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As Michigan lawmakers continue to debate what sort of financial disclosure laws should apply to our governor and House and Senate representatives, I can’t get a simple question answered about a township tax assessment.
News Editor Elisabeth Waldon ewaldon@thedailynews.cc
The unwillingness to provide public information at both the state and local level is indicative of how broken the concept of transparency is in some branches of our government.
Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how covering a special Crystal Township Board meeting on Thursday morning led me to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in an attempt to get a basic tax assessment question answered.
The township board voted to place its street lighting district back on the tax roll as an assessment for winter 2023 (see accompanying story). After the vote, township resident Roger Martin asked during public comment whether Treasurer Nancy Johnson had hired a third party to help with this process, to which Johnson responded by bursting into laughter and declining to answer.
It’s no secret that there’s bad blood between Johnson and Martin — they served together on the township board until Martin abruptly quit in July 2022. Martin unsuccessfully attempted to recall Johnson earlier this year after $1,000 in cash of tax money went missing from Johnson’s office.
Martin’s question and Johnson’s response piqued my interest. After the meeting ended, Johnson went to her office to help a customer, so I asked Supervisor Curt McCracken and Trustee Sarah Daily if they knew the answer to Martin’s question, but they both directed me to speak with Johnson.
And so I walked across the hallway to Johnson’s office. There, I started with an even more basic question, asking Johnson who her new deputy treasurer is (another question Martin asked but wasn’t answered during Thursday’s meeting). Johnson willingly told me that it’s her own sister, Sue Cleveland from Alma.
So far, so good.
Crystal Township Treasurer Nancy Johnson, left, refused to answer a question from a township resident at a special meeting on Thursday morning (or from the Daily News, which asked the same question after the meeting) regarding whether she had hired a third party to help with a street lighting district assessment being placed back on the township’s tax roll. Listening is Supervisor Curt McCracken, right. — DN Photo | Elisabeth Waldon
I then asked Johnson if a third party had been hired or was being considered for hire regarding the township’s newly returned lighting district assessment/tax roll. Easy question with a yes or no answer, right?
Wrong.
“I’m going to put it to you this way, Elisabeth: The tax department is my department to run as I see fit and that’s all I’m going to say,” Johnson responded.
As I gently pressed the question, she declared, “I’m not going to say anything else! It is my office to run.”
Of course Johnson has the right to run her office as the township’s elected treasurer, but I was simply asking a question regarding whether she was contracting out some of her office’s work.
“It’s public info, right?” I asked.
“They’ll find out when I decide to make an announcement about what’s going on — if there is anything is going on,” Johnson responded. “I am not going to justify that …” (and here she used several very colorful terms to refer to Martin).
Johnson repeatedly referenced Martin during our conversation. I continually tried to steer her back to my question.
“No, Elisabeth, come to the next meeting,” Johnson said. “Maybe I’ll have a discussion and maybe I won’t. No, I’m not releasing anything, OK? I’m not saying anything at all.”
“That’s just a red flag to me though, because it’s a public office — you understand how that might come across?” I told her.
“You go right ahead and red flag it to death. I don’t care,” Johnson responded.
“Do you want to go ask the clerk how she runs her elections? That’d be the same thing as you’re asking me,” she added — an obvious deflecting maneuver that had nothing to do with my question. I have asked local clerks how they run their elections, many times, as that’s also public information.
“When you are in charge of your department, you are charge of your department,” Johnson repeated. “No one has a right to question how you run your department, especially if you’re doing it in an efficient and cost-saving manner, OK?”
“I’m not questioning that at all,” I told her, to which she responded that Martin was making these allegations.
Again, I tried to direct her off the topic of Martin and back to my question.
“Nope, I’m not talking to you,” she declared. “Come to the next meeting. I am serious. And you know what? This is why he (Martin) is so mad at me — because I pretty much did the same thing to him that I just did to you, because he kept badgering me.”
“But you’re a public elected official,” I told her.
“That doesn’t mean that I have to give you any information that I’m not ready to, OK?” Johnson responded.
I said if Johnson hasn’t hired a third party to help with the tax assessment, she could just say so and we could move on. Oddly, she told me to go talk to Martin instead, to which I responded that Martin isn’t on the township board and he wouldn’t know the answer to my question.
“I’m not trying to be antagonistic …” I began, attempting to lower the tension in the room.
“Yes, you are,” Johnson interrupted. “I’m not giving you an interview. Why should I?”
I told her I didn’t want an interview, I just wanted an answer to my question.
“I have nothing to share with you at this point in time,” she responded.
When I told her I was just trying to do my job, Johnson again returned to the topic of Martin, saying, “This has everything to do with Roger.”
“I don’t care about Roger!” I declared in exasperation.
Johnson responded by handing me a copy of a FOIA request Martin’s wife Kelly Martin recently sent to the township (a document I had not requested and had nothing to do with my question).
“They are nothing but troublemakers,” Johnson said. “When I decide to release something about the tax department, that will be my choice on my time when I make that decision.”
I pointed out that if I send a FOIA request to the township clerk, Johnson will be required to answer my question per state law.
“You’ll have to tell the clerk at some point whether you hired a third party,” I said. “Why not just tell me me now?”
“I’m going outside now to have a cigarette. That’s what I usually do after meetings,” Johnson responded, ending our conversation.
Personally, I don’t smoke, but covering Crystal Township just might drive me to it one of these days.
