Many years ago I learned that you cannot control the events that happen to you only how you respond to them. The way that you respond to events is a reflection of who you are. Someone who stands back and declines to respond when others launch attacks on your behalf is not worthy of respect in my opinion. Until a few months ago I had not really heard of either Paul Schrieber or Steve Pierce. I still don’t know either man personally. However, what I have witnessed in the course of the recent mayoral primary campaign and in some personal communications leads me to think that Paul Schrieber would not be the best person to be mayor of the city. Mr. Schrieber to my knowledge did not personally attack either of his opponents during the course of the campaign. However, supporters of Mr. Schrieber did attack Mr. Pierce. To the best of my knowledge Mr. Schrieber never publicly disavowed of their actions. By declining to condemn the actions of supporters, he tacitly approved of those actions. Now his wife Penny Schrieber has written a very nasty letter to Mr. Pierce attacking him and his supporters. In a post on his blog today Eric Touchberry wrote about contacting Mrs. Schrieber to confirm whether she had written the letter, she not only confirmed it, she also called all of us local bloggers “idiots”.

I don’t deny Mrs. Schriebers right to express her opinion of myself and other members of this community. Make no mistake, we Idiots are members of the Ypsilanti community and most of us have been involved in trying to make this a better place to live and work. If Paul Schrieber is to be mayor of Ypsilanti, he needs to step forward and tell the whole community exactly where he stands, on this and also on the actions of his other supporters. If he decides that he will continue to sit back quietly and let others do the dirty work than maybe the voters of the city should reconsider who should be mayor before the election. Maybe if Mr. Schrieber decides that being honest with the community is not important, there should be a write-in campaign for the November general election.