Bridgeport Needs A New Township Clerk!

This is a post I have been wanting to write for over a year and figured it is finally time!  It is actually past time for me to write this, and past time for a new township clerk!  Bridgeport residents deserve competent, honest, government officials.  I will list just some of the problems with our current clerk.  We will start back from the time just over two years ago to the present day.

1 – Back on July 10^th, 2019 I wrote a post about the “inaccuracies” of the township clerks profile page that is on the township government website.  As of this writing, that profile page is still up and no corrections have been made to the information.  You can read my post here about the “inaccuracies” of his profile: 

Bridgeport Township Clerk Profile Page - Confusion or Revisionist History?

Some people might just call those inaccuracies outright lies.  I still today have to ask the question “Is Lee Carpenter that confused?  Is he suffering from memory loss?  Is he attempting a little "revisionist history" to try and mislead the residents and voters?”  Does he, and other township officials, believe the residents are so stupid they won’t know the difference between the truth and their version of the truth?  Do they even care?  The fact that this “misinformation” is still posted on the township website makes me question whether he is even honest enough to be trusted with one of our most sacred rights, the right to vote?   If he can’t even remember what years he was in office before, before he was recalled by the voters, is he even competent enough to run our elections?

 

2 – Since Lee Carpenter was installed as the current township clerk back in 2019, there have been no updates on the townships official website about any election information. Nothing!!  In February of 2020 I posted a brief update for residents so they could go to Saginaw County’s website to look up information concerning upcoming elections.  2020 was an important and busy election year but Bridgeport Township residents were left in the dark.  There has only been one election committee agenda posted online back in October of 2020.  No minutes are posted so I don’t know if that meeting ever took place.  On the regular township clerks page they have some information about things voters need to know concerning voting here, but that information is years outdated!   The absentee voting requirement section has not been updated since the laws changed in 2018.  I repeat, 2018!  The township website says you must be over the age of 60 and there are multiple requirements for applying for an absentee ballot.  The current law is that any eligible voter is able to apply and there are no requirements or reasons needed.  Was any resident unable to vote because they read that outdated information, or had no access to any information concerning when and where to vote etc…?

A screenshot of the current township voting information page:

Here is a link to the current Michigan Secretary Of State page with information about voting and absentee ballots: 

Absentee voting allows you to vote by mail 

3 – I did finally find some election information posted for Bridgeport residents online, not on any official township page, but on Lee Carpenters personal Facebook page.  He did post updates there.  I guess only if you are one of his friends, or knew who the clerk was and how to access his personal Facebook page,  did you have or deserve access to voter and election information.  It is fine if he wants to share official information from his page, but it should first be posted on an official page for ALL residents to have access to.  Now if his personal Facebook page is being used as an official government page, then there is a real problem with that.  Has anyone ever looked at his personal Facebook page?  

Check it out here: Lee Carpenter Facebook page

Here are two examples of voter information updates from Lee Carpenter's personal page that should have been being shared on an official township government page for all residents to see:

It appears that all his posts are set for “public” so that anyone can see them.  The problem lies with the other posts that the public would have to wade through to find any official township news.  He posts very Anti Conservative, Anti Trump, Anti Trump Supporters, Anti NRA items and the lists goes on. His political bias, and it seems hatred of half of the country, is not appropriate to be shared publicly by a government official.  Here is just a small example of some of them, and these are just the memes:

July 2019 

July 2021 - He likes this one so much that he has posted it twice, this past May and then again several days ago 

These are some from April of 2019, right after his buddies snuck him back into office:

He is free to post whatever he wants on his personal page, but when that page appears to be used also as an official government page, those posts are a problem.  First they could be very offensive to many people in our township.  Secondly, I feel that those kinds of posts would cause concern for the integrity of our elections and the clerk’s ability to run a fair and honest election.  Those posts are very inappropriate for any government official to be posting for the public to see.  

There have been government employees and officials that have had to step down from their positions for less offensive posts than Lee Carpenter shares.  Lee Carpenter would never step down from office because he knows his buddies up there have his back.  He does not have the integrity to step down from office, thus he does not have the integrity to be in office!

Almost forgot this one also from 2019. The Irony!!:

We could try to recall him again, but what is the point in that?  Our current elected township officials have already shown that they will disregard the will of the voters and just bring him back again.  Nothing will change until we can vote them all out!

Bridgeport residents need to educate themselves about our officials etc... and you need to get involved.