There are a couple of stories making the rounds, that taken individually, might not pique everyone’s interest for very long, but taken collectively should be sounding alarm bells at the highest levels of what passes for leadership in the Michigan Republican Party.
Especially considering who was the actual cause behind it.
Last Act of the Detroit Bankruptcy Stumbles Behind a Wall of Secrecy
The final Detroit bankruptcy plan established a 14 June deadline to reach an agreement transferring operating control of the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department’s (DW&SD) assets outside of Detroit to the newly created Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA). The State of Michigan, Detroit, Wayne County, Oakland County and Macomb County all signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) creating the GLWA late last year, subject to a 200-day due diligence period. Under the MoU, the City of Detroit would receive a $ 50 million annual lease payment from the GLWA while retaining full control of DW&SD assets and operations within the city. Erstwhile DW&SD customers outside Detroit were promised a 4% cap on annual water and sewerage increases for a 10 year period, which have been running above 10% per annum, in residential bills, in most Southeastern Michigan communities.
In point of fact, what has actually been occurring are secret negotiations over future tax increases across Southeastern Michigan. Water rates have become a surrogate form of incremental taxation. These negotiations will set tax fee increment rates for decades into the future. For taxpayers ratepayers who haven’t even been born yet. How are these negotiations going?
Mr. Gantert, at MCC exposes more Detroit Institute of Arts deceit and treachery.
Soon after voters approved a three-county $230 million millage for the Detroit Institute of Arts, its top two officers received increases of $58,415 and $98,564 in compensation.
Graham Beal, director of the DIA, saw his total compensation increase from $455,453 in 2012 to $513,868 in 2013, a 12.8 percent increase. In two years, Beal’s total compensation has increased 20 percent from $426,699 in 2011 to the $513,868.
“I believe there is a possibility (albeit a small one) that there could be some state funding made available towards part of the DIA solution,” Weiser told Buckfire in an e-mail Oct. 17 after speaking with Muchmore. He added that he had been helping DIA leadership find sources of money “for a long-term payment plan” since 2007.
Weiser, who is running for a seat on the University of Michigan Board of Regents [snip]
My pastor, when he’s discussing contemporary culture from either the sanctuary pulpit or the classroom lectern, likes to refer to what he calls, “itching ear disorder.” The primary Scripture reference is 2 Timothy 4:3-4, referring to a time when people will have no further interest in the truth, and won’t tolerate listening to anything that contradicts their philosophical predispositions. As a student of Scripture, I can say with some certainty that the prophets and apostles were well acquainted with this disorder. Hosea even wrote about a time when hostility against the truth would become so great that those who insist on speaking it would be considered fools and maniacs. According to a disputed George Orwell quote (“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.”), “itching ear disorder” isn’t exactly an unusual condition in the human experience.
And this brings us to the current philosophical skirmish involving Michigan’s Republican National Committeeman, which involves the latest escalation by some unsavory elements within the Michigan Republican Party, who seem to be in a desperate quest to reclaim lost relevance.