November 3 – For a number of years, little Quincy Township has seen and experienced a lot of drama, including an FBI investigation, the death of a supervisor and a number of employees leaving and saying goodbye in a very public meeting.
The most recent debacle is political signs asking citizens to write in a homeless man for a supervisor that promises free beer on Fridays.
Pat Ryan of NewsTalk 103.7FM said, “Whoever’s pushing this has no real interest in Quincy. Every single sign should show you exactly their initiatives and their agendas. Quincy Township, you need to get this one right here.”
One issue would be that political signs need to show who paid for the signs.
Ryan continued, “I had a snapshot of a sign of an Egolf sign that didn’t have the proper disclaimer on that. These are easy things to write on the sign or put a sticker on the sign. Maybe they’re not fully aware of it. But don’t go bitching. Go to the Franklin County Election Board. I mean I got keyboard warriors again who gripe at me. It’s not my beef. I see a free beer sign. I got it. Somebody brings the Egolf sign to me. I’m like, okay, here, go cry over there.”
Attorney Clint Barkdoll said, “Totally agree. I got an email about that yesterday, too. The Egolf signs do not show who paid for it. It’s a violation. What are you coming to me about? Go call the election board. I don’t have any axe to grind in this. A violation is a violation. If you’re involved in that violation, you need to go out and take action to correct it. You can put the label on the sign, that’s an easy fix. File your campaign finance reports. If you don’t feel like it’s being addressed, call the election board. They’re the people that have jurisdiction over policing this and they can issue fines if they feel that people are not complying with the law.”
Michele Jansen of NewsTalk 103.7FM pointed out, “I’ve talked to people on both sides of this issue and we have to stop throwing gas on Quincy Township and this election. The biggest thing is get off social media. The reason this is all hyped up is because of back and forth on social media. I always say don’t judge people by their posts on social media because everybody turns into an adolescent.”
Ryan said, “Wait, hold on. There was adolescence happening in their meetings.”
“I know,” Jansen confirmed. “But the biggest thing, the biggest blow up now, the reason we have this poor homeless guy as a write-in candidate, which started as a joke, but has picked up speed is mostly because of the back and forth on social media. Just get off social media. Stop it because we’re not human beings on social media. We turn into children. We’re not adults I should say. We’re not mature. We turn into children. We scream and shout at each other. We say horrible, ugly things. It’s ridiculous. It’s a childish reaction to what’s going on. I don’t know who was involved in that.”
Ryan noted, “Things calmed the heck down when the cameras went on.”
Jansen continued, “But since then, there has been this explosion on social media that has fired this all off and my advice to Quincy Township is get off social media. Things seem to be calming down in the township. They’ve hired people. People are mad because Ed Wilson is involved.”
Ryan said, “If somebody puts a free beer sign, listen, you gotta put some of it on some of the people there. If you got a free beer sign from a homeless guy in Quincy Township.”
“That’s going too far,” Jansen said. “That’s more immaturity that’s exploded.”
Ryan insisted, “That’s not social media.”
“But it happened because of the back and forth on social media,” Jansen contended.
Ryan wondered, “If you’ve got a sign like that in front of your yard, who pushed you into that? It should also be an indicator going oh, free beer? And that’s the push from that particular crowd here. You can’t just blame it on social media. There’s also got to be some personal responsibility going, who’s pushing this? Why are they pushing this? What are they doing to the township in the first place?
Barkdoll said, “I’ve heard from some of the people in those camps as well and you can imagine the conversations, hey, we can pull this off. We’re going to show them and we’re going to get our people out to do a write-in. As I said the other day, I think there are all kinds of campaign violations happening here, both campaign finance wise and other disclosures that very well may still be investigated. If those other incumbents aren’t putting the information on their sign, that’s a violation as well, that needs to be addressed. But the bottom line is there’s problems out there and maybe what you’re saying Michelle is what it boils down to, all of this social media chatter. You take a step back from it, it is not good for the citizens out there. This kind of turmoil in government, the instability is not a good way to operate. Hopefully they get back on the right track here and can get some things done. I was optimistic earlier this year. I thought the board they had in place was there for the right reasons. They were trying to do the right things, but obviously it didn’t take long for the whole thing to go sideways.”
Ryan said, “I think it’s fine. I think you’ve got a handful of two year olds out there.”
Jansen suggested, “The people that want things to calm down should get out and support the candidates that they support. There’s a candidate now that everybody is upset about. It followed the process and all the people that want things to calm down, I would say get out there and don’t vote for a poor homeless guy. You know it’s going to be another monkey wrench. You know it’s just going to disrupt everything. That’s not the way to handle your disagreements.”
Ryan added, “The people that are pushing that, that should show exactly who the players that are pushing that. If you want a nice township and you want to go back to some calmness, then take a good hard look at who’s asking you to put those signs in your front yard.”
