BILL LEWIS SAID IT IS “GOOD”:
Such Is Lewis’ Assessment Of His Administration In 2025!
At the last Village Council Meeting on December 16, 2025, Bill Lewis gave an assessment of his year as President declaring it to have been good. It certainly wasn’t all bad as Main Street got chip-sealed; the emergency siren acquisition that was started by Trustee Nick Ludwig in 2024 was installed; a backup generator was installed to ensure that we’d have water in the event the electricity went out; and, an effort to update the Village Code was undertaken.
But, and it’s a big but, Bill Lewis spent $30,007.88 on attorney’s fees as of November 30, 2025. When the December bill comes in after the first of the year, attorney’s fees for 2025 will exceed the amount of attorney’s fees that the Village incurred over the last few years. Oddly, the Climax Crescent hasn’t reported this to the people of the Village.
Lewis also burdened the Village with two new but unnecessary bureaucracies. A planning commission and a zoning board. While this was reported in the Climax Crescent, it wasn’t reported that state law does not require these as Lewis claimed. The law is very clear and no attorney is necessary to understand it.
The Michigan Planning Enabling Act at MCL125.3811(1) provides:
“ A local unit of government may adopt an ordinance creating a planning commission …”(Emphasis added).
It doesn’t say “shall”, it doesn’t say that it’s “mandatory”, or even that we ought to! We also got a zoning board out of it too. Both of these staffed with friends, allies, and Lewis’ wife. And both of them costing the Village taxpayers more money.
There were three code enforcement debts owed to the Village in 2025 relating to properties at 115 Watson Street, 110 S. Main St., and 329 W. Maple St. The debt for 115 Watson Street remains unpaid and Lewis has taken no court action to collect it. Village Trustee Ben Moore is reputed to live there. The debt on 329 W. Maple St. has been paid in full.
Regarding 110 S. Main St., Bill Lewis worked very hard in 2025 to reduce or eliminate contempt of court fines imposed upon his supporter, Anthony Murat Bates. The code enforcement action arose from unpermitted remodeling or construction and the fines were imposed by an Eighth District Court Judge in Kalamazoo for noncompliance with its orders. The Village’s excellent attorneys that resigned when Bill Lewis took over as President in November 2024, had indicated that the fines amounted to over $10,000.
After unsuccessfully overcoming the blowback from residents, Lewis persuaded the Council to allow him to remove the dealings over that debt from public view by turning it over to the Village attorney. But when a FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) request was submitted to the Village asking for:
“All Letters from Craig Rolfe Esq. to the three code enforcement debtors.”
Bill Lewis and the Village Clerk responded:
“Your request is denied … as it does not identify the intended records sufficiently to enable locating potentially responsive records.”
The Village Clerk in a Council meeting said that the Village attorney directed them to deny the request. Were they confused by the word “all”? Did they not understand what “letters” are? Or after a year of finagling around with these three code enforcement debts had they suddenly developed a case of amnesia?
Bill Lewis has been talking to the Village attorney about these debts since at least February of 2025 incurring fees at the rate of $300 per hour. For him and the attorney to say that they don’t know what records were being requested is simply not credible. If it is a delaying tactic, it will cost the Village.
This too was not reported in the Climax Crescent. It raises the question “Why?” Given these omissions it suggests that the Crescent might be intentionally filtering information pertinent to the governance of the Village. We’ll start keeping track!
Also in 2025, Bill Lewis allowed Trustee Carolyn Kelly to set up a paper barrier through which residents have to struggle before she will do code enforcement. And Lewis set her loose to visit people at their homes to demand that they get their properties in order. She claims to have visited several. It looks like some property owners friendly to Lewis were not bothered.
With Bill Lewis and Carolyn Kelly responsible for assuring that the property owners meet the basic standards of care for their properties prescribed in the Village Code, the Village is again blighted. We need to change the people on the Council before that will change for the better.
In 2025 this site has reported without bias or favor the doings of what has actually gone on in Village government. For many who have never had this information and had only been told what a reporter or Facebook page administrator wanted them to hear, this may have come as startling or provocative. People want to believe that God has a plan for them. They don’t want to know that anyone else does.
It is said that ignorance is bliss. The idea captures a truth about human nature. We seek emotional sanctuary. Ignorance is a wall separating us from the complexities of reality and the stress of worry. Only there are we free to exist within the safe confines of our assumptions and beliefs.
Yes, ignorance may be bliss. But it provides an opportunity for those we trust with governance to betray us. And it’s always at our expense.
Happy New Year!
END
