In May 2008, CJ McDonald filed a request to view records of the township Board minutes. This is a legitimate request under law. However, the minutes are, and have been, available on the township's website. Further, printed copies of the minutes are available instantly for viewing in the lobby of the township hall. McDonald knew this. He demanded to see the original "record" copy of the minutes so that he could compare this with the copies available in the lobby. He stated publicly that a Board member had told him that the minutes were being modified (Kathy Jackson has made the same allegation), and he wanted to check this out. Of course, the draft minutes are provided to ALL Board members, and the final minutes are published, and Supervisor Jackson signs the final minutes and keeps a copy, so any alleged adulteration is easily proven or disproven even without a FOIA demand. All of this is obviously a conspiracy between Mcdonald and Kathy Jackson.

By Michigan State law, the owner of record copies of documents (in this case, the township Clerk) is required to set up procedures to allow viewing of these records, AND also to provide protection for these record copies from vandalism, etcetera. The procedure established by Clerk Giszczak was that all viewing of "record" documents would be by appointment, and supervised by a trusted individual. Clerk Giszczak asked me (Trustee Tobler) to be this person for her.

It had become well known that one of the strategies of the opponents of Clerk Giszczak was to demand a series of FOIA viewings, in order to tie up the Clerk with nonsense and prevent her from doing her many other duties. McDonald demanded a series of 4 hour viewings on various occasions, and others did too. One of these was his infamous fish guts event on April 13, 2007 where he came to the hall bathed in rotted fish guts (or fish fertilizer as he now claims) for his 4 hour FOIA appointment.

In the current case of May 2008, Clerk Giszczak provided the FOIA coordinator, Supervisor Kathy Jackson, with 3 possible appointment times. When these expired without any response from Jackson or McDonald, additional appointment times were provided, but also ignored by Jackson. During these days, Trustee Tobler sent a series of emails to the entire Board ticking off the days remaining before a FOIA request MUST be acknowledged by the the township. If the township does not respond in the allowed time, then the citizen's remedy is a lawsuit. Jackson had already created two other FOIA lawsuits (for previous Supervisor Deitering and current Supervisor Hafler) where she had not responded within the time allowed by State Statute. Eventually, we received word from Jackson that McDonald wanted to meet at 3:50PM (10 minutes before closing) on Friday May 23, 2008. This was the Memorial Day weekend. In order to satisfy McDonald's FOIA demand, I (Trustee Tobler) changed my vacation plans so that I could administer the FOIA. I was there in the township modular with the official minutes book (the originals) AND the copies from the lobby of the township hall. McDonald arrived shortly after 3:50PM and immediately went into a rage. After a minute or so, he stormed out slamming the door open against the building and then slamming the door shut. He immediately went over to the hall to be with Supervisor Kathy Jackon and Treasurer Lynda Dew. You can hear the audio of this event.

McDonald made 3 more appointments to view the records, but was a "no-show" on each . Township officials had adjusted their calendars and set aside time for McDonald, but to no avail.

Several months later, McDonald filed a lawsuit saying that his rights to view documents had been violated. This was an extremely frivolous lawsuit, and so the township filed a countersuit to defend its reputation and to recover legal costs. In the last 3 months of 2008, McDonald filed 200 additional FOIA demands. When his case went to trial in 2009, Judge Brown quickly dismissed McDonald's suit as having no basis, and also allowed the township's countersuit to go forward. The morning of the second court hearing, McDonald's lawyer offered a consent judgement where McDonald agreed to pay $5000 towards the township's costs, and to permanently bar McDonald from additional FOIA demands. The township accepted this consent judgement to end the legal case.

At a subsequent Board meeting, Trustees Mike King, Dan Lula, Kathy Jackson and Supervisor Pete Hafler told the Township Attorney Doug Winters that they wanted him to go back to court and have the consent judgement reversed. Attorney Winters refused based on his personal integrity and reputation. Next, the same Board members wanted to reimburse McDonald $4000 from the township's treasury (your money), but this would have been an illegal expenditure under the State's laws. In addition, the township had an opportunity to recover a portion of our remaining legal fees from the MTA (Michigan Townships Association). MTA may provide cost sharing if the legal case broke new ground that could be used to help other townships. King, Lula, Jackson and Hafler voted to not allow this to go forward.

Since then, McDonald has violated this Court Order on numerous occasions with Supervisor Hafler's support. Because of the continued threats of violence and disruption of the township hall, Clerk Giszczak received a Personal Protection Order from Judge Brown against CJ McDonald in February 2010. On separate occasions, McDonald told Trustee Tobler and 3 other individuals that "Giszczak had to be taken out of office before someone shoots up the Board". Last year, Supervisor Hafler rearranged the furniture in the modular Board meeting room based on the "advice" that he received from CJ McDonald.