Stay home, Lloyd ...

Former city councilman Lloyd Conner showed up at a council meeting the other day and no less than three times asked a question about the additional revenue an ambulance fee increase set for the new city budget. Three times, it was explained to him by finance director Ed Sell (or as Mayor Al calls him "Mr. Sells") the additional revenue the fee increase would bring in. Finally, it seemed to stick. Lloyd also asked a few other non-sensical questions (why is a fire truck a first responder on emergencies (duh!)) and then he sat down. He prefaced his remarks by objecting to a letter being read from former Mayor Iacoangeli making some fairly thoughtful budget suggestions. Lloyd said he resented this letter being read in an attempt to brainwash the council into thinking it was doing something wrong, budgetwise. Lloyd apparently doesn't seem to recognize that in order to be brainwashed, you have to have a brain to start with.
Lloyd's performance was an embarrassment to his current cronies on council and would lead an uninitiated observer to conclude that he might have been drinking before he appeared before council. (Was there a couple stifled belches there, Lloyd). If his wife really loves him, she'll make sure he doesn't leave the house on Monday nights.
Lloyd, you might recall, was voted off council for so aptly representing his neighborhood by allowing IKO to set up their stinky roofing shop. He's never been able to get over that. The sad think is, he once was regarded as a force on council and now even his cronies are bad-mouthing him behind his back as a public embarassment.
Lloyd, for your own good, just stay home!

For our customers' convenience ...

It's been pretty interesting watching how Detroit Edison has handled the closing of its customer service office in Monroe .. or in other cities for that matter. The company has ordered up a batch of closings of customer service offices because they say it reflects the preferences of their customers. Translation: Fewer customers are making payments in person and more are using the Internet and although a lot fewer are using the Internet than making payments in person, it's clearly a trend and anyway it's a whole lot cheaper just to shut down the in-person offices. Not to worry. The friendly utility will set up alternative pay stations so deadbeats who still want to pay in person can drive their horse and buggy to the Kroger store and pay there. Problem is, Kroger didn't know anything about it and was turning away tons of people who were showing up to pay their bills in person. In the paper, Edison called it a miscommunication. We'll say. What really wasn't communicated very well is that even if you could pay at Kroger, they'd charge something like $2.50 as a processing fee. Do ya think the money goes to the merchant who's handling the payment. No way. About 2 percent goes to the merchant. The rest goes to the electric company. It all makes sense doesn't it. You get less convenient service and you get to pay for it too. As they say in the electric business, there's a lot of stuff that goes on that's shocking.

Spiking the coach

Some variation of this usually is going on all the time somewhere, but the folks in Ida have taken it to a new low level.
The buzz around town is that a group of disgruntled parents are hoping to get the volleyball coach fired. Why? A few of the parents of players don't think she's playing their kids enough. So they've gotten up a petition and are urging the district to spike the coach, who otherwise has had an exemplary record. This is exactly the thing that's wrong with high school sports. It's no longer about the kids. It's about tunnelvision parents who coddle their youngsters even though they might not be god's gift to their chosen sport. So an injustice is about to be done in Ida. A good coach could be deep-sixed because of some bad parents who have district apathy on their side.