THE HILLSDALE CONSERVATIVES
Truth • Liberty • Local Stewardship
• Hillsdale County, Michigan • April 11th, 2026 • 2¢

How Hillsdale County officials rewrote access, ignored the public, and then hid behind procedure

There comes a point when “process” stops looking like government and starts looking like protection.

Hillsdale County crossed that line a while ago.

For more than a year, residents have shown up, spoken out, organized, written, and pushed back against the LifeWays bond proposal. They did not whisper. They did not disappear. A citizen petition effort gathered more than 2,000 signatures. A commissioners meeting had to be adjourned because the public turnout overflowed the room. Still, this Board refused to let go of the bond when it mattered.

That alone tells you something important about the current Hillsdale County Board of Commissioners: public opposition does not move them unless it becomes politically impossible to ignore.

And even then, not always.

Commissioner Mark Wiley made that mindset plain when, in his official capacity on the LifeWays board, he referred to Hillsdale County residents as a small group of “belligerent who squawked.” That was not just rude. It was revealing. It showed exactly how at least one powerful county official views the people he is supposed to represent: not as citizens with standing, but as an annoyance to be managed.

That is what makes the recent bylaw change so incredibly absurd.

For years, the Board’s rule said that when a person wanted to address the Board in an extensive manner and gave timely notice, that person shall be placed on the agenda for a reasonable time. In the current February 10, 2026 bylaws, that same rule now says the person may be placed on the agenda, and only at the discretion of the Chairperson. The Chair also prepares the agenda. In plain English, the old rule guaranteed access. The new rule gives the Chair veto power.

And who now holds that discretion?

The same chair whose own conduct is challenged in submitted resolutions. The same chair whose public contempt for residents is already in writing. The same chair who now sits in sole discretionary control over whether the people of Hillsdale County may directly address the Board in an extensive manner about his own malfeasance.

That is not neutral procedure. That is a conflict of interest dressed up as governance.

Worse still, even that new rule does not appear to have been followed cleanly. The bylaws place agenda preparation and this new discretionary call with the Chairperson. Yet when a request was made, the response came from the Clerk, not the Chair. The Clerk’s response pointed to the new rule and linked the published agenda, where the resolutions do not appear to be listed. But that still leaves the actual questions unanswered: Did the Chair personally exercise the discretion the Board is now invoking? Did the Clerk file the communications as required? Were the commissioners even told?

Because the bylaws do not just talk about agenda access. They also impose duties.

The Clerk is required to file all communications addressed to and received by the Board of Commissioners. The Chair prepares the agenda. The Chair decides procedural questions, but those decisions are subject to appeal by the Board. And the Board may alter the normal order of business by majority vote. In other words, this is not a system where one man is supposed to quietly bury matters involving himself while everyone else shrugs and pretends nothing can be done. The remaining commissioners are not powerless. They are choosing.

That choice becomes even uglier when set beside the Abe Dane record.

The county clerk did not merely face criticism. He gave sworn testimony. In the August 12, 2025 preliminary examination transcript, Abraham Dane testified that the V-drive used with tabulators contained “cast vote records,” which he defined as a record of each ballot and the votes marked on it. He agreed there are legal retention requirements for election data and that following the retention schedule is an obligation of the clerk. He then admitted he had personally deleted EPB flash-drive data since 2020 “many times.” And when asked whether he could identify a single law allowing him to take Adams Township’s November 2020 ballots, he answered: “No.”

Those are not rumors. Those are not internet theories. Those are sworn admissions in official court transcripts.

And still this Board hesitates.

That may be the most revealing fact of all. It took more than a year of residents showing up. It took thousands of signatures. It took an adjourned meeting caused by overcrowding. It took public humiliation. It took pressure from outside the normal channels. And only then did the tide begin to turn, with a LifeWays subcommittee finally recommending withdrawal of the $15.5 million Hillsdale County-backed bond request. Even that recommendation came only after widespread opposition had built for months and after Hillsdale County residents had been sounding the alarm all along.

That speaks volumes.

The people of Hillsdale County have had to drag their own representatives, inch by inch, toward the obvious. They have had to plead for a vote, plead for access, plead for transparency, plead for accountability, and now apparently plead for the right to speak directly about a chair’s own misconduct under a rule that used to say shall and now conveniently says may.

That is not representative government. That is managed access.

It is the government version of, “You may speak, if the man you are accusing decides he is willing to hear it.”

And that is why this matters beyond one bond, one chair, or one meeting packet.

The deeper problem in Hillsdale County is that bylaws and laws seem to bind the public far more tightly than they bind the officials who write them. The Board can change a longstanding rule the moment real accountability threatens to arrive. The Chair can benefit from that change while his own conduct is under challenge. The Clerk can respond without clearly confirming whether the Board’s filing duties were actually carried out. The rest of the commissioners can sit silent while pretending the rules stripped them of power they still plainly possess under the bylaws.

That is what corruption looks like in a small county.

Not always cash in envelopes. Not always handcuffs. Sometimes it looks like contempt for the public, selective process, and a ruling class instinct for self-protection.

Sometimes it looks like officials who insult the people, rewrite the rules, and then hide behind the rewrite.

And sometimes it looks like a county board so weak, so subordinate to its chair, that it will not even use its own authority to force accountability onto the record.

The people of this county should call that exactly what it is.

Because if Hillsdale County residents can be mocked for over a year, ignored after thousands sign a petition, shut out after overcrowding a meeting room, and then told that the very man they are challenging now has sole discretion over whether they may address the Board in an extensive manner, then the problem is no longer confusion.

The problem is character.

So now the question comes back to Hillsdale County itself. Will the people show up again, or will this Board continue hiding behind procedure, timing, and carefully managed access? The meeting is Tuesday at 9:00 a.m. at City Hall, a time plainly convenient for government and plainly inconvenient for working taxpayers, which tells you everything you need to know about how these people prefer to govern. Show up anyway. Show up because silence is what they count on. Show up because public pressure is the only thing that has moved them at all. Show up because if the people of Hillsdale County do not confront this corruption directly, no one inside that room seems eager or even willing to do it for them.

in liberty,
Belligerent Squawker