score to be Vorva 4 – Conzelman 0...