A recall of Woodward that we can support

As an elected official it is often your job to make unpopular decisions. Our long held position is if you don't like what a politician does, go and vote in the next election and choose someone else.

We are not fans of recalls – where an election is held before a politician's term is up. We have always maintained differences are settled at the ballot box, and recalls must strictly be for crimes, malfeasance or misfeasance in office. Recalls are difficult to enact and are costly for municipalities. First, a group must successfully produce a petition, with appropriate petition language, to an approval board. Then they must get the right amount of signatures to schedule an election for voters to cast ballots on the removal of the elected official, and if removed, there is another election to replace the individual. All told, a lengthy and very expensive proposition.

Recently, a group of dissatisfied Oakland County citizens has mounted a recall of Oakland County Board of Commissioners Chairman Dave Woodward, accusing him of “subverting the democratic process” during a recent board meeting when Woodward led a vote of the board's April 8 meeting to move public comment until after a vote to approve a drone fleet for the sheriff's office. A separate recall petition against Woodward for voting for the drones was also approved. The petitions were approved by the Oakland County Election Commission and Woodward has filed a lawsuit in circuit court to have the petitions overruled. If the court lets the petitions stand, then the group will have 60 days to collect voters' signatures amounting to 25 percent of votes cast for gubernatorial candidates in 2022 in Woodward's district, which includes part of Birmingham.

The Flock drone system which county commissioners approved is a popular system used widely by law enforcement, and we agree with the vote to provide it for the Oakland County Sheriff's Department. Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard is a model of propriety and discretion, never using drones for surveillance of citizens, but for emergencies within the county or for partner law enforcement assistance, whether for heinous crimes like March's assault on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, domestic violence situations, SWAT standoffs, search and rescues, among numerous other situations. Drones are another tool for first responders, and Oakland County must provide the sheriff's department with the most up-to-date technology to protect the public. We actually applaud Woodward for leading commissioners in that vote.

Voters should ignore that petition to recall him for voting for drones for the Oakland County Sheriff's Office.

Where we do not agree with Woodward's actions is in moving public comment to the end of the meeting, after the commission's vote for the drones. Why would you do that, and what does that achieve? It is definitely a sketchy, and to our thinking, a totally inappropriate move. As leader of the board, he should have prevented this.

The public has a right to freely speak out on any item that is up for a vote by any elected board, whether they are knowledgeable on the item, a gadfly, or just an annoyance in the community. It doesn't matter. That is their right, and members of the elected board are obligated to sit and listen. They should take into account reasonable criticisms, praise and complaints. What they cannot do is not permit it to happen before the vote and move it to the end of the meeting after the vote has occurred.

And that is what Woodward and the board of commissioners did on April 8.

Normally, we would recommend voters choose to elect someone else this year. But there is a new issue with county commissioners – they lobbied the state legislature and had state law changed, and for the first time, their terms are now for four years instead of the previous two-year terms. So the only choice voters have is to recall Dave Woodward rather than wait two more years for a regular election.

Freedom of speech is a right for everyone. And denying that is misfeasance in our book.