Nov 18, 2010

Snyder snubs the Michigan Constitution to stay in gated community


Apparently, the governor's mansion in the Capitol is not good enough for Michigan Governor-elect Rick “Chief Executive Outsourcer” Snyder, who is choosing to stay in his million dollar home in a gated community outside Ann Arbor and commute to Lansing.

Some people might say: ‘great, the Outsourcer deciding to become the first governor not to live in the executive residence since it was donated to the state in 1969 will save the cash-strapped state some money,’ but the fact is it will cost us more in the long run.

The mansion must still be maintained at a cost of $40,000 a year, and it will be used for some ceremonial functions and receptions. But the Outsourcer’s decision will be a real headache for the Michigan State Police who are assigned to guard and provide security for the Governor. According to the Detroit Free Press, the Lansing residence has extensive security systems and an MSP facility on-site.

Some people are even upset at the decision, but he admitted the public probably could care less. However, the arrogance of the Outsourcer is amazing.

According the Free Press, Richard McLellan, a Lansing attorney who chaired a foundation that raised money for the executive residence in the 1990s, said the constitutional requirement was added to "enhance the capital city as the seat of government... and increase the dignity of the office."

"It's not up to any one person to reject it,” he told the Free Press. “The constitution doesn't say, 'The state shall maintain a reception hall for the governor's use.' It says, 'The state shall maintain an executive residence.'"

I was lucky enough to attend a reception at the Governor’s residence, and it is something I will not soon forget.

2 comments:

Not Anonymous said...

This is how you usually operate. You give out only a portion of the story and not all of the facts.

The reason that Snyder is going to commute from his home to the Capitol is because his daughter is still in high school. He's choosing to maintain continuity for his family rather than uprooting them to move them to a new residence, and new school system.

The Governors mansion can still be considered the residence of the Governor even if he doesn't sleep there every night. He will if the weather is too bad to drive in to get back to his family.

To use your logic, Granholm should be sleeping nowhere but the mansion. No overnight trips to Japan, or to DC.

On the other hand, it would be refreshing to see any politician sleeping in his or her own bed for a change.

Your omissions say plenty about your bias.

Communications guru said...

I’m at a loss as to how it’s an omission or only half the facts when I provide a link to the story. In my opinion, he’s asking everyone else to make a sacrifice, yet he can’t make a small sacrifice and live in a slightly smaller house. I don’t care if his daughter is in high school or not. Gov. Granholm had three children in school, yet she made the sacrifice. People who served in the military with a family, like me, had to pull their kids out of a school all the time.

The Outsourcer is rich enough; hire someone to drive his daughter to high school in Ann Arbor. That would be the only job he ever created. He didn’t know their was an official residence in Lansing before he ran? Perhaps he should have thought of that before he ran.

Like Richard McLellan said in the story I linked to, “It's not up to any one person to reject it,” “The constitution doesn't say, 'The state shall maintain a reception hall for the governor's use.' It says, 'The state shall maintain an executive residence.'"

Once again, anonymous wimp, I am still waiting for you to back up your outrageous lie that we were “nearly shoulder to shoulder once.”