By Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


A decision by a local judge appears to have cleared the way for potential recall efforts to proceed against a Brighton school board member.

Petition organizer and Attorney Sarah Cross is leading efforts to recall school board members John Conely and Bill Trombley. Petition language directed at Trombley was earlier approved by the 3-member Livingston County Election Commission.

For Conely, Cross had filed an appeal with Livingston County Circuit Court regarding the Election Commission’s March 4th rejection of the language in her petition against him.

Judge Matthew J. McGivney has since overturned that ruling and remanded that petition back to the Election Commission for the language to be certified.

Trombley (pictured bottom) is the subject of the attempted recall vote because, as Cross has put it, he admitted at a board meeting that he did not read his board packet. Trombley, who is the board’s longest serving member, earlier told WHMI all a person has to do is look at his list of accomplishments to know that he is a valuable member of it.

Conely is being targeted for recall, in part, because Cross contends he compared mask mandates to actions by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. Conely has denied he said that.

Once organizers begin collecting signatures, they would have 60 days to collect a minimum of 5,472 signatures from registered voters who live within the Brighton Area Schools district boundaries to submit to the Commission and potentially force a recall election.

Requests for comment have been placed with Cross and Conely.