RIDICULOUSLY HIGH WATER BILLS AND LEWIS RAISES A MAN FROM THE DEAD!
- Ridiculous Water Bills!
Greetings from Bill Lewis and his minions on the Village Council arrived in the mail this week. Water bills are here and they are ridiculous! Elections matter!
These water bills demonstrate what we get when people are elected who are not competent by education, experience, or personal makeup. They are committed to the idea that their source is government. In office they demonstrate their belief that the people serve only to keep those in office from having to find productive work. They take and stockpile our money in government accounts because they don’t know how to do anything else.
- Lewis Gives Life To George Moore And Takes Away Lisa Moore’s Poverty Exemption!
Yes, that caption may be a bit overstated. But only in its literality. What Bill Lewis has raised as Village president is the level of corruption in Village government and its needless cost. He’s taken it to a new level this time though and like everything else he touches it will come back to bite the Village residents in their wallets.
Lewis’ latest escapade centers around the home at 115 Watson St. in the Village. George W. Moore and Lisa Moore owned the property at 115 Watson St. jointly, as husband and wife, under a warranty deed recorded on November 20, 1997. George Moore and Lisa Moore were divorced in 2014. George Moore passed away on October 28, 2021. Lisa Moore and adult children Ben Moore, George Moore, and Samantha Sineath continued to live in the home with George Moore up to and after George Moore’s death.
The record title to the property did not change after the divorce of George and Lisa Moore. George Moore never caused the record title to be changed so that the property is still owned by George and Lisa Moore in the public record. That appears to have been of George’s choosing. Had he intended otherwise, George Moore could have filed a motion with the divorce court to order Lisa Moore to prepare a quit claim deed, or to show cause, or recorded a copy of the judgment of divorce with the Clerk and Recorder in Kalamazoo. He did none of those things.
As the survivor of the jointly held home, Lisa Moore retained title ownership of record under the deed given to George Moore and Lisa Moore on November 20, 1997. Generally, jointly held property automatically passes to the survivor. That would be Lisa Moore.
Lisa Moore remains as the title owner of 115 Watson St. under the deed. She has been charged and paid property taxes as the owner. She was charged as the owner of the property for the code enforcement cleanup by the Village in the amount of $2,580 back in 2021. And she was granted a poverty exemption by the Climax Township Board of Review after being found to be the sole owner of the property. But that poverty exemption was rescinded recently.
Several questions were unanswered in the August 22, 2026, post on this site. We now have the answer to one of those questions. Was Bill Lewis and the current Village attorney Craig Rolfe involved in Lisa Moore’s loss of the poverty exemption? The answer is yes! Rolfe’s bill for August, made public at the September 15, 2026, Village Council meeting tells the story. They planned it, orchestrated it, and caused the poverty exemption to be rescinded.
To do so Lewis spent another $1,500 for attorney’s fees on top of the $2,700 that he spent to “collect” the Moore code enforcement debt of $2,580. What did these additional charges entail? Rolfe offering his “legal advisement” to the assessor that a dead man, George Moore, is the sole owner of 115 Watson St. to the exclusion of Lisa Moore or the Moore siblings.
Raising the dead hasn’t happened in a couple of thousand years.
When someone dies the deceased does not carry their property to the grave with them in a U-Haul. Their property becomes their estate. An estate is not imaginary or a legal fiction. It exists as all the money and property owned by the person at the time of death. The formal administration of the estate is done through the probate process and is necessary to manage estate property, determine ownership of estate property, and distribute the assets legally.
There is a proper forum in which to administer the estates of dead people. It is Michigan’s probate courts. Questions about ownership of real and personal property are to be resolved there. It appears that George Moore died intestate meaning that he had no will. If that is the case no one could buy, sell, use, alter ownership, or otherwise distribute assets of the estate without court approval.
Bill Lewis has taken it upon himself, apparently without Village Council approval and at our expense, to have the current Village attorney Craig Rolfe contest ownership of George Moore’s former home, the one in which the record title is still held jointly with his surviving ex-spouse, Lisa Moore. Lewis and Rolfe presumed to speak for George Moore as if he were still alive. They have not and do not represent George Moore or his estate. They did it outside the oversight of a probate court.
Lisa Moore and George Moore’s heirs Ben, George, and Samantha, should find attorneys to represent them. First, to complete the probate of George Moore’s estate to settle any questions about the ownership of 115 Watson St. And second, to examine whether Lewis and Rolfe acted in such a manner as to have caused them damage. Lewis will do what he’s done consistently which is blame Rolfe. But Rolfe is a puppet with a law license. Lewis pulls the strings.
Should be interesting to watch.
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