09/01/2006

Editorial

Bingham supervisor puts taxpayers on the hook

Does banging a gavel create feelings of grandeur?

Once again, a township supervisor — this time Bingham Township's Robert Foster — seems to have gotten it into his head that he is a law unto himself. And taxpayers will probably pay to set him straight.

Foster has thumbed his nose at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, exposing the township to possible litigation and liability; claimed a beach grooming permit he didn't have; accused the township clerk of being the subject of a nonexistent mail fraud investigation; and allegedly pushed an elected official out of office (though his wife, Patricia, is credited with the actual physical contact), again exposing the township to litigation and liability.

Not bad for less than two years in office.

Just when it seemed safe to go to township board meetings again, Bingham Township Clerk Dorothy Petroskey has resigned after what she claimed was a campaign of retaliation and harassment led by Foster.

Earlier this week Petroskey sued Foster, Foster's wife and Bingham Township in Leelanau Circuit Court. The two-count complaint alleges violations of the state Whistleblowers' Protection Act and assault and battery by Patricia Foster.

Earlier this year, Petroskey alerted environmental officials that Robert Foster had groomed the beach at Bingham's Hendryx Park; later, she opened a letter to the township from the Corps that said Foster's beach grooming had violated environmental regulations. (He had claimed he had a permit). She distributed copies to township officials.

In apparent retaliation, Foster filed a mail tampering complaint against Petroskey with the sheriff's department, but prosecutor Joseph Hubbell declined to bring charges. At a township board meeting he said Petroskey was the subject of a federal mail fraud investigation. The U.S. Postal Service says that's news to them.

Finally, Petroskey says, Foster broke into her township hall desk and Patricia Foster bumped her repeatedly after a July 6 board meeting (some township officials made witness statements about the incident). Petroskey later resigned.

Over the past two years, voters in Acme, Elmwood and East Bay townships voted out supervisors who either bent the public trust, bullied others or treated the township as a personal Diner's Card. Bingham may be next.

Township taxpayers deserve better than this. Elected officials don't have to get along like Dick and Jane. But residents expect more than schoolyard bullying. And what the Army Corps says to the township is township business, whether Foster likes it or not.

The real issues here? Why Foster (and thus Bingham) got crossways with the Army Corps in the first place, and why Petroskey, not Foster, was the one to resign.