AN EDITORIAL
BY LAWRENCE SOBCZAK
PUBLISHER
I was shocked but not surprised when I got a threatening voicemail from Romeo Village President Christine Malzahn late in the afternoon on May 26.
I have been told over the years by readers and residents that Malzahn has a reputation of threatening or intimidating people after expressing a concern, voicing an opinion or asking a question during a village council meeting.
The most common form of alleged threat or intimidation reported to me was the appearance of an ordinance enforcement officer at their home or business to investigate a fabricated complaint.
In our case, to recap an article previously published in The Record, Malzahn ordered us to immediately remove a newspaper vending box which has sat on Main Street for more than six years or she was calling the police to issue a ticket.
I immediately called her back and explained that the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in the City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publishing that newspapers have a First Amendment Right to distribute with vending boxes on sidewalks and other public places.
In a huff, Malzahn hung up the phone and minutes later a village police officer called me.
The officer seemed to agree with me and told me that he did not plan on issuing a ticket and that he would call me back in a week after it was reviewed by the police chief and village attorney, likely to close it.
The next day, the vending box was moved to the Romeo Department of Public Works garage and it was not the police department that confiscated it. With the help of our attorney, we got the box back and repositioned it back on Main Street.
You can read more about the incident and listen to the voicemail at http://www.myrecordnewspaper.com/?p=80128.
So, what was the real issue that triggered Malzahn? She hung up so quickly I did not have the opportunity to ask her.
We have written so many news stories about the village over the years we feel she did not want reported:
- A raise of more than $50,000 per year she gave herself along with the help of her “yes-men” trustees Matt Edwards, Nathan Bartholomew and Bob Hart.
- Details of cyber attack on village computers that disabled them and how she authorized tens of thousands of dollars in ransom payments to hackers. The village eventually had to hire legitimate IT professionals to fix the computers.
- Reinstating an additional .75 mill property tax as well as raising water and sewer rates at the height of the pandemic — just to name a few.
We never even touched upon questions over her alleged residency which originally arose during her 2012 run for a seat on the board of trustees.
Former Village Clerk Marian McLaughlin had documented where she believed Malzahn was actually living outside of the Village of Romeo.
McLaughlin had submitted her documentation around Election Day 2012 to former Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith but he declined to pursue the matter. Smith is currently serving a term in federal prison for several felonies tied to political corruption.
The trigger for Malzahn’s threat couldn’t have been the news story we wrote about the village council nixing her proposal to use her nephew to list and sell a piece of village-owned property. That happened over the summer after the newspaper box incident.
Perhaps the reason Malzahn sicced the police on our newspaper box was a comment made by The Record’s General Manager, Chris Rose, a week prior where he observed at a village council meeting that Malzahn’s proposal to award a contract to The Mitt.TV without seeking bids was a violation of a village ordinance. An ordinance, by the way, that Malzhan herself, along with her loyal henchman Bob Hart, had put into place to force-bid the professional services of long-standing village attorney, Mark Clark. But, who knows?
After we published the story about the newspaper box threat, some officials from other communities privately confided with me that they experienced similar bully tactics from Malzahn and that they felt they would rather not deal with her at any level.
Village residents and Record readers who have had similar incidents with Malzahn also privately confirmed and confided they felt the same way.
The most recent reports of the stifling of freedom speech came from Tillson Street where accounts arose of menacing visits from Malzahn representatives the day after a village council meeting where several residents expressed concerns about crowd control.
I feel there is much credence to these accounts beyond my own experience. The problem is that many people don’t want to speak out openly about it because of the repercussions .
Here’s the good news: the voters have the real power and the opportunity to speak on Election Day.
Malzahn is being challenged on the ballot by Meagan Poznanski. The polls are open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m on Nov. 8. Let your voice be heard!
