DO UNTO OTHERS

The Oakland County Prosecutor's Office declined to file charges against former Oakland Township Supervisor Terry R. Gonser in December after he was arrested on December 14 in connection with a felonious aggravated assault. Gonser, a Tea Party Republican elected as the township's supervisor in 2012, lost his re-election bid in 2016 to Michael Bailey. An Oakland County Sheriff's official said Gonser was arrested on probable cause following a physical altercation with a female neighbor in the midst of a winter snowstorm. Deputies arrested Gonser after he allegedly struck his neighbor with a snow plow, damaging her snow blower – and her knee. He was then booked into the Oakland County Jail, but released after the prosecutor's office determined the incident involved "mutual combatants." It’s not their first “altercation.” In June of 2014, Gonser's neighbor filed for a personal protection order against him in Oakland County Circuit Court, so the recent arrest was just the latest in a longstanding feud. Gonser has a history of less-than-neighborly behavior, having pushed to move the township to a strong supervisor structure by eliminating the township manager position while in office, rubbing loads of folks in the township the wrong way. In 2015, outgoing township manager Warren Brown called for Gonser's resignation, claiming he created a divide among the township's board of trustees. In January 2015, Gonser publicly retracted statements he made about a former board member he accused of lying, cheating and stealing. Gonser said he made the comments in the "heat of the moment."