Ellis Boal for Charlevoix County Commissioner

In 1912 Ellis Boal's grandfather Ayres Boal first bought land in Charlevoix. Both Ellis and his father Stewie Boal grew up

The Uhrick Red Sox, 1957 Summer Peanut League Champions. Front row: Larry Struthers, Ellis (Teddy) Boal, Jerry Drost, Louie Poole, John Toumela, Billy Marme, Billy Fowle, Larry Marme. Back row: Herb Cumings, John Flynn, Coach Bill Marme.

After college Boal briefly held an NSF graduate fellowship in mathematics at the University of Chicago.

Leaving math, he taught high school and did other other odd jobs before putting himself through law school, first at Michigan and then Wayne State. He graduated in December 1972, and worked for a Detroit firm one year. Then he put out a shingle and ran a solo practice in Detroit till his semi-retirement and move to Charlevoix in 2000.

Inspired by the civil rights movement in college, Boal resolved to practice labor and employment law exclusively, always representing workers and unions. Associating himself with those in the labor movement fighting for stronger and more democratic unions, Boal's career highlights include:

• Admissions to federal courts of appeal in Cincinnati, Boston, Chicago, and Washington DC, and the US Supreme Court, and counsel of record in cases arising in Michigan, Ohio, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Illinois, and Puerto Rico.

• Two listings in Who's Who in American Law.

• Membership on the steering committee of This Is Our Town, the citizens group formed to stop Wal-Mart from coming to Charlevoix Township. Wal-Mart is the biggest company in the world. In many small ways, and with many other people, Boal contributed diligently to the effort. The company was forced to gerrymander its own plan, to the point where it finally threw in the towel and quit in 2004. As Boal later wrote to the Courier and News-Review, we won because everyone in town -- with all their different interests -- kept their eye on the ball. The ball was Wal-Mart. The story is an object-lesson of how county government working together should be run. Later Charlevoix Township voters approved a zoning amendment by 61%, for which Boal and other TIOT members lobbied, which will keep big box Wal-Mart-type stores out of the township forever.

• Boal has been co-chair of the Up North Green Party since its formation in 2000. That year voters elected Green candidate Joanne Beemon as drain commissioner, but she was stifled in her ability to do the job. The drain code requires that Beemon serve office hours of at least eight hours a week, but the county paid her only a dollar a year plus per diems. Nevertheless, she formulated storm water runoff regulations stricter than the county stormwater ordinance. She sent them to Wal-Mart on February 12, 2004. Two months later in a phone call to Beemon on April 6, 2004, Wal-Mart project manager Allen Oertel acknowledged that the company altered its plan based on information from Beemon that it did not previously know of. As described just above, later it ended the whole project.

• In 2003-04, seven members of Citizens to Save Healthcare -- including Boal -- went into the offices of Northern Michigan Hospital in Petoskey. They asked for the amount of money the hospital had diverted from legitimate health care into its fight against the Teamster nurses' union. The hospital stonewalled, even though the information would become public later. It told police to arrest the seven for trespass. All seven cases were dismissed, including four after jury selection. Boal was co-counsel.

• Boal wrote books on Teamster Legal Rights for members in 1978 and 1984, and currently maintains a regularly-updated online book for UAW members at ellisboal.com.

• Boal testified before the US Department of Labor's Dunlop Commission in Washington in 1994, and later wrote an article on the same subject in the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy. He argued to preserve the federal law which guarantees independence of unions, then under attack from employers seeking to undermine them through "cooperation" plans. Data show that cooperation plans do little to improve productivity, and much to diminish labor morale. The law was ultimately preserved.

• Boal has helped organize anti-war activities locally, and recently engaged our local Congressman Bart Stupak in guest commentaries on the subject.

• Boal's cases include:

  • Meyers Industries, in which the federal Labor Board held that the labor laws did not protect non-union truck driver Ken Prill in his discharge. Prill had refused to drive a tagged-out-of-service truck which had just caused an accident on the interstate in Tennessee. Driving it would have been unsafe and illegal. The Labor Board reasoned that Prill had acted courageously but alone, and the labor laws are only to protect workers who act in concert for mutual aid or protection. Boal took the case to the DC court of appeals in 1985 and 1987, and ultimately lost because the Labor Board wanted to use it to set a new precedent. Today, Meyers defines the rights of workers who are victimized for trying to bring about better working conditions. It is the most widely cited precedent on that subject in labor law. Along the way Boal managed to get Prill back to work at Meyers, and later sued it successfully when it defamed Prill.

  • In a case for a young and public-spirited Native American driver near Petoskey last spring, he and his client tracked down and presented two neutral witnesses. They testified. District Court Judge Richard May listened, and found the officer had no cause to pull over the vehicle. He dismissed the case. The defendant's grateful step-father wrote a letter to the editor of the Petoskey newspaper.

  • Maceira v Pagán, in which then-Judge Stephen Breyer of the Boston court of appeals reversed a federal judge in Puerto Rico, and ordered a fired dissident Teamster steward reinstated to his post. The opinion was reprinted in full in a 1982 instructional casebook by law professors at Rutgers, Pennsylvania, and New York law schools. In a later opinion Breyer -- who is now on the Supreme Court -- awarded Boal enhanced fees for the excellence of his work, and the likelihood at the beginning of the case that there was little chance of success.

  • In 1994 one Anthony Lapiana together with a company he ran sued Clayton Bernier, a member of Millwrights Local 1102. Bernier had attacked the leadership of his union at a meeting for its ties to Lapiana, saying Lapiana was part of organized crime. Lapiana's suit charged defamation and tried to get a quick default judgment. Boal entered an appearance and sent written questions. He asked Lapiana whether he was "a member of the Detroit crime family" and "linked in FBI files to organized crime families in Chicago and Detroit." Lapiana refused to answer. The judge dismissed his case. But Bernier's defense had cost him $6000 in fees. Boal counter-sued for it at the Labor Board. He argued that Bernier's statements about Lapiana were "concerted activity for mutual aid or protection" -- free speech under the labor laws. Lapiana's company argued that it was not Bernier's direct employer. But motions were denied. On the day of trial they paid up. The cases were Automated Benefit Services and Lapiana v Bernier, Macomb County Circuit Case # 94-5664-NO; Automated Benefit Services and Lapiana, NLRB Case # 7-CA-38518.

  • In Charter Township of Ypsilanti v General Motors, General Motors said it would begin and maintain production of the Chevrolet Caprice at its Willow Run plant in Ypsilanti Township located in Washtenaw County. GM said the new car would generate jobs. It asked the township for 12-year 50% personal property tax abatements in 1984 and 1988. In 1991 GM announced it was moving the work to Texas. The township and the county sued for breach of promise. After a long trial the court ordered the company not to move the work. Residents were elated, but GM appealed. Acting both as local counsel and as a community organizer, Boal helped stitch together a coalition of 356 unions, community organizations, and individuals in ten states to file a brief on appeal as friends of the court. Ultimately the case lost. The Michigan court of appeals said GM never really made a promise. The company had only expressed "hopes and expectations." The ruling taught everyone a lesson. It motivated Boal's later participation in This Is Our Town, which kept Wal-Mart out of Charlevoix this year without having to go to court.

Boal has other outside interests. He sings and plays with the Charlevoix Men's Glee Club, has completed computer programming and networking courses at NCMC, manages websites, and runs or skis 40 miles/week. In 2002 and 2004 he travelled with the National Lawyers Guild to the West Bank, and has written on expelled

Stewie and Susie Boal, about 1990.

Stewie and Susie Boal moved to Charlevoix in 1980. Stewie died in 2001 at age 92, driving on a slippery road on his way to work at Pointes North Inn, where the family owns a controlling interest. Susie Boal lives and thrives on the family homestead on Boyne City Road next door to Ellis. The Inn is now managed by brother Stewart Jr. Ellis, who has been independent of his family since age 21, receives no income from it.

Ellis was married in 1979 and divorced without children in 2004. His health is excellent. He will authorize viewing of medical records by responsible media.