Resident Responds To City Clerks and Councilmans Attacks

On Friday, I had a meeting with Mr. Snow, Mr. Oliver and Assistant City Manager, Rozanne Scherr. The reason for the meeting was to resolve issues in regard to Mr. Oliver's stories to residents claiming I had a criminal record and was abusing children at my former candy store. Mr. Snow became involved in this lie by telling residents, who attended the last council meeting, that I had a criminal background.

I arrived at the meeting and was told to meet Mr. Snow and Mr. Oliver in the meeting room. I asked Kevin Anderson, City Manager, if he would be attending, and he said, "No, this was between the City Clerk and Councilman Oliver and you". I told Mr. Anderson that because Mr. Snow and Mr. Oliver are representatives of the city, I felt that he should attend.

Ms. Scherr agreed to sit in on the meeting. At the beginning of the meeting, the other person, who was at the meeting that Mr. Snow also told a lie about, asked him why he started rumors about them. Mr. Snow said, " I will deal with that later" and REFUSED to even discuss his lies with the other person involved.

After Mr. Snow refused to address the issue of his lies to the other person involved, I asked Mr. Oliver to explain why he would be telling residents that I had a criminal background.

Mr. Oliver said the reason on doing the background check on me was because he knew I do a lot of good things for the community, and he wanted to see where I got my experience from. I told Mr. Oliver that his excuse didn't make any sense. Mr. Oliver then admitted that he attempted to do a criminal background check on me using the internet. During the course of his investigation, he found someone with the same name that had a sealed juvenile record in Las Vegas. I find it odd that if someone had a sealed criminal record that anyone could find it with a Google search.

Mr. Oliver did say that the Howard Hall he found was not me. It was someone with the same name in Las Vegas, NV. Mr. Oliver than stated that he was sorry for spreading something that was not true, and he attempted to tell everyone that he told that information to that it was not true.

Next, I had the chance to ask Mr. Snow why he told people at the council meeting that I had a criminal record. Mr. Snow's answer was something close to the following:


"I said what I said but I didn't say what I said but what I said was said because it was said." I asked Mr. Snow what he was saying and he responded with: "I was there and said what I didn't say what I said when I said it and I said what you thought I said when I didn't say it."

I asked Mr. Snow again why he lied to residents who attended the council meeting. Mr. Snow said that "it is done because it was never started." Mr. Snow WALKED OUT OF THE MEETING ROOM at that point.

I have to give Junior Oliver credit for acting like a man and sitting down with us and explaining what he did and why. As far as Mr. Snow, you can see what he said, and it is clear that Mr. Snow acted like a CHILD that was caught stealing candy from a candy store. Mr. Snow doesn't deserve to have the position of City Clerk for the city of Dowagiac. As you can read on the post, I have given Mr. Snow many gifts for his collection of Presidential memorabilia, and I didn't deserve to be treated like this.

This proves that the city of Dowagiac doesn't give a damn about the residents of Dowagiac. They just do as they please knowing that most residents do not care what their elected officials do, or if they do care, they are afraid to oppose them because of what they can do to them. I believe that Mr. Snow needs to make this his last term as City Clerk and should consider making an appointment with his doctor. The way he was rambling with his answers was not the actions of an elected official, but actions of someone who was using very poor judgment and who may be in need of medical care.

I want residents to know just how the city of Dowagiac runs our city and controls our elected officials. I have been a resident of Dowagiac for about 8-9 years and listed below is the punishment given to me by the city of Dowagiac and its elected officials:


I had a police officer tell me that I was banned from downtown Dowagiac and was forced to get a handwritten letter from the Dowagiac City Attorney to be able to go downtown.

Over the years, I was given a multitude of blight letters, even for things that weren't on my property.

I was only allowed to talk to Jim Snow and pedophile, William Nelson, who was the City Manager at the time. Due to this, I had my electric disconnected for a day. Thanks to County Commissioner, John Cureton, a fair and honorable man, we got the electric back on the next day.

Received a traffic ticket while unloading the car at 3:00 a.m. when we were forced to move from the candy store because the building got condemned when the landlord didn't fix the roof. I was parked downtown in front of our new home so that I could carry heavy items from the car and up the stairs. The ticket clearly stated how much the ticket was. Later we got another ticket to replace the one we received, and it went from $19.00 to $75.00. Now the police have changed the instructions on this type of ticket to make it clearer for others.

Was called unfit to serve on any board by Mayor Don Lyons.

The former City Manager, William Nelson, had childrens' school records in his desk. When I filed a complaint with the city requesting them to investigate why MY childrens' records were in the possession of the city manager, the city ignored the complaint and refused to even find out why. A few years later, this same city manager was arrested for attempting to set up a date to have oral sex with someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl. Why wouldn't the city try to find out why this man had my childrens' school records? He didn't just have my childrens' records, but other childrens' records also. I asked the city again to investigate the records case after Mr. Nelson's arrest, but, once again, they REFUSED.

Dowagiac City Clerk, Jim Snow, filed Voter Fraud charges against me with the Michigan State Police. During the investigation the trooper told me that this was a waste of his time, and the Clerk shouldn't have even filed the charges.

For over a year, the Dowagiac City Council had police officers at the meetings in an attempt to intimidate me so I would stop going to meetings.

When I ran for City Council and lost by thirty votes, I requested a recount by the county of Cass. When I arrived for the recount, the Cass County Clerk informed me that the recount had to be stopped because there were more ballots in the machine than the number of people that voted on Election Day. This was the fault of the Dowagiac City Clerk, Jim Snow. How can someone with so many years of experience allow a voting machine to have more ballots in the machine than the number of people who voted? Was this an accident or is this how the city keeps control of the Council year after year? You decide!

Not long after the recount problem, the Cass County Clerk informed the Dowagiac City Clerk that the City of Dowagiac has been breaking Michigan law by counting their own votes, and the County of Cass follows state law and they now count the votes cast in all City Elections instead of allowing Jim Snow to do so.

The Dowagiac Informer requested to sponsor bed races for this year's Fun Fest. The Dowagiac Chamber ignored that request, so they can, once again, keep total control over the festival.

I could go on, but this gives you an idea of how the city goes after people who may disagree with them. In the past, there have been others who have tried to inform residents about the city, and they have received paperwork about being sued.

For the reasons stated above, this is why it is so important for residents to get involved in their local government. It is time for residents to replace these people who think they are above most of the residents of Dowagiac.

Why does the city of Dowagiac spend so much time and effort attacking me and others, when this energy could be used to fulfill the lie they have been telling residents about how Dowagiac is a great place to live, work and raise a family?

One thing I want readers to ask themselves and write into the post is: Do the actions mentioned above look like a Government which wants to do what is best for residents, or a Government that only cares about itself, and is willing to do ANYTHING to keep it that way.

After the meeting with Mr. Snow and witnessing his unstable behavior in that meeting, I perceive a threat from his actions.

If you look at what the city has done to attack me over the years, what Mr. Snow and Mr. Oliver did to me didn't surprise me at all.

With the lastest actions of City Clerk Snow and Councilman Oliver telling residents I abused children when I owned the candy store, what is next? What causes me great concern is that, over the years, the attacks seem to get worse. Now that the story of me abusing children didn't work, and Mr. Snow's threatening actions towards me in the meeting, I have serious concerns on just how far these actions will go.


Please e-mail in your thoughts to the forum on this story and tell us what you think of the actions of Mr. Snow in the meeting.

In closing, I would like to say one more time that, although I strongly disagree with what Mr. Oliver did by passing on incorrect information to residents, at least he acted like a man and sat down with me and said he was sorry. As far as Mr. Snow, I have lost all respect for him because of his actions in this meeting. He acted like a spoiled child, not an elected official for the city of Dowagiac. The next time you see Mr. Snow ask him why he spread these lies about me. Maybe you will hear him double talk like he did with me.

The entire city needs to band together next year and vote all of these people out of office. Dowagiac is prevented from becoming one of the best small towns in Michigan because of four problems:

It is hard to find good people to run for office. (Now we are beginning to see people step forward)

Not enough people vote. (Hopefully, these recent events will convince people to make their vote count)

In the past, hardly anyone attended Council Meetings. (That is changing)

Irregularities in elections. (Let's hope that the Dowagiac City Clerk, Jim Snow, makes sure that the only votes in the voting machine are actual votes cast by residents, and not ballots that somehow appear in the voting machine.)

Howard Hall