What's amazing here is not what they tell you, but what they don't...

Well, the children in Detroit are at it again.

And is there any wonder why there is so much blow-back from Gov. Snyder’s latest excuse to waste Michigan Taxpayer money on Detroit?

{Continued below the fold}

First off, my apologies for waiting so long to get back to everyone.

I’ve been working on my follow-up to this for several days when my employer felt that implementing mandatory overtime and weekends would be the silver bullet to cure their recent problems (In case anyone is wondering: It failed).

I‘m not going to go into any further specifics, but that, and 10x25MM’s exceptional pieces made what I wrote very redundant, so I’m leaving it at that.

Getting back to recent developments…you’ll love the latest buzz around town relating to the latest DPS SNAFU.

Twice even.

First is the recent decision by the Detroit School Board to, get this, turn down the recently enacted Michigan Republican Party bailout of DPS.

Yes, you’ve read that correctly; DPS Board Members are now balking because they don’t like the interest rates of a loan attached to it.

According to the DPS Transition Manager Steven Rhodes, DPS will be responsible for two loans; $150-million and $235-million respectively, of which they will have to pay 10% interest on the $150-million and 18% on the $235-million.

A copy of the relevant page is below.

 

The entire recommendation can be read here.

Lansing is obviously attempting to downplay those numbers, but they are as clear as day in the proposal above.

Honestly, I cannot tell you if those serving on the DPS Board are very familiar with finances (judging by the fact that they had an EM assigned to them…twice), but I’m leaning towards very little if any familiarity whatsoever. Not only that, but people who are desperate for money, and quickly, also pay higher interest rates. Just go to any corner payday advance operation and see for yourself.

Now before anyone thinks that the DPS bailout is dead in the water, let me throw out a little caveat here.

Even if the DPS Board stalls on this matter, like they and other elected officials (cough, cough…Detroit City Council pre-bankruptcy) have done when they were under the clock to act, the Michigan Local Emergency Financial Assistance Loan Board can override them and go forward with the loans regardless of local opposition.

And guess who makes the appointments to that board?
I mentioned two items above, and I had to save the best for last here.

Does anyone here know who is actually running the Detroit Public School Board?

If you are all shaking your heads in the negative, don’t feel too bad.

Neither do they!

In the latest circus act that tries to pass itself off as an elected body, the DPS board apparently has not one, but two school board presidents.

If you go by the “official record” (in this case, DPS’ own website), the current school board president , representing District 5, is DPS School Board President (?) Herman Davis.

But, if you go by local media accounts, LaMar Lemmons III, at-large school board member, has been cited as the to-go guy during the above loan mess.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When pressed on the matter, DPS School Board President (?) LaMar Lemmons III claims that he was elected at a meeting back at the beginning of this month.

DPS School Board President (?) Herman Davis claims that meeting was illegal because he had adjourned the meeting before any vote on that topic ever took place.

Hmmmm, we’re they using Sturgis or Robert’s???

Aside from OMA violations, good luck finding any public records of the June 9th meeting because there aren’t any (go and see for yourself).

Stay tuned. Better yet, you might want to grab some Aspirin.

Detroit Elected Leadership certainly will find new ways of embarrassing itself. And Gov. Snyder along with Michigan republicans will certainly find new ways to waste more of our money to save Detroiters from their own ineptitude!