"what is not talked about are the other incidentals, such as reimbursement to the developer for property taxes (approximately $500,000 per year); a yearly management fee (approximately $100,000); parking fees the state will have to pay due to inadequate parking; locating warehousing elsewhere; and building or locating the Emergency Operations Center elsewhere."

Meanwhile, the lease on the old HQ was only costing $1 per year and did not expire until 2030.  The East Lansing headquarters, while in need of repair (an MSP spokesperson said it would cost $1 million to replace the heating system, and there were ongoing maintenance costs for utilities), was fully functional and structurally sound. Even with maintenance costs, it was substantially cheaper than the new HQ.  Michigan State University has even considered moving its own police force into the building if the state decided to vacate the property.

One of the developers of the new HQ, Joel Ferguson, is actually an MSU Trustee.  So it seems he stands to benefit on both ends, having a long and distinguished history of big-dollar donations to Democrats.  From judicial candidates to the Michigan House Democrat Fund and others, Democrats can often count on thousands of dollars from Ferguson, and he's known to be tight with Granholm.

And where this intersects with the current House race at least, is that Gary McDowell was among those voting to pass the bill.  (See House Roll Call 449 to pass 2009 Senate Bill 253, which did not include Senate language prohibiting the HQ move.)  As the attorney general explained, all they had to do to stop this project was not appropriate the money.

Meanwhile, the state had announced in May 2009 that it would be laying off 100 state troopers. The state had spent $8 million training those troopers over the previous few years (leaving 958 total) to help cover a yawning $1.7 billion budget deficit.

State Police Director Peter Munoz says there is no way the department can lose almost 10 percent of its troopers without reducing services. The troopers were assigned to road patrols, responding to crime scenes and 911 calls and taking complaints. One of the troopers was part of a crime investigation unit.

As the president of the Michigan State Police Troopers Association asked, "What is the greater priority, a building that doesn't respond to emergency calls, or 100 troopers spread across this state who can do things for people?"  And that earlier commentator also pointed out that at the same time, "the release rate of parolees is being increased, there are mileage restrictions for troopers and crime labs are closing."

So McDowell argues that he didn't like voting for tax hikes but he had to in order to protect the public safety, and yet a couple years later, while the resources for actual law and order were curtailed, he voted for an expensive new police HQ that didn't even have all the capabilities of the old facilities, which just happened to line the pockets of a politically connected developer in the middle of a recession and budget crisis.