Here Comes Trouble - Michael Moore [108]
The assistant attorney general looked at the records I brought him and he agreed: the Davison Board of Education was breaking the law.
“Why don’t you tell them?” I suggested. “I think they’re tired of hearing that from me.”
“I intend to do just that.”
Word spread through town that now the top law enforcement men in Michigan were investigating the Davison school board. And sure enough, at the next meeting, it was announced that a competitive bidding process was being instituted. We were also told, bitterly, that “being forced to take the lowest bid will not guarantee the best work, and this may end up costing us more in the long run.”
So, what does one do when he is looking to bring the level of animosity down? He writes a one-act play in his spare time and enters it in the school district’s annual community talent show to be held at the high school. And what would that play be about? Oh, say, a little avant-garde number about Jesus’s crucifixion. At the last minute on Calvary, Jesus, high up on a cross wrapped in aluminum foil, decides he doesn’t want to die crucified like this.
“This is where you people want me?” Jesus shouted to the audience on the talent show’s opening night. “Just nailed to a cross? So you don’t have to listen to me anymore about caring for the poor or the sick or the downtrodden? So you can stick little replicas of me on your walls at home, while I’m hanging on this cross, suffering? Well, I say NO!”
And with that, Jesus yanked the nails straight out of his hands and flew down off the cross.
I had a bunch of my friends planted in the audience and, with that as their cue, they randomly stood up and started yelling at Jesus.
“Get back up on that cross where you belong!”
“We don’t want you alive, we like you dead!”
“Back on the cross! Back on the cross!”
Then they all started to charge the stage. One man pulled out a “gun” and “shot” Jesus. The now-dead-again Son of God was dragged back to his cross and left there. The actors then exited the stage cheerfully.
The election to recall and remove me from the school board was set for the first Friday in December. There would be only one question on the ballot: Should Michael Moore be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail? Actually, I believe the official wording was: “Should Michael Moore be removed from the office of trustee of the Davison Board of Education?”
That was it. Just one question on the entire ballot—and the whole town was to show up and vote on just that question. Not exactly a confidence booster, to be sure.
To my credit, it was not easy for the recall committee—consisting of businessmen and friends of the school board members—to gather the necessary signatures in the required amount of time to put the question on the ballot. In fact, when the deadline arrived, they were hundreds of signatures short. So the school board gave the group an extra ten days. When the ten days were up, they were still short by quite a bit. So the board granted another (illegal) ten-day extension. And when those ten days were up, guess what? Still not enough names of people wanting to remove me! So, unbelievably, the board gave them a third ten-day extension.
I went and got myself an attorney. By the end of the third ten-day extension, they finally had the signatures they needed. Or did they? As I combed through the names on the petitions, I came across at least a half-dozen people who had died, and a number of people who had signed their names twice. And then there was Jesse the barber. He signed it three times! He sure did want me gone.
I sued in the county court to overturn this entire circus. The judge, who shaved his head bald each morning to convey a Kojak-like appearance, issued the following ruling:
It appears that both the recall committee and the board of education have committed a number of irregularities and possible violations of the law. But it does seem to me that the people of Davison want their day at the polls regarding you, Mr. Moore. So, I’m going