Tough question shuts down chamber forum

The Livingston County Board of Commissioners is hoping that voters are stupid, and they are doing everything possible to hide more than $101 million in bad debt taxpayers are in the hook for until after then Nov. 2 election.

The Livingston County Democratic Party brought to light that the all-Republican Board of Commission backed $101 million in principal and interest from bonds by townships for Special Assessment Districts (SAD) for water and sewer infrastructure for developers to be paid back when people moved into the new developments, but because of the Bush recession, many developers just walked away, leaving the township and county taxpayers holding the bag.

The Democrats have been demanding that the county come clean by holding a townhall meeting to explain the situation, but the county has done everything legally possible to hide the extent of the bad debt from the public. On Thursday at its monthly breakfast meeting, the Greater Brighton Area Chamber of Commerce had county officials come in and make a presentation that turned out to be little more than a campaign speech. If you anted up your $25 to get into the event hosted by the most pro-Republican organization in the world, you simply heard a whitewash, and the first time a tough, or any question, was asked the chamber director ended the forum.

According to the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus, it was nothing but a campaign speech from Board Chair Maggie Jones. She only talked about the great things the county has accomplished, but the fact that most of the stuff - like the Livingston County Ambulance, which has been around since 1971 – took place years ago.

For the all the good news, the Board has had its share of mismanagement that always gets swept under the rug, like the foreclosure crisis in Livingston County, which has the highest rate of property tax foreclosures in the region, awful roads and the financial drain at the county airport.

The Board has tried to hide the debt by forming something called the “Debt Management Committee,” and it meets the bare minimums of the Open Meetings Act by placing the notice of its meeting on a bulletin board in the board offices. After the county Democrats submitted a FOIA request for the meeting minutes, it turned out they had not even been approved. Only after they received the FOIA request did they even approve 10 sets of meeting minutes, going back for more than a year shortly after getting the FOIA request.

Conveniently, the chair of the sub-committee is not running for re-election after four terms on the board, giving the board a possible scapegoat.

The local daily newspaper has done a lousy job acting as a watchdog on the all-GOP board, but they could no longer ignore the minutes deception. Last week it finally came out it with an editorial on it. The Republican editorial board hates to criticize Republicans, so the criticism was very muted and couched as more of a question.

“But (Commissioner Jack) LaBelle said there was nothing "sinister" about the lack of minutes on this most critical committee. Then he said that the board didn't want to be "pitting the county against townships." Such a comment makes it seem that the Democrats are correct in saying that the county board was trying to keep the public in the dark about the nature of this issue, particularly since county officials have more recently suggested that some township officials were reluctant to acknowledge the possible inability to pay the looming debt payments.”

Pretty tame. The editorial should have demanded transparency from the board and administration, and it should have demanded the county hold a townhall meeting to inform the public of the extent of the problem and the possibility of an emergency financial manager taking over some townships.

By the way, this would be a townhall meeting where taxpayers don’t have to pay $25 to hear from their elected officials.

Editorial continues to misrepresent the facts in defense of lawmaker’s tax giveaway

I try hard not to be cynical, but when I see another attempt by the local newspaper to defend sate Rep. Chris Ward and his attempt to give $9 million of taxpayer money to Quadrants, the developer of the Green Oak Village Place mall, for necessary road improvements it’s quite easy. The latest attempt to defend the indefensible appeared in today’s paper, and it makes you wonder why now? Why are you still getting the facts wrong?

We know that the executive editor of this newspaper contributes to the Ward campaign, but this piece is worth more than the cash he gives to the campaign. All it really costs is the integrity of the editorial board, and we know that’s long been compromised.

Here’s some background. The DDA law was established in 1975 to halt the decline of property tax values and deterioration in downtowns. It was also intended to give downtowns a weapon to fight huge shopping malls, like the $100 million Village Place Mall, that were just coming on line in 1975 that had uniform hours, lots of free parking and everything within walking distance. In other words, the law was made to combat the very thing Mr. Ward wanted to pervert the law to benefit.

In 2004 Mr. Ward changed the law – for just one person mind you – that allowed a DDA to expand its boundaries if it was a $100 million project and it did away with the requirement that the property had to have declining property values.

Only when the ruse was called, and it was clear that Livingston County Board of Commissioner would not approve this tax giveaway to a rich developer, did Ward rescind the law made for just one person.

The newspaper got the facts completely wrong, and they should talk to Livingston Country Commissioner Jack LaBelle for the facts. The chair of the Commission and a member for more than 30 years also saw it for what it was, a tax giveaway.

The road, the roundabouts and the bridge would have looked exactly the same if the con had gone forward. The only difference would be the taxpayers would have paid for the improvements that would have benefited the developer instead of the person who would see the profit paying for it. In most other states of the union they have what are called “developer impact fees.” That means the developer must pay fees for the infrastructure and other improvements his development will cause and require. Apparently, here in Michigan the exact opposite is true, and we have taxpayer impact fees, meaning we have to pay for the improvements the developer’s project will require.

Although both the city and county voiced legitimate concerns, the fact remains that the loss of the DDA option did not stop the mall construction. But it does mean that the traffic system is not as good — or as safe — as it could have been.
That's too bad. Despite some misconceptions voiced in the last political campaign, the DDA was not a scheme to cut taxes for the developers of the mall. The developer pays exactly the same property taxes with or without the DDA.

That’s completely untrue. Mike McGonegal, Ward’s opponent in the last election, made it a campaign issue. However, he never once said it was a “scheme to cut taxes for the developers of the mall.” It was a scheme to have the taxpayers pay for something the developer should pay for. There was never any intention from the developer to pay for anything or pledge any money for improvements.

We are still not sure why it's OK to use a DDA to build an expressway ramp in the city of Brighton, but it's somehow not appropriate to use the same funding mechanism to improve the road system just outside the city limits.

I’m surprised that the editorial board is that misinformed, or is that they just think the readers are stupid. DDA’s were developed to keep downtowns healthy, and the law was introduced because many downtown storefronts were being boarded up and abandoned in favor of suburban shopping malls. The law was approved to fight the very thing that the new bastardized DDA law would have helped, huge suburban shopping malls. The fact is townships can form DDA’s, they just have to do it under the law instead of having some friendly lawmaker pervert the law just for them. To form a DDA all you really need is to have some kind of central business district, and property values must be falling. That’s the rub here. They did not have the latter. Enter Mr. Ward.

Perhaps when you are in downtown Howell tonight watching the Fantasy of Lights parade or in downtown Brighton watching the Holiday Glow you will be thankful that things like the DDA Act was passed to protect these jewels we call downtowns. If not, you will be watching parades in some huge, ugly strip mall.