Detroit News. April 5, 2017
Keep close eye on Flint relief funds
A lot of money is now flowing into Flint to replace the city’s lead-leaching water lines. The dollars should also come with a fierce watchdog.
The Michigan Senate last week approved the awarding of $100 million in federal funds to the troubled city to replace its pipes. In addition, the settlement of a lawsuit against the state will deliver another $87 million.
That money should be enough to identify and replace the estimated 18,000 water lines serving Flint homes and businesses by the target date of 2020, but only if it is properly and productively spent.
With the recent controversy over how contracts are being awarded and some concerns with Mayor Karen Weaver’s administration, as well as the city’s legacy of corruption, steps should be taken to ensure the money gets to where it is intended to go.
In approving the federal outlay, the Senate attached a few strings. Flint will have to give regular reports to the state on the progress and costs of replacing the pipes.
That’s a good start, but each dollar should be tracked. Given the state’s involvement with the Flint water crisis, and the general distrust in Flint regarding any state action, a neutral party would be best.
The auditor general could be a decent option, if that office has the proper manpower. And Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich of Flint should also be consulted, given his close involvement with his hometown.
Last year, he proposed the creation of a Flint Authority to oversee the city’s recovery. The state could revisit that idea.
Already, Flint officials are battling over how the bids for the first $35 million of replacement work were awarded.
Objections by some council members that one firm - the low bidder - was awarded all of the work forced the reopening of the bid process.
Third-party eyes are needed here to make sure the new bidding doesn’t drive up the per-home replacement costs.
The city is already under federal investigation for how $25.5 million in blight funds are being used. The Treasury Department has not said what triggered the audit, but per-unit demolition costs have soared.
Last fall Flint was caught up in the scandal involving Rizzo Environmental Services, which allegedly bribed a number of Macomb County officials.
Former Mayor Woodrow Stanley was working for Rizzo at the time Flint was considering awarding the company a garbage hauling contract. Weaver said publicly she didn’t know about Stanley’s involvement when she recommended going with Rizzo, but emails obtained by the Flint Journal suggest otherwise.
Weaver was also hit by a federal whistleblower lawsuit last year filed by a former city administrator who charges she was fired for objecting to a request by the mayor to divert into her campaign account charitable donations intended to provide relief for city residents.
Safe is always better than sorry. Flint has a poor track record, both for the short and long term, of managing its affairs.
There’s a lot of need in the city, and, fortunately, a lot of money now available to meet it. Every precaution should be taken to assure that all of the money goes to addressing those needs.
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Lansing State Journal. April 6, 2017
Walberg town hall, sanctuary city and school schedule
Last week, Congressman Tim Walberg (R-MI7) drew mixed feedback from a full house of nearly seventy constituents in his first Eaton County town hall of the new session.
Favorable or not, feedback was heard. And constituents who attend in-person town halls are more likely to feel listened to and represented.
Congressman Mike Bishop (R-MI8), who has refused repeated requests to meet with his constituents in person, believes communication is best through virtual town halls.
But facts remain simple: Representative government requires in-person solicitation of feedback, and not simply from groups who agree with you but from a general audience of constituents invited to a town hall.
Congressman Walberg found a way to do this, using pre-submitted questions to create structure but allowing for general feedback. If he can do it, so can Congressman Bishop.
Walberg town hall draws capacity crowd
’Sanctuary city’ status a bad move
The Lansing City Council voted 6-0 this week on a resolution to declare sanctuary city status for Lansing - but failed to define it or acknowledge divergence from Mayor Virg Bernero’s executive order from the day before.
The resolution puts Lansing needlessly on the radar. Adding sanctuary city status to an already welcoming city, for no good reason, is a bad move by council members.
Bernero’s executive order clearly spells out how Lansing is a welcoming city, and sets guidelines for local law enforcement in gray areas such as the legal status of victims and witnesses.
Adding the designation of sanctuary city - without a clear definition - is setting the city up for repercussions from federal and state government if threats to funding are realized.
And without a clear definition for how it will make policy different, there is absolutely no reason why.
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Times Herald (Port Huron). April 5, 2017
City budget has options, none of them easy
Although we consider it a mean trick, we understand why government entities that rely on property tax revenue resort to a la carte taxation. Asking voters to approve separate taxes for roads, libraries, parks is a logical way to gauge how much value citizens place in those government functions. But asking voters whether they value basic government functions such as police and fire protection enough to boost taxes just for those operations comes close to extortion.
Of course voters wouldn’t say no - but surprises are possible.
Port Huron’s City Council and appointed officials have talked - only talked - about requesting new taxes to help for essential services - the police and fire departments - and some less-than-essential things the city provides - parks, recreational programs, support for the Port Huron Museum and McMorran Place.
At this point, those proposals are nothing more than some of the desperate ideas of officials searching for salvation from Port Huron’s unfunded retirement liabilities. Everything is on the table as city officials watch retiree pension and health care obligations consuming an ever-larger share of the city’s budget. If Lansing does nothing to help Port Huron and the hundreds of other local and county governments in the same predicament, not many years could pass before the city budget sets aside more money for retiree obligations than that allocated to public safety and parks combined.
Lansing, even if it understands the dire arithmetic, probably lacks the courage and the attention span to do anything about it.
That leaves Port Huron and communities across Michigan and the nation with choices neither officials nor residents would choose: Higher taxes or fewer public services.
While taxpayers ponder volunteer fire departments, contracted police protection, shuttered libraries, longer waits for pothole repairs, delayed park improvements or the expensive alternative, don’t blame your local officials.
Past or present, they did not know this was coming. Yes, cities have had warnings, but only relatively recent omens that the illogical was going to turn impossible. In the generations after World War II, everyone believed growth would last forever. Current and future generations will pay for that fairy tale.
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The Mining Journal (Marquette). April 6, 2017
Wiese made right, albeit tough call, in county sexting case
Although it will likely cost him something politically, we believe the decision Marquette County Prosecutor Matt Wiese made recently to not authorize criminal warrants in connection to what turned out to be a Marquette County-wide teenage sexting investigation, was the right one.
Wiese disclosed earlier this week that hundreds of high school students from Marquette, Ishpeming, Negaunee, Gwinn and Westwood were involved. For the uninitiated, sexting can be defined as sending sexually explicit materials - typically photos - using computers or mobile devices.
The cases, investigated by the Michigan State Police, started with a handful of students but rapidly spread to dozens, then hundreds of individuals in multiple school districts. Social media was listed as the online vehicle used to exchange the materials.
In a release to local media, Wiese recognized that the activity, while highly inappropriate, isn’t what the Michigan law intended to criminalize.
“Technically (the exchanged material) could be considered child sexually abusive material, and using a computer to commit a crime,” he said in the release. “I am confident that parents and school officials will give this matter the attention it deserves, and impress upon area teenagers that this behavior is inappropriate, and could potentially be considered criminal.”
If you’re Wiese, the easy play here would have been to get the pen out and start signing warrants. That’s what prosecutors all over the country have been doing with these cases for years. Anyone convicted lands on the state’s sex offender registry.
But he didn’t do that, and we applaud him for it.
What people often don’t know about Matt Wiese is that he was earning his bones prosecuting domestic violence cases back when a lot of people thought those were matters that should be handled privately in the home. Veteran cops, even the old-school guys, will tell you he was way out front on that issue, not only locally but for the entire state.
Put another way, he’s earned the discretion that he exercised in this case.
We hope the political fallout from this is minimal and quickly forgotten. Wiese made the right call.
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