Tag: Detroit (page 4)

Detroit, the once beautiful jewel of Michigan, tortured with decades of progressivism, Cronyism, and corruption, just cannot stop failing.  Somehow, in the midst of a bankruptcy, preceded by the spending of 15 or so billion dollars as yet unearned, and the jail sentences of ONLY a few of the officials responsible, the city still must do stupid things, like build water play fountains it cannot afford.

Or make work.  From Fox2:

"They served up free ice cold bottled water and delicious grilled hot dogs. The T-shirts looked good reading "Palmer Park Splash Park" and the ribbon cutting went well. Just one little glitch at the new park, there was no water! A water main break dried up the splash park for its grand opening!

"We had a mishap with a water main that broke," explained Detroit Mayor Dave Bing. "We have a water system that's 100 years old so those things happen."

Voters in Oakland County will decide this August on a property tax to support the Detroit Institute of the Arts. Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson is encouraging residents to support it.

"So the tax would have been 19 bucks on the average home sold last year. You know, that's a bad day at Starbucks," Patterson said to laughter from the audience [Sheeple] at Friday's Pancake & Politics panel discussion.

"I think the tax will fly.  I think people understand appreciate. And then when you get, if the tax passes ... the communities that pass it get free admission to the DIA, so you're gonna get it back your first trip. So, I think it's gonna pass overwhelmingly."

M'kay, so Babbling Brooksie got his way with herding the 7 Republican turncoats on the Oakland County Board of Commissioners who voted with the unanimous Democrats to send the DIA Tax Hike and Oakland County Art Institute Authority creation (see page 387) off to a vote by the Sheeple.    Yannow, it is written that the age-old axiom says, Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue.  Congratulations, Oakland County, voters!  You have spoken!  By your vote, YOU OWN THE DIA TAX.

Oakland County officials plan to take their first step next week to safeguard property taxes meant for funding the Detroit Institute of Arts from getting in the hands of the city's creditors.

Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said the resolution is a pre-emptive strike against Detroit and its creditors as the city prepares to fight to persuade bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes the city is eligible for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection.

"That would be a tremendous betrayal of public trust. That's not what that tax was passed for," Patterson told The Detroit News on Tuesday. "We will take steps to suspend the tax levy. We're clearly within our rights, and we're going to exercise that."

Read on.

Then what was the tax passed for, Brooksie?  A hint.  Would you like to know what would be a tremendous betrayal of public trust?  Still being led around by a hoary County politician who refuses to accept he has outlived his usefulness (tho, apparently now sober), and now wants his Obamacare-esque "do over" for his DIA Tax hike scheme with November 2014 elections approaching.

Now pay up, suckers.

Aside from the EFM and Bankruptcy taking away the fun of being mayor of Hiroshima North, the election's write in results are worth a guffaw. Mike Dugeon, a last minute write-in candidate for Mayor who was supposed to take away a number of votes through confusion from Mike Duggan got no more than the number of votes in his immediate family. The voting result:

Detroit Mayor
Write In: Mike Duggan     44,395     45%
Benny Napoleon             28,352     29%
Write-In (other)    5,916     5%
Krystal Crittendon     5,295     5%
Lisa Howze             4,581     3%
Tom Barrow          3,690     2%
John Olumba          1,327     1%
Fred Durhal Jr.     841     1%
Willie Lipscomb Jr.     303     1%
Angelo Scott Brown     182     1%
Herman Griffin     165     1%
Sigmunt Szczepkowski Jr.     146     1%
Mark Murphy     142     1%
Jean Vortkamp     138     1%
John Telford     110     1%
D'Artagnan Collier     91     1%
Write In: Mike Dugeon     17     1%

A few days ago Dugeon was carjacked.

If this is a true and factual account, (there is no reason to suspect it is not) then there had best be some heads mounted on the Attorney General's trophy room wall before long. Scotty Boman, former US Senate candidate and current candidate for Detroit City Clerk underwent an assault on his person July 30, and his rights were violated by those who pledge to serve.  According to the Michigan Libertarian website:

Campaigning has become dangerous for Detroit City Clerk candidate Scotty Boman. According to Boman, a member of the WCCCD campus police attempted to intimidate him while he was taking pictures of his opponent's (Janice Winfrey) signage at the early voting location at the Northwest Campus of WCCCD on Tuesday July 30th. After he moved to where volunteers for other candidates were handing out literature, he was assaulted by the officer, then thrown to the ground by additional officers as he attempted to hand campaign literature to a passers-by. Boman said he was then held prisoner until a campaign forum, that the officers knew he was scheduled to attend, was nearly over.

"As soon as I took out my camera and pointed it at Janice Winfrey's banner (which was draped over the voting location's entrance) this one officer stormed out of the polling place and shouted, `What do you think your doing!' I responded that I was taking a picture of the banner." Boman went on to say, "I then went to take a picture of another nearby sign that read `Vote here Janice Winfrey City Clerk.' At this point a poll-worker, came out to where I was taking the picture. I started recording video of our conversation regarding Winfrey's signage when the Officer who previously shouted at me came out and told me to put away the camera. I asked if my photography was illegal, and which law it violated. I emphatically stated that I would follow her instructions immediately if she asserted I was breaking the law, but she could not cite any."

After he was detained in a closet by police.  

Trespassing?  On publicly owned property?

Outside of the progressive politics, corruption related to same, and a lack of respect for what USED to be the jewel of the Midwest, it was greed.  Greed, that is explained no better than by Bill Johnson:

"History, however, shows this looming crisis might have been averted if the employees unions and pensioners had shown more flexibility forty years ago in restructuring city pension benefits. Instead, the intractable opposition demanded the city stay on a dead end course to default.

As far back as 1974, then-Mayor Coleman Young proposed what was considered reasonable changes to Detroit's pension programs. Because labor and retirees are a potent political force, the City Council shot down the mayor's changes."

Not so much.

Read the rest at Johnson's blog.

The bizarro side of the world is wondering what you might be up to, but we have less tolerance for the games.  Don't play on their turf, because at some point you will realize all the friends you brought with you are gone. A realization of the truth will make short work of this:

"Consistency and the state constitution demand that Attorney General Bill Schuette fight to protect the pensions of Detroit retirees from being downsized in bankruptcy court. It's Schuette's job to defend state laws, and he can't pick and choose which ones he fights to protect.

Schuette filed Monday to intervene in the bankruptcy proceedings on behalf of pensioners.

The move puts him at odds with Gov. Rick Snyder, who supports Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr's position that retirees will have to sacrifice along with other creditors to resolve Detroit's $18 billion debt."

The Michigan Constitution has many things that need to be enforced, but Article 9 Section 24 cannot be used in this case. The average Joe can tell you that Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 of the US constitution says so.

"Both state legislation and state courts tended to use debtor-creditor laws to redistribute money from out-of-state and urban creditors to rural agricultural interests. Under the Articles of Confederation, the states alone governed debtor-creditor relations, and that led to diverse and contradictory state laws. It was unclear, for instance, whether a state law that purported to discharge a debtor of a debt prohibited the creditor from trying to collect the debt in another state. "

The constitution of the US is primary. Federal bankruptcy law which is derived from specific mandates it is absolute under this example.

We seldom use such direct attacks in a title even though the content has tended to be more direct as of late.  And though we openly wonder on why certain pursuits exist, the Detroit bankruptcy really drives home a point that cannot be ignored.  The bankruptcy had to happen, and even though happening later than it should have been, Snyder gets some credit for doing what is needed.

For the remainder of the message however, Stephanie quotes Forbes and opines:

"In light of Detroit's bankruptcy case getting national attention, many people have missed this little development:

Detroit's Tunnel To Canada Follows The City Into Bankruptcy.  

Since 1930, Detroiters have had two choices to reach Windsor, Ontario across the U.S.-Canadian border: the Ambassador Bridge or the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel.

Now, the tunnel's operator has joined the city in seeking bankruptcy protection. It's blaming two reasons, according to Reuters: reduced traffic across the border, and the same kind of unmanageable debt burden that led to the city's Chapter 9 petition.

If Michigander's might recall, Governor Rick Snyder, as part of his campaign platform, ran advocating for a second bridge to Canada to be built, using at least partly, taxpayer money.  One has to ask, in considering this little plan of his, did he not research the profitability of the two existing means by which to get to Canada (the Windsor Tunnel and the Ambassador Bridge)?  If he didn't do the research that makes Governor Snyder just stupid.  If he did do his due diligence, he would have seen the enormous operating losses of the Tunnel."

There is no constitutional protection. If anyone can find it in the 1963 (current) Michigan State Constitution, please feel free to point it out.  I must concur with McLellen's statement:

"Republican barrister Richard McLellan, a state constitutional expert, said the constitution's language regarding pensions does not bind the state to protect pensions of municipal employees.

"It doesn't say the accrued and financial benefits are guaranteed by the state -- it doesn't say that at all," McLellan said."

And the aging/deteriorating legal brain of Frank Kelley saying so doesn't make it the truth.  Frankly, even in his BEST years, Kelley overlooked rampant corruption at all levels in Detroit, allowing the city to fall into the condition we now find it.

Detroit pensioners, you HAD your chance.