Proper Government, Public Boards, and the County’s Corruption Problem
THE HILLSDALE CONSERVATIVES
Truth • Liberty • Local Stewardship
• Hillsdale County, Michigan • April 7th, 2026 • 2¢
Why the Mark Wiley resolutions and the Abe Dane transcript resolution matter, what they reveal about how government in Hillsdale County now operates.
There is a basic rule in proper government that too many people in this county seem determined to blur: public office is not private property, public boards are not private clubs, and appointed representatives do not exist to sneer at the citizens they were sent to represent.
Masks aren’t just slipping, they are falling off.
Not all at once. Not in some dramatic movie scene. Just slowly enough for the public to notice that the people running government no longer speak like servants of the people, but like owners of the place. A county commissioner insults residents from the chair of a regional public board. A county clerk admits under oath to facts that go directly to election-record retention, ballot custody, and conduct the public was told not to question. And instead of immediate correction, the public gets the usual performance: deflection, branding, confusion, silence, and the hope that ordinary people will lose interest before the record becomes too plain to ignore.
That is where Hillsdale County now stands.
This week, a formal packet was prepared for the Hillsdale County Board of Commissioners requesting action on two fronts. The first addresses Commissioner Mark Wiley’s conduct while serving on the board commonly called “LifeWays.” The second asks the county board to formally acknowledge sworn transcript admissions by County Clerk Abraham Dane regarding election records, data deletion, and ballot custody. These are not disconnected events. They are two windows into the same underlying problem: public officials in this county increasingly behave as though government exists to protect itself from the public, rather than answer to it.
Statement of Charges regarding Commissioner Mark Wiley’s LifeWays appointment
The first deception: “LifeWays” sounds private. It is not.
One of the most important things the public needs to understand is that LifeWays is not just a brand name for a private charity or a detached nonprofit doing good works somewhere above politics. LifeWays is the public-facing name used for the Jackson-Hillsdale Community Mental Health Board / authority structure, a government mental health entity exercising public authority in Jackson and Hillsdale Counties. LifeWays publicly identifies its Board of Directors, says public comment is available at all board meetings, and lists Mark Wiley as its 2026 chair.
That distinction matters because names can be used and are being used to soften power.
When a government body calls itself by a smooth, neutral, service-oriented name, the average citizen may assume it is a private service network, a contractor, or something only loosely connected to local government. That confusion serves the institution, not the public. What matters in proper government is not the logo or the branding. What matters is the chain of authority: who created the board, who appoints its members, who answers to whom, and whether the people sitting there are exercising public power responsibly, transparently and in a fiduciary manner.
That is the real issue.
If Hillsdale County appoints a representative to that board, then that representative is there to represent Hillsdale County’s residents. He is not there to identify emotionally with the institution and then turn around and sneer at the people back home for objecting to it.
Resolution to Censure Commissioner Mark Wiley
Mark Wiley’s remark was not just rude. It was revealing.
According to the submitted packet, Commissioner Mark Wiley, while serving in his official appointed capacity on the LifeWays board in March 2026, stated that “Hillsdale county has a small percentage of belligerent who squawked.” That quote is the basis for the statement of charges and the censure/removal resolutions now being submitted for county action.
That matters for more than one reason.
First, public officials are not appointed to outside boards so they can publicly belittle the residents they supposedly represent. Second, the remark is not merely insulting. It exposes a mindset. Citizens who questioned or opposed matters tied to the Hillsdale mental health project were not treated, in that moment, as constituents to be heard. They were treated as irritation. Noise. A small troublesome class of people who had the audacity to object.
That is a governance problem.
When a county appointee begins speaking as though public opposition is a nuisance instead of a right, he has forgotten who sent him there. He is no longer behaving like a representative. He is behaving like a custodian of the institution.
And that is precisely why the county board’s role matters here. Public appointments are positions of trust. If the appointing authority refuses to act when that trust is abused, then appointments become shields instead of responsibilities.
Proper government requires a chain of accountability
This should not be complicated.
The people elect county commissioners.
County commissioners make appointments to outside boards.
Those appointees remain accountable to the appointing authority.
And the appointing authority remains accountable to the public.
That is how representative government is supposed to function.
It is not enough for an official to say, in effect, “I serve on that board now, therefore I speak for the board.” No. A Hillsdale appointee speaks for Hillsdale County’s public interest while serving there. If he publicly demeans Hillsdale residents from that seat, the Board of Commissioners has every right to ask whether he should remain in it. The pending resolutions exist to force that question onto the record.
Resolution to Remove Commissioner Mark Wiley from Hillsdale County’s LifeWays appointment
The Wiley issue is about tone. The Dane issue is about the record.
The second half of this packet moves from arrogance to sworn testimony.
In the August 12, 2025 preliminary examination transcript, County Clerk Abraham Dane testified that the V-drive used with Hillsdale County tabulators contained “cast vote records” and defined that as “a record of each ballot and the votes that were marked on those ballots.” He further testified that once the V-drive is uploaded into the election management system, that data is stored on that machine, and that he usually downloads a copy and stores it on a county server.
That is not trivial administrative data. That is election-derived ballot information described in the clerk’s own words.
Only a few lines later, Dane acknowledged that there are legal retention requirements for election data and agreed that following the retention schedule is an obligation of the clerk.
Then the testimony becomes even more serious.
In the same August 12 transcript, after being pressed on concerns that clerks were being led to destroy potential evidence by breaking seals, Dane agreed, “You have a point there. I won’t disagree.” He agreed there were election records on the EPB flash drive. He agreed he had an obligation to preserve election data under law. And when asked whether he had personally deleted EPB flash-drive data since 2020, he answered: “Many times.”
This is why the Abe Dane resolution was written the way it was. It does not rely on slogans. It does not pretend the transcript contains some cartoon confession. It does something more serious than that. It points to official public testimony in which the county clerk admits the underlying facts.
Resolution Acknowledging Official Court Transcript Admissions by County Clerk Abraham Dane Regarding Election Law Violations
The cleanest admission: taking Adams Township ballots without legal authority
If the deletion testimony is troubling, the ballot-custody testimony is even cleaner.
During cross-examination on August 12, Dane was asked directly whether he took the Adams Township November 2020 ballots. He answered: “Yes, I did.” He then admitted the township clerk had custody of those ballots. He admitted there was no Michigan law specifically giving him authority to take them. And when asked, “Can you point to a single law that would allow you to take the township’s ballots from the preceding year’s election, November 2020?” he answered: “No.”
That is why this cannot honestly be reduced to spin, rumor, or citizen misunderstanding.
The public record already contains the admissions. The question now is whether county government will formally acknowledge what is already sitting in plain view.
The submitted Dane resolution asks the Board of Commissioners to do exactly that: acknowledge that official court transcripts contain sworn testimony by the county clerk admitting facts showing violations of election-law record-retention and ballot-custody requirements, and recognize the damage that testimony has done to public confidence.
This is what corruption looks like in a small county
People often expect corruption to arrive in dramatic form: cash in envelopes, obvious threats, some smoking-gun confession.
But corruption in local government usually looks smaller than that at first.
It looks like a public official speaking contemptuously about residents because he no longer fears them.
It looks like a government board hiding behind branding that confuses the public about what it really is.
It looks like legal authority being improvised after the fact.
It looks like officials handling public records and public duties as though being in office itself is permission enough.
And it looks like institutions betting that most citizens will never read the transcripts, check the bylaws, or trace the line of authority from the boardroom back to the people.
That is how improper government survives: not by being invisible, but by counting on the public to remain tired.
What proper government would look like
Proper government would be simple.
A public board would plainly admit it is a public board.
A county appointee would remember he serves the people of the county first.
A county clerk would know that custody, authority and laws are not suggestions.
A board of commissioners would not hide from an official transcript once the admissions are already in the record.
And when public confidence is materially damaged by official conduct, the people’s representatives would act like representatives instead of compliant bystanders.
That is what these resolutions are asking for.
Not chaos.
Not squawking.
Not theater.
Just government that remembers what it is. Boring, dull and bound by the people it serves.
The choice now belongs to the commissioners
The Hillsdale County Board of Commissioners now has a chance to answer a very simple question: Will it govern, or will it pretend not to see?
Will it address the conduct of a commissioner who, once elevated to chair a regional mental health board, spoke of county residents as “belligerent” people who “squawked”?
Will it acknowledge official transcript admissions from the county clerk regarding election records, deletion, ballot custody, and lack of legal authority?
Will it insist that public appointments still mean public accountability?
Or will it prove, yet again, that in Hillsdale County, titles protect insiders more reliably than truth protects the public?
That is the real story here.
Not just Mark Wiley.
Not just Abe Dane.
Not just LifeWays.
The story is whether proper government still exists in this county at all.
And if it does, now would be a very good time for the people sitting in public office to start acting like it.
The packet has been submitted.
The Statement of Charges, the Resolution to Censure Commissioner Mark Wiley, the Resolution to Remove him from Hillsdale County’s LifeWays appointment, and the Resolution addressing the official court transcript admissions of County Clerk Abraham Dane were not drafted for private complaint or quiet backroom discussion. They were prepared for formal submission, formal review, and formal action. The accompanying email places these matters directly before the Hillsdale County Board of Commissioners and makes clear that the public is watching.
That matters because proper government does not correct itself in darkness. It corrects itself when the public forces the record into the open and insists that those holding office answer for what they have said, what they have done, and what they have tolerated.
The question now is no longer whether these matters are serious enough to raise. They are already raised. The question is whether the commissioners will act like an appointing authority, a governing body, and stewards of public trust, or whether they will once again look at a plain public record and pretend not to see it.
ATTEND THE NEXT MEETINGS
The next Hillsdale County Board of Commissioners meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, April 14 at 9:00 a.m. What remains unclear is whether commissioners will hold it at City Hall or dare to return to the usual venue, where another capacity problem could once again lead to delay, disruption, or postponement.
LifeWays itself is scheduled to meet on Wednesday, April 15 at 7:00 p.m. at 1200 N. West Avenue, Jackson, Michigan.
Residents who oppose the bond should attend.
In liberty,
Lance Lashaway
Leave a Reply