Can you believe this II?

In case you missed it, there's a letter to the newspaper editor in tonight's Monroe Snooze that's almost as bizarre as all those city-related letters that ran last week.
It's from some woman who's complaining that the Christmas tree lighting ceremony downtown was bungled so badly it's ruined her Christmas and has her kids believing that Damien from The Omen might show up for Christmas instead of St. Nick.
Now I'll be the first to agree that it shouldn't take a mental giant to flip a switch at the appointed time and that somebody in the city either is a dunce or wanted to get home in time for Deal or No Deal.
But if you arrange your life's schedule for something like this, you might as well pack up all your stuff in properly labeled bins and move to Anal City.
Wait! Not yet! I think there's an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Support Group in town. Check them out. I'm sure they start their meetings right on time.
Anyhow, if the letter isn't nutty enough, there's one of those weird ediitor's notes that has Mayor Al saying yeah we bungled it, but if it means that much to you we'll have the city staff do a reenactment and even let some kid flip the switch.
In the spirit of Christmas, let me say this: JESUS CHRIST, MR. MAYOR, ARE YOU NUTS!
Heck, why don't we just have the city staff go over with some spare lights and decorate this crackpot lady's house for her? I know just where they can put the lighted candlesticks too.
I mean, really, being political and customer-conscious is nice, but sometimes you gotta draw the line. Last time I checked, no where in the city charter does it say if the annual town square Christmas tree lighting is botched, the city is required to do a reenactment to appease the small-minded constituents.
I swear, someone must be paying people to write letters like this just so my blood will boil and I'll keel over and die.
If the mayor makes good on his offer in the paper, I will personally launch a recall campaign against him.
After all, everyone in politics knows you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.
Now excuse me while I go do some deep breathing.

Can you believe this?

I heard on the radio yesterday that some place like Rochester or one of those other northern suburbs where they drive big SUVs (over any black people they see) has a public library that has at least temporarily banned Internet access. The library director said it has come to his attention that certain patrons are coming into the library and accessing porn on the Internet. Can you believe that happens in this day and age? I'm sure glad it doesn't happen at our public library, though I've heard rumors that some use the library Internet to play online poker.
Man, it makes you long for the simpler times when all you had to do was burn books if you found them offensive.

Another prediction

This is just gnawing at me so I have to exorcise the demon.
The idea of a street millage election for the city of Monroe is a joke.
It will fail resoundingly and the city will be out $10,000.
You can disagree with that assessment all you want, but at the end of the day the prediction will be true.
In fact, here's the deal -- if the millage election is held and passes, I will personally sit naked behind Custer on his horse for an hour or until the cops arrest me.
To avoid this embarassment, the city council should either approve the millage on their own or cancel the election.
That's the last I'm going to say about it.
Don't waste the $10,000. I mean, really, this isn't even a goofy-assed plan intelligent people can disagree about. It's just going to be a waste of money.
Besides, you don't want to see me naked anyway.

Can't I leave town for a few days?

I go out of town to visit relatives for a few days over Thanksgiving and what do I get?
A bunch of e-mail flames beating me up for not posting any drivel here.
C'mon people, get a life!
If that wasn't bad enough, I look at the letters to the editor over the past few days and I find Darth Vader, Luke
Skywalker, Lord Sith and Princess Layer battling it out with their rhetoric on high-stun.
I'll let you assign the character names, but we have ex-mayor Iko weighing in about Mayor Al's less than subtle efforts to dismantle every high-ticket item Mayor Iko got started. Mayor Al and none other than Councilman Beneteau mount counterattacks and Councilwoman Compora exposes the bias of relatives of Shiftless Kansier penning crap about the fire department.
A lot of heat and very little light in this group. But one thing that it's time to talk about a little more is the Third St. -Front St. intersection controversy. Mayor Al is right. This never was a critical intersection. It sure is awkward to use and that's why no one in their right minds use it during get-out-of-town afternoon rush hours. But my theory is the reconfiguration of the intersection was just a decoy. Mayor Iko's real goal was to knock down those crappy slum-apartment-former-storefront-buildings that were a signature entry to the city. We all tend to get too close to the situation when we live around here, but let's face it, to the uninitiated entering our town, this stuff looked like what it really was -- urban blight.
It got to be an intersection issue because the city's trump card was eminent domain. To make a case for eminent domain, you'd have to make a case for a necessary public use -- the HAZARDOUS INTERSECTION. Now, because he's a planner by day, Mayor Iko ALSO would have liked to reconfigure the intersection, but he probably achieved 80 percent of his goal by buying and knocking down the ratty houses.
Even the crappy empty lot there looks better, but I know Mayor Al's crew has some beautification plans on tap.
But somebody's putting a paper bag over his head when he talks about the United Furniture Building being a waste of money. Hey, the port commission -- all pre-Iko appointees -- went along with this one. And as far as contaminated IKO property and problems with cleaning and rezoning, heck, Mayor Al did that with the Mason Run site, so what's the big deal?
Anyway, all these officials and exs should duke it out at the Loranger Pavilion cause there seems to be a lot of pent up hostility here leaking into the letters to the ediitor columns. Boy, I can't wait for the next mayoral debate.
Worrell will win it.

All over the map

That was a pretty bizarre Monroe City Council meeting the other night. Popped in, got ill, popped out. But unless I missed a bunch, here's some of the odd stuff I saw:
A BIG DEBATE over whether taxes should be raised to pay for street maintenance. Apparently engineer Pat Lewis drew up a wish list of how much maintenance he'd like to see and the counciil took it to heart. So they decided to put on the ballot a question of whether voters would like a 1.1 mill tax increase for streets. The voters will say a big fat NO, given the great economy we have, and the city will have wasted $10,000 in potential pothole filling money by holding a useless election. Not all is wasted, though, they get a fat dose of deniability (the voters have spoken) instead of showing any iota of gutsy leadership.
What's overlooked in this whole thing is that well-meaniing Pat Lewiis IS AN ENGINEER, for cryin' out loud! Ask an engineer if he would design a new toothpick and he'll start with a tree -- just to maintain design integrity.
The council probably could have asked him to pare down his list to some key priorities and find some crunch money in the budget to do them as they can, as was hinted at by Mark Worrell (the next mayor).

ANOTHER BIG DEBATE was over whether poor Larry Fornwald's homebuyers in his Glen Ridge at the Country Club would be saddled with a streetlight assessment.
Larry says the deal was cut to have the city furnish the lights. Former city engineer Don Link -- no longer necessarily on the city's side -- weighed in with a letter saying yeah that was the deal.
But Councilperson Linda Compora says if you people give him this deal you're making city taxpayers carry the water for Fornwald and the poor people buying his luxury homes.
Rest of council says hey we've always done this so we can do it again (regardless of our severe budget crunch).
Councilwoman Dorothy Edwards says being black she doesn't take kindly to the term "you people," as if she hasn't changed colors multiple times over the years depending upon who's the mayor.
So Council votes not to have a special assessment district to pay for the lights. Larry gets his deal.
But to top it off, Pat Lewis says the street lighting for Fox Trails subdivision over near Frenchmans Bend specifically will be provided by the developer, so we won't run into this problem again.
Not until the Fox Trails developer finds a good lawyer, anyway. But you'll probably never hear about that when it happens.
Unless you hear it here first.

Tis the season to get sick

I was out driving around today and couldn't help noticing this new trend.
If you're really cool, you apparently wander around in 30 degree weather in lightweight clothing.
Like the kid I saw going into the mall wearing just a polo shirt. He was all hunched over like he was freezing, but he's wearing this thin shirt. Then I'm driving down Noble on the way home and there's a woman standing talking to another woman. She's wearning a t-shirt. And she's got her arms wrapped around her like she's freezing.
Am I missing something here? Is it really cool to have a case of walking pneumonia, or what?

Health and addictions

I'm gonna bet that some public employees (rhymes with county) are going to get some news in the New Year that's going to make them sick. And city illness might spread to city employees too. Here's the scenario: More pressure is put on to make employees pay more of their health care costs or pay through other benefit cuts. It's because governments generally have an addiction. They can't just spend and maintain. They have to spend and spend some more. Watch what happens as the county continues to angle for health benefit cuts. Everyone will whine about how costs are going up and liabilities are increasing and we're going to face another budget crunch. But the county leaders will continue to pursue a new dispatch center, a parking garage, maybe a new jail and who knows what else. The county is notorious for this whine and dine habit. It would be one thing if they just stopped spending and cut budgets, then asked for concessions. But they talk about givebacks even as they burn money on pet projects. Always has been that way. Always will be that way. But it's got to end somewhere. Thanksgiving might be coming up but the county probably will run into cold turkey not too long after that.
Hey, who negotiated these benefits anyway?

New leadership on the county board?

I'm trying to redeem myself for my abysmal 82 percent success in predicting the outcome of certain election races/proposals.
So here goes. I figure it's not too early to predict who's going to be chosen chairman of the new county board.
HOLD THE PHONE!
It looks like Bill Sisk will be getting the call.
Can it be?
I'll have to think about the vice chairmanship for a while and ponder some dark horses that might come up from the rear.
But that's the problem with sparse predictions -- they're like double or nothin'. I'll either have 100 % or 0 %.
But if I get this one right, remember you heard it here first.
Don't worry, I'll remind you.

Christmas gift to shoppers, shops

You know how funny it is to see that little meter maid hustling all over the place leaving unwanted souvenirs on the windshields of first-time visitors to Monroe. She always seems to get caught putting the ticket on the window five minutes after the meter expires. Course, these Monroe neophytes don't have a clue about how to get their tickets validated, let alone where to pay it. But she's a pretty good ambassador to strangers in town. They don't ever want to come back again. Which is fine with a lot of us. Really. Strange people, yuck! Custer had the right idea whenever he ran into strange people.
But here's a novel idea the city might try. Maybe the Downtown Monroe Business Nazis (not to be confused with most downtown business people or even DMBN members) could even get behind it -- a holiday season moratorium on ticket-writing. Just think of all the bad will that would be avoided. Christmas, after all, is supposed to be the season of good will toward motorists. Let's get in the spirit. What would it take, an act of city council? Let's do it. Give the meter maid a vacation.

Watch for slow drivers

I won't quibble with people who call me ill-informed. I take some perverse pride in that. But I must admit I've been way behind the 8-ball on this N. Custer island controversy. I started hearing some buzz about it long before they even started installing those pedestrian islands along N. Custer near the city limits. At the time, it seemed like a lot of people thought they were a stupid idea. I thought they were stupid because I always kind of liked to throw a scare into walkers who tried crossing busy N. Custer to get from the burbs on the north to the walking path along the river on the south. Sometimes I'd brake. Sometimes I'd throw it in neutral and rev my motor just to try to scare the doo-doo outta them. Some would panic and run. Some would freeze in their tracks. What fun! I once revved up so loudly,the walker (a guy about 80) bolted for the curb and fell on his face. I was laughing all the way to Grape.
See, the idea of the islands was to give walkers a safe haven halfway as they cross the road in heavy traffic. You don't have to do a 20-yard sprint. You can just go halfway and take a rest and wait for the traffic to clear on the second half of the road. Then sprint a shorter distance.
Well, when people caught wind of it, it was as if someone was going to turn an old graveyard into a subdivision (Oh, I forgot. Somebody already did that).
Anyway, my neighbors tell me somebody started blaming Mayor Al for this scheme. Then they said ex-Mayor John came forward and took the credit/blame for it. It makes sense that someone would try to pin it on Mayor Al, but they probably were confusing it with his old plan to put a median island along Monroe Street in downtown Monroe.
It doesn't really matter whether this is a good or bad idea. Here's what gives me the heebie-jeebies: I was driving down N. Custer the other day and see that the curbs of those islands are all nicked and tire-scuffed. How in THE HELL do you hit one of these things unless you're driving on a moonless night with your lights off? In reverse.
There's the irony of it. They were installed to slow drivers. Instead, they're evidence that Monroe has a lot of SLOW DRIVERS.
Do these people just weave down the road so they need a lane and a half to maneuver? They ought to put a cop car out there and revoke the license of anyone who bounces off these things. Can you imagine what these people must do at those drive-thru car washes? They probably don't go to them because they're not coordinated enough to punch in the purchase code.
Really, people, Matt Milosch on a binge could make it through there without hammering the curbs. Time for somebody to take a refresher driver's ed course! This is scary shit, I'm not kidding.

Payback time at Monroe High

After that Oprah show about Monroe High School, some have said it didn't really tell the true story about what goes on at the school. Some say the Oprah show was artificial with students who were chosen because they'd interact well with one another. Apparently the reaction from other parents and students has been so widespread, the administration has made some concessions and is planning another show that will be more inclusive and more representative.
It's going to be moderated by Jerry Springer and there will be plenty of surprise guests. Sounds like a great opportunity for some kids to even the score with each other. The organizers say there will be plenty of throwable chairs and an audience from SMCC to boo and cheer at appropriate times. Gotta set my TiVo.

Can't wait to see Carleton's new ice arena

There's an item in tonight's Monroe Evening Snooze that says Carleton's leaf pickup program is continuing. It says the village will continue to pick up leaves raked to the curb until the last leaf is gone. It's been doing that for the last two or three years using village employees.
Where did they get that hare-brained idea?
What's next, a new village-owned money-losing ice arena?

Are we racist, sexist or just dumb

Amid all the hoopla about how well the Democrats did in Tuesday's election, no one seemed to come to grips with the giant step backwards Michigan took in approving Proposal 2, which strips away affirmative action mandates in things like admission to college and some hiring.
I'm going to be charitable and suggest that voters just didn't read the proposal correctly and actually voted yes when they meant to vote no. It was confusing.
What happens next? You'll start hearing people all over the place crying about this -- everyone from corporate bosses to university presidents mainly because a tortuous course through the courts got us to where we were before our fat white manly fingers started filling out the wrong ovals on the ballot.
Not to worry, though, the activist judges will take over and leave us saddled with something that really is unjust rather than just progressive.
And just think of the impact it will have on local government. The city and county now can get rid of all those women managers and minorities that they've hired over the years -- all five of them.

The defeat of proposal 2, BTW, was one of the spots on my pre-election prediction record. Of 17 outcomes predicted, it lowered my success rate to 82 percent. The other unforseen outcomes included John Manor's botched effort to win the 56th House seat (apparently constituents got to know him too well and Randy Richardville's coattails were barely long enough to keep his own ass out of the fire) and John Fowler's victory over incumbent county commissioner Randy Ansel (maybe Fowler's firefighting friends have seen one too many of Ansel's slum apartments).

I spent much of election night watching Fox News. It was comical. All the talking heads (even the American Nazi Party members they've made into anchors) were falling all over themselves trying to make excuses for the Republican failure at the polls.
It almost seemed that they figure a hellhole of a ill-advised war, a deficit that would make a shopaholic ill, and select Congressmen/pedophiles are as American as a President without brains.
Now it's up to the Dems to prove they really aren't the jackasses their party symbol suggests and find someone viable to run for President in 08. That's DOESN'T mean you, Hilary! After all, we're trying to gut that affirmative action crap from our system.

Pre-election results

Coming off my better than 85 percent prediction success in the primary, I offer these election result predictions, before the polls open.
Yes, tell your friends you heard it here first, but please don't tell them before they cast their ballots. We wouldn't want to influence the outcomes.
Our select races today:
Governor -- JENNIFER GRANHOLM gets the nod. You can call her slick you can call her smooth, but you can't call her as plastic and insincere as Dick DeVos. Again, even diehard Republicans don't seem to like this guy.
US House -- JOHN DINGELL (yeah, I know, it's a no-brainer).
US Senate -- DEBBIE STABENOW largely because incumbency will be unbeatable in a year when the Republicans suffer a little Bush backlash.
State Senate -- RANDY RICHARDVILLE, who's smart enough to be a Republican moderate that really does work well with creatures of both parties.
State House 56th -- JOHN MANOR in a close call that has nothing to do with his suitability for office but everything to do with how much money the GOP has poured into his campaign and how closely he's aligned himself with Richardville, and the fact that he already run and lost once.
State House 55th -- KATHY ANGERER and it won't be as close as some might think. No one has worked harder on constituent relations while in office and besides, she's not a Republican.
County Commissioner races:
Dist. 1 -- Henry Lievens because a lot of people, including herself, think Judy Heath is a little crazy, but aren't we all.
Dist. 2 -- DALE ZORN because he's as popular as the Ida Christmas lights festival or whatever the hell they call it.
Dist. 4 -- FLOREINE MENTEL because she doesn't have any serious competition and the district gets what it deserves and because everyone knows she's a little bit crazy, just like her constituents.
Dist. 5 -- WILLIAM SISK because abusing your county cell phone is a lot more palatable than taking kickbacks.
Dist. 6 -- JERRY OLEY because even though his name is one letter away from Foley, people will trust him more than they would trust a lawyer.
Dist. 7 -- RANDY ANSEL because even though Fowler might be a better candidate, he didn't campaign as hard.

BONUS PICKS
Prop. 1 - Conservation funding guarantees will pass overwhelmingly because any other outcome just wouldn't be fair.
Prop. 2 - It will pass because Michigan isn't really 1950s Mississippi.
Prop. 3 - It should pass because mourning doves are slob birds that raid other birds nests and are about as far removed from the dove of peace as that guy in North Korea. But it won't pass because people can't think of killing an innocent fat bird that just craps all over the place and is grossly overpopulated.
Prop. 4 -- It will pass because somehow people think it will prevent the taking of land in Erie for a railyard, which it won't.
Prop. 5 - It will not pass because people think it's some sort of money grab by the school establishment, which it's not.

Vote, or don't complain.

At this rate, he'll get the sympathy vote

I was wrong again. I predicted a while ago that the Dems would take Matt Milosch, the Republican candidate for state rep, to the woodshed for his less than sterling driver safety record (DUI .18). They've been amazing restrained on this point. I confess I haven't been monitoring all the campaign ads, but then I heard one on K-100 today (which happens to be about the highest rated station in Toledo) and they just gored him with the drunken driving arrest. Not only did they mention how he blew a .18, they point out that "while he was a state representative he voted against laws that would stiffen drunk driving penalties FIVE TIMES!"
Ouch!
But is wasn't the Dems. It was the carpenters and millwrights union. Well, I guess they're dems.
Maybe he'll get the sympathy vote.
Course, Angerer has a drunk driving story too. Her car was totaled by one on M-50.
Now there's a difference between the candidates!

Two funny things I saw downtown today

When you live in the downtown area, you tend to see funny things and things that prompt questions. I was walking my dog, as I often do early in the morning, and there's this big roar coming down the street. It was not one, but two, streetsweepers, one following the other. Then behind them is a big dump truck, just driving real slow behind them. Keep in mind it was like freezing out at the time. It was like around 6:30 or so. Now I'm all for clean streets, but can someone convince me that this isn't a little of overkill? I'm really not sure what the dump truck was for. Anyway, it made for a funny little taxpayer-financed parade in this impoverished city.
The other sad but funny thing I saw was a city pickup truck removing the corn stalks and scarecrows that dressed up downtown lampposts. The little scarecrows looked like a bunch of bodies being hauled away from a death camp. They were nice decorations but probably won't be back given the way some of them were savaged by vandals during their brief life. We should put a reward on the heads of the vandals and then, next year, lash them to the posts for a few months.

Deposit your Democratic dirt here

I'm trying to be even-handed about this, but I just can't find any dirt on the Democratic sign-posters. Faithful readers might recall that I dissed DeVos because of a fat sign along S. Dixie that really is a violation of sign-posting laws. It's right on the curb and is just a little smaller than a billboard.
I've been looking for some equally obvious signs for Democratic candidates that are placed just as obnoxiously but I haven't spotted any yet. I did see a really funny posting that would make a good photo for some anti-Republican activists. Over on Huber, right outside the closed deserted bankrupt Modern Packaging building, there is a Richardville-Manor sign cluster. I guess you could view it as a vote for them is a vote for no more closed factories. But it really looks like their responsible for the dilapidated building beside their signs. I guess some of the sign-posters the Republicans have hired are a little too exuberant, or too careless. If anyone has some really outlandish examples of Democratic sign abuse, you're welcome to share them here. This blog welcomes bipartisan bashing.