Trustee Lisa Manzella Will Forever Be Known As Shelby’s Most Notorious Political Prevaricator

Lisa the Liar truly shines in “Liar Society”
— Entertainment bi-weekly magazine —

Shelby Township Trustee Lisa Manzella has a new title of dishonor: Shelby Township’s top political prevaricator.  That distinction was awarded to her because of the pathological way she conducted herself during the recent township recall.  Trustee Manzella, in her desire to get rid of township elected officials she doesn’t like, displayed a disappointing love affair with false information.

Whenever she gets caught lacking forthrightness (which is, unfortunately, quite often) “Lisa the Liar” complains that she is being picked on by “evil” people.  She loves throwing mud in all directions, and then gripes on Facebook about being treated unfairly when residents start throwing some mud back her way.

Manzella’s mantra of misinformation was a focal point of the recent Save Shelby recall attacks.  This is what prompted a reader to send us the movie poster featured above.  We encourage all Inside Out readers to scroll back and read for themselves how much misinformation was spread by Lisa Manzella.  It is truly shocking when an elected official believes that the best way to serve our township is to spread lies and misinformation to the general public in an effort to create chaos and confusion.

The biggest obstacle that Lisa Manzella has faced, and continues facing, is HERSELF.  In Lisa‘s word, no fact is safe from the Liar Society.  For some strange reason, she doesn’t understand that when she spouts off in public, especially to the press, her words and rants become fair game.  She thinks that she can say whatever she wants to whoever she wants, and we are just supposed to stand still and take it.  Fighting back to defend the truth is deemed inappropriate by Lisa Manzella.  In her small world, lies trump truth every time.

The Manzella/Save Shelby Campaign of Pathological Lies About DARE and School Crossing Guards

Perhaps of all the misinformation battles that Lisa Manzella has engaged in, her repeated lies about  DARE and school crossing guards was the BIG LIE that eventually came back to bite her in the A$$.  Manzella (and others) falsely claimed that Supervisor Stathakis and Treasurer Viar were responsible for “eliminating” DARE.  Didn’t she realize that the facts about this would eventually come out, and she would be exposed as a fraud?

Anyway, in our April 22nd INSIDE OUT we reported how the Save Shelby recall group was following “Lenin’s Law” to bolster their attacks.  While we won’t to rehash the entire DARE debate, our April 22nd post included a detailed explanation about DARE and what actually happened.  We encourage you to forget all the BS you may have heard by those circulating recall petitions and get the facts for yourself.  When you do we believe you will see how the Save Shelby recall zombies tried to play us as fools.

This is also where we included an e-mail Lisa Manzella sent to other Board members complaining about DARE:

A similar DARE theme emerged on the now-defunct Save Shelby website — we wonder who they got their information from?  Here is what the Save Shelby website printed as point #8 of their list of reasons that Supervisor Stathakis and Treasurer Viar should be recalled because of a ZONING vote:

THE STATEMENT ABOVE ABOUT DARE BEING CANCELED IS AN FLAT OUT LIE!  THE PROGRAM IS STILL IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS TEACHING KIDS ABOUT THE DANGERS OF DRUGS.  

We wonder...could disinformation and lies like this be why the recall zombies decided it would be better to shut down their Save Shelby website?  After all, they had been discredited on DARE and many other issues raised on their recall website, and by continuing their lies they had become an embarrassment to themselves!

When you think about the layers of lies that Manzella’s Liar Society engaged in, it is quite clear that these people got lost in their lies.  The circle of lies came back around and, as a result, Shelby residents have been enlightened to what the recent recall was really all about.  Many residents who signed petitions likely did so under false pretenses, as they were spoon fed a campaign of lies about issues unrelated to the recall petition.  The sad reality is that when you tell a lie often enough, and have township police officers participating in such a campaign, people will believe it.

Residents were repeatedly (mis)lead to believe, by Manzella and her fellow Save Shelby recall zombies, that because the township eliminated DARE in the schools, in exchange for that the Utica Community Schools flipped Shelby taxpayers the bird and forced us pay for crossing guards.  Manzella (and others) blamed this crossing guard issue on Supervisor Rick Stathakis, and this was one of their “20 talking points” used as they walked door-to-door seeking recall petition signatures.  

Lisa Manzella told everyone that this crossing guard situation was unique to Shelby Township.  She faulted the Supervisor for showing poor leadership.  Her Save Shelby recall zombies claimed this action ended up costing taxpayers thousands of dollars in unnecessary expenses.  In their world view, if the township had not eliminated DARE, then everything would have been fine.  Manzella even said, as noted in her e-mail above, that because the township ended DARE, Shelby residents ended up being “saddled with crossing guard situation.”  Crossing guards we spoke to about this said they felt betrayed by Lisa Manzella.

Once the DARE disinformation crusade began, in an effort to dispel all the erroneous information, it was explained at length that the crossing guard decision was one the UCS made to trim costs.  It was purely a financial issue.  Despite Manzella’s rants to the contrary, this decision had nothing to do with DARE.  It was an independent decision made solely based on UCS financial pressures.

It was also pointed out, even though the recall zombies refused to listen, that crossing guards are (by statute) a municipal responsibility and that the UCS were doing cities and townships a favor by paying for guards in the past when they had the money.  However, now that times are tough and everyone is cutting costs, the UCS

These are the facts, but apparently the Save Shelby recall zombies didn’t give a damn about facts.  This information fell on deaf ears.  Facts and truth would not deter Save Shelby from their mission: trying to discredit Supervisor Stathakis over DARE.  Their attacks backfired!

Despite Manzella’s statements that Shelby was alone in this crossing guard situation, we have learned that this was NOT unique to Shelby Township.  In fact, as reported in the Macomb Daily on Monday, August 1st, our neighbor Macomb Township is also paying the costs associated with crossing guards.

So, using the Manzella/Save Shelby logic, perhaps a recall campaign should be initiated against those Macomb Township officials who “saddled” their township with crossing guards!  Heck, if recalling Shelby Township officials over a zoning vote because they are paying for crossing guards is justified, why not apply this theory to Macomb?

Lisa the Liar was dead wrong on the DARE/crossing guard issue.  No one can justify what Manzella did to distort this issue for her own selfish reasons.  However, what is worse is that Manzella apparently gave residents, including the recall zombies, incorrect information in an effort to trick them into supporting the recall.  Whether she did this deliberately, or out of stupidity, doesn’t matter.  The fact that she did this at all reflects poorly on her character as a public official.

We have heard that a few residents who came forth to support Manzella’s lies about DARE/crossing guards, and thus the recall, have since learned a valuable lesson about getting too close to Lisa Manzella.  These residents got burned.  If they have learned a lesson we say good for them.

It now appears that the Save Shelby/Nightingale/Manzella/Police Union recall, a campaign that seemed to begin with a special interest bang, ended (imploded that is) with a whimper.  When all was said and done, the Save Shelby “Liar Society” could not sustain their campaign of deception forever.

They most definitely could not fool all the people all the time.

Until next time...