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    Tag: Traverse city

    Pensions & Fiscal Child Abuse


    By JGillman, Section News
    Posted on Fri Dec 27, 2013 at 10:14:13 AM EST
    Tags: Damocles Sword, Debt, Pensions, POB, Obligation Bonds, Chris Radu, Mike Gillman, Traverse City, Grand Traverse County, Deficits, Shortfalls, Fiscal Child Abuse, Government, Arbitrage, ROI, SB1129 (all tags)

    "Live now, pay later," might have easily supplanted the national motto of "E Pluribus Unum," instead of its supposed replacement, "In God we trust."

    Aside from the obvious reference to unearned hedonism and individual irresponsibility, it should be noted that governments derived from such careless individuals as the "live now" crowd can bring all of us even closer to being debt slaves.  Yet even without the notion of pleasure as an advance reward to leadership, the function of government runs unabated. One might find it differently in private enterprise however, according to Jack Spencer at Cap Con:

    "In the private sector, businesses can't ignore economic reality by giving in to unrealistic union demands. They open their books and say, "look, we've had a lousy couple of years. We have to cut back or go under. We can't give you what you want." That reality check doesn't apply to government, which is always bargaining with other people's money. Those "other people" are us, the taxpayers. Over the decades, when faced with unpopular choices of cutting services or raising taxes, government officials have given unions most of what they asked for and left the tab to be picked up by future generations."

    In a nutshell, that is it.

    I've been there.  In fact, I have been in both places simultaneously.  At the business owned by my wife and I, folks haven't received raises in three years, yet as a county commissioner in 2012 I was present while union employees received automatic 1.5% increases. It made no sense to me that it should be so easy for a nearly unanimous Republican board to approve of such a thing, but over the years we have discovered that fiscal insanity is a scourge that has set upon both Capulet AND House Montague.

    And it is generational too.  So much so, that entire infrastructures are collapsing from the weight that has long had its supports removed.  Pensions as a part of governmental financial negligence as referenced in the Cap Con piece above are responsible for cities literally falling apart, and legitimate public safety services being eliminated.

    So what have we done to solve this?

    Go below the fold to find out how we can actually make bad stuff, worse.

    (3 comments, 2223 words in story) Full Story

    Chamber LIKES Millages


    By JGillman, Section News
    Posted on Fri Nov 01, 2013 at 03:38:10 PM EST
    Tags: Traverse City, Michigan, Chamber Of Commerce, TCAPS, Schools, Millages, Taxes, Business, Advocacy, Cronyism (all tags)

    So said the headline August 14, 2013 on the front page of the Record Eagle in Traverse City.

    It starts off:

    The chamber's Board of Directors decided to back the district's millage proposals Tuesday morning.

    "It was the board's consensus that strong schools are an integral component of successful communities -- communities that retain and attract talent, jobs, and investment," Doug Luciani, the chamber's president and CEO, stated in an email to TCAPS officials.


    I have saved that particular issue (and took the 1000 word photo) as a reminder of what happens when sleepy oversight meets an aggressive enemy, particularly in an advocacy organization.  Today's chamber of commerce in particular is a far different creature than it once was. Traditionally an advocate of business and growth of a community by promoting lower cost of dealing with government, fewer regulations, and growing a customer base. The model has been altered by pro-regulatory, anti competitive and progressive high tax types who have infiltrated and merely put a face of business over their anti business operations.

    The article which spawned the headline touches on the example of the Traverse City Area Chamber of Commerce, and its support last year of a $100,000,000.00 boondoggle, and even more easily this year's reduced ($47,000,000.00 total) offering.  It supports putting more of a burden on its members and those who bear the increasing liability of property ownership.

    taxable properties the school receives funding from has several classifications.

    • Agricultural
    • Commercial
    • Industrial
    • Residential
    • Personal Property Classification from Commercial, Industrial, and Utilities.

    According to the most recent Traverse City Areas Public Schools budget, major revenue is based upon the following:
    Estimated Taxable Value (ad valorem) $4,230,649,648.00, the Homestead Taxable Value is $2,518,975,070.00, leaving the Non-Principal Residence Exemption Taxable Value       $1,711,674,578.00 or 40.5% of the taxable value is outside of homestead residential ownership.

    Remember those numbers highlighted above.

    And then continue on below the fold.

    (3 comments, 1219 words in story) Full Story

    A Message To Our Legislators - Beware False Choices

    TCAPS Tries Again


    By JGillman, Section News
    Posted on Wed Oct 23, 2013 at 10:55:30 PM EST
    Tags: TCAPS, Traverse City, Millage, Schools, Auditoriums, Performing Arts Center (all tags)

    And this time its hard to say what might happen.

    In another post it was mentioned among the comments to watch for encore performances.  Indeed that IS how it goes when some of your friendly neighborhood's largest governmental units don't succeed.  They try, and try again.

    "A proposal to raise more money for schools in Traverse City is sailing smoothly into the November election. A much larger proposal was a disaster for the school district last year. .."
    And in Grand Traverse County, the encore performance would be nothing without an auditorium request, again.

    Or rather a "performing arts center;" the one-time descriptive for a previous $26.5 million (part of $100 million) auditorium effort. Of course the proposed competition for Interlochen's stage market at 1200 seats and real cannons to remind folks of Shakespeare's globe (before said cannons burned it to the ground) was turned down by voters who are making decisions of paying the utilities or mortgage, and hardly wish to cough up more for what (given their circumstances) they might equate to frivolity.

    Certainly, $12.9 Million is hardly too much to ask for the warm fuzzies of having a state of the art (albeit smaller) palace to entertain with the 18th straight season of Les Mis. Its truly a minor act.

    Break a leg I say.

    Comments >>

    911 Truth


    By JGillman, Section News
    Posted on Wed Sep 11, 2013 at 08:59:42 PM EST
    Tags: Michigan, Traverse City, 911, Commander Cross, Miley Cyrus (all tags)

    Thank you for your sobering thoughts Commander.

    (2 comments) Comments >>

    Open Government/FOIA Town Hall Meeting in Traverse City


    By JGillman, Section News
    Posted on Wed Jul 31, 2013 at 09:27:18 AM EST
    Tags: Transparency, Mackinac Cernter, FOIA, Training, Watchdog, Government, Traverse City (all tags)

    Continuing its series on transparency in government, The Mackinac Center is hosting a community event for those who want a better understanding of how the Freedom of Information Act and Open Meetings Act work.

    Date: Aug. 1, 2013

    The Mackinac Center is hosting a series of community events aimed at raising awareness of common problems encountered by those who attempt to request government records and provide information to those who want a better understanding of how the Freedom of Information Act and Open Meetings Act work. Our state has valuable tools for holding public servants accountable but those tools are useless if people don't know about them or don't know how to use them.

    Vic McCarty, host of "The Vic McCarty Show" on WMKT AM1270 in Traverse City, will be moderating this event.

    The panelists will be:


    • Miriam Aukerman, ACLU Staff Attorney

    • Robin Luce-Herrmann, General Counsel, Michigan Press Association

    • Michael J. Reitz, Executive Vice President, Mackinac Center for Public Policy

    This event is free and open to the public. No RSVP is needed!

    The event will be held on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2013, from 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

    Traverse Area District Library - Woodmere Branch Library
    610 Woodmere Avenue
    Traverse City, MI 49686

    Comments >>

    Nicotine, Milk And Kibble


    By JGillman, Section News
    Posted on Fri Mar 15, 2013 at 03:22:55 PM EST
    Tags: Traverse City, Michigan, Cigarettes, Money, Addiction, Obama, Rent, HUD, Housing, Section 8, Welfare, No Shame Anymore, Corporate Cronyism, Reality, No Money, Finite Resources, Obama Stash, Government Jobs, Housing Authorities, The Rent Pimps (all tags)

    For about 5 years the Pavlovian expectation of a cigarette followed every meal.

    In about 11 months, I celebrate my 20th anniversary of being tobacco free. In the first 5 years of that, it was a fight to stay off the nicotine, and the body and mind played tricks to try and get me puffing again. Stress, the after dinner reach for a pack, drive time, all of those things I thought of as pleasurable for so long, reached up from the depths often, in order to regain its hold over me.  Its hold from a time when I was its slave, and it was my benevolent master.

    As long as I fed it, the habit made me relax for a time, and I was allowed to live in my skin.

    Some folks have compared tobacco addiction to that of heroin, or other narcotics.  Others, to its oft used partner, alcohol.  Though I have never experienced the withdrawal effects of those, I believe I understand them as a result of having had been a smoker for well over a decade.  The 'habit' was more than that.  It was an unchangeable lifestyle; a daily thing that demanded my attention, or the consequences would be hellish.

    There is a drug that is worse however.

    And it won't be your body or mind reminding you how bad its going to be without it.  It will be active little monsters who also get a high from it, and want you hooked for as long as it takes for THEM to live THEIR lives.

    Continued below.

    (12 comments, 793 words in story) Full Story

    Complete Insanity


    By JGillman, Section News
    Posted on Tue Jan 15, 2013 at 08:22:23 PM EST
    Tags: Michigan, Policy, A21, Agenda 21, Grand Vision, Complete Streets, Expensive Roads, Bicycles, Walking, Suicide Lanes, Progressive Nonsense, Urbanization, Traverse City, East Bay Township, Coming To A Town Near You (all tags)

    Strangely, it seems Google has algorithms that remove opposition to complete streets A21 type legislation to the end of the results.

    Too bad.  There is so much to say that addresses the broad based policies that complete streets encompasses. So much that brings an appropriate negative light on the issue and its implementation.  Roundabouts, suicide bike lanes (like the one in the video of the last story), spending large sums of money for rural areas where only the transient bike through (tour bikers) might use, and perhaps even other reasons like private property.

    Silly stuff like that.

    In fact, we have one of those bike lanes in Traverse City.  The bicyclist is broken away from the right shoulder, and directed into the left turn where the lane abruptly ends (no warning) forcing the automobile into the bicycle, or mating them inappropriately. Somehow, no one has yet died on the corner, though some close calls have occurred.  I suppose the smarter cyclists avoid it, which would explain why I never see anyone using the bought and paid for streetscape as planned.

    So imagine the excitement in finding out the Grand Vision folks up here (A21 implementation team) were sponsoring a traveling road show to each of the rural townships.  The effort of course, was to have neat little picture show, and included in the packet of trustees would be a ready made resolution in support of 'Complete Streets'.  Ready to serve; just add moronicide.

    In my own township, I didn't see it making much sense, so I prepared a statement.

    Continued below the fold

    (1056 words in story) Full Story

    Advocacy & Absolution


    By JGillman, Section News
    Posted on Sat Dec 29, 2012 at 03:41:43 PM EST
    Tags: Michigan, Traverse City, Schools, Performing Arts Center, Millage, Luxury, Disconnect, Tax Sales, Advocacy, Taxpayers (all tags)

    Curiously, Michigan Capitol Confidential has a story about school millage advocacy.
    "In an effort to drum up support for an upcoming millage, Alcona Community Schools Superintendent Shawn Thornton is quoted in a local newspaper claiming teaching and support staff have been cut almost in half."
    Which was of course misleading.

    The first line says 'curiously' because today is the day I received the response from the SOS to my complaint of advocacy by TCAPS (Traverse City Area Public Schools) for its millage request.  It included the district's denial that they were violating campaign finance 57. It claimed they didn't know that there was a violation. But interestingly, as they were denying the charge of violation, it should be noted they significantly re-worked their literature when 'caught' by the original complaint and a subsequent newspaper article highlighting the complaint.

    Not knowing absolves everyone from fault .. right?

    Right up to that line without stepping over it is typical for school systems begging for more, but this was pretty clear.  The Superintendent approved the mailer, but then had it changed when caught. Then had their hired guns respond to the complaint.  Then another 'curious' event where the public relations manager resigns an $84k/yr job out of the blue.

    Right.

    I have 10 days from the date of the SOS response to add anything.  The SOS response was dated Dec 21, 2012.  (Envelope shows to be mailed the 27th) I suppose the violation should/could stand on its own, but will an additional argument weigh on the process any?

    Thoughts?

    (2 comments) Comments >>

    Next 8 >>
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