A revolutionary proposal

Let's take some of the extra money that higher parking ticket fees generate in the City of Monroe and pay a $50 bounty to anyone who drags in the dead carcass of a graffiti artist.
This will be a cheap way to solve the graffiti problem. First, probably a half dozen citizens with guns (no I don't own a gun) will set up along the riverwalk. One of them will bag a graffiti artist.
There will be a hue and cry by animal rights groups, but there will be no more graffiti and only one bounty will have to be paid out.
Sure, it's not civil. But neither is graffiti.

I'm for the war, no I'm against it

Okay, it wasn't exactly the same thing, but if I saw and heard what I think I saw and heard at that city meeting on the Monroe Transfer rezoning, the one person who should have stood up for her precinct was totally confused about which way to vote.
Now I really do like Dorothy Edwards, but after watching her for a few years, I'm beginning to think this confusion is a bizarre act. It seems she follows a pattern of voicing confusion about which vote means what on some very crucial issues.
Does she have an elaborate plan to do this just so she can straddle the fence on tough issues? (Well, I meant to vote for/against it, but the wording confused me. I'm really for/against it). Or is she just, well, really confused?
Either way, this is not the kind of representation her precinct deserves. I mean if you're voting on an issue that's important to some other neighborhood, it doesn't matter if you waffle all over the place. If you're voting on an issue that's controversial in your own backyard, you better have it figured out by the time they call the roll. No?

Observations

A few observations by The Observer:
The Dixie Soft Serve is now open. Does that mean winter is over?
ABATE members turned out to protect war memorials from whackos who might vandalize them. This was on a Saturday in the middle of the afternoon. Yeah, that's when I'd vandalize them.
The IHM nuns and others held a demonstration and candle vigil to mark the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war. That should be just as effective as Bush's strategy to end the war.
Bobby's Kitchen deserves to succeed even at a time when restaurants are struggling. Its Monroe location is open from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m.
The Monroe Snooze had a big piece on Mayor Al's term in office. If you read it carefully, it says I've done nothing and undid a lot.
Monroe Schools are struggling with a financial crisis that might mean the closing of some schools. I'm betting that not one administrative position will be cut, no matter what happens.
Why do people who live on dirt roads expect the roads to be passable during spring thaw?
Why does a sushi bar seem to be thriving inside an Italian restaurant?

Conflicted priorities

There's supposed to be a peace rally in Monroe today and a vigil tonight, mainly organized by the IHM sisters.
Word is that there also will be anti-rally protesters operating under the guise of supporting our troops.
I know some of the anti-war protesters. I know some of the support our troops people. Most of them are very well-motivated and sincere. The problem is that both groups, when they have demonstrations, tend to attract people you really don't want to have around. Infiltrating the anti-war group are people who are decidedly anti-government. On the support our troops side are some real nutjobs that are spoiling not only for a war, but for a fight.
I hope everything comes off today in an orderly manner. Nothing like a war abroad to pit Americans against one another in our streets.
I have a suggestion for both sides. If the point is really to stop the war or support our troops, they should take the fight off the streets and to Congress.
If they have been doing that, it hasn't been very effective.
The war is grinding on and our troops don't have the support in the field or in the VA hospitals when they return home with broken bodies.
If this is the best we can do, we should all be ashamed and really shouldn't be showing our faces on the streets.

Economic development Part II

I owe Randy Richardville an apology. After seeing the incredible letter to the editor in tonight's Monroe Snooze, I finally realize what a smooth operator he is.
Talk about influence! The bad old Michigan United Conservation Clubs beat him over the head for ballast water legislation he introduced. They make some headlines because they criticize him for it. Then they come back with their special-interest tails between their legs and say they were barking up the wrong tree.
We're sorry, Randy, we didn't mean it. We just got over-agitated. Please forgive us.
That's cool. That's the kind of effective legislator I want working for me in Lansing.
Congrats to Randy!
Shame on you, MUCC!

Speaking of economic development

I like Randy Richardville, our new state senator. In fact, while he was most recently the city of Monroe's economic development guy, he had the wherewithal and wisdom to attract new businesses to town to settle in PORT AREA land (rather than residential neighborhoods).
He's a very capable person, but he seems to have one small, bizarre, affliction: Whenever he realizes he's made a mistake in co-sponsoring or introducing rotten legislation and he's called on it, he claims he's not really backing the legislation, he's only introducing it to spur debate.
He most recently used the gimmick when he was asked about why he would want to repeal legislation that requires freighters to get state permits assuring that they dumped their possibly-invasive-species-laden ballast water before entering the Great Lakes.
I'm sure once the debate plays out, Randy will work to kill the bill he unwittingly attached his name to.

Maybe they'll wanna buy IKO instead

In its infinite wisdom, the Monroe City Council is looking at allowing a company called Monroe Transfer set up shop at the old Magnimet scrapyard in Orchard East.
This could mean 100 JOBS and after all, it's right between two railroad tracks.
There's going to be a public meeting about it at 6:30 P.M. Monday at the Arthur Lesow center.
If there's any justice in the world, someone will announce plans at the meeting to recall the city council.
If anyone on the council has any sense of history, they will do anything in their power not to inflict another industry on that neighborhood. It began as piss-poor planning and it still is.
But as long as they promise 100 jobs, let's just plop them down in the middle of a place no one wants to live anyway -- except for all those long-suffering residents who literally live within spittin' distance of the site.
Could anyone in the city come up with a more imaginative concept -- like persuading this well-meaning company to set up on port property down the road and around the corner? I mean I know that old scrapyard site is just too valuable to overlook since it would make all the sense in the world for trucks to drive an extra quarter mile into residential areas and then go back out to 75.
It also wouldn't be very productive to try to persuade someone like Crosswinds to buy the land for future RESIDENTIAL development because, I mean, we're talking about 100 JOBS. We all want one of those jobs, don't we? We're all gonna get one, aren't we?
Let's see, if I recall Monroe Transfer was rebuffed by that nasty old last council. So it only makes sense that we'd try to undo that too.
Maybe we can convince IKO to come back to town -- think of all the JOBS.
Wait, I got it! Why don't we pool our money with the community and have Monroe Transfer set up on all that IHM acreage that looks like it's destined to be nothing but stupid old parkland. Besides, that'll free up the old scrapyard site for something even more offensive. And while we're at it, let's forget about that dumb old rail consolidation plan. Those people have lived with trains roaring by their homes for decades. Heck if all of a sudden the trains disappear, they won't be able to sleep at night.
Hey, an even better idea -- get Monroe Transfer to buy the IKO site. Not only will we get JOBS, we'll get that old Compora's goat!
On second thought, forget I even mentioned recall. This council deserves as much time as possible to drive several more stakes through their stony hearts.

The slowest project ever

I wonder how much Monroe County taxpayers are going to eat of that on-again, off-again central communications center that's sort of being built, sort of not, out near the county fairgrounds.
Last time I heard, the county wasn't sure it was going to go ahead with the project. That was after several months of the dirt being shoved around, then several months of nothing happening but a bunch of heavy equipment being parked at the site. Wonder how much that costs?
Now it looks like there's part of one wall up.
Does anyone want to be what the final cost of this boondoggle will be -- if it's ever finished?

Who cares what my friend Stan thinks?

Stan Woitowicz is a lifelong friend of mine.
Unlike me, he's VERY opinionated.
I mean I'm opinionated, but he's very opinionated.
So who should care?
Someone who's in charge of the City of Monroe Web site, apparently.
Mysteriously, a message was posted on the home page of the site Friday under the heading Monroe News Flash. When you click on the snippet of text below, you go to a message that says "polls show over 80% were in favor of opinion poles on this site."
So does this mean my friend Stan, a proud and opinionated Pole, can vent on the city Web site?
And how does he do that?
Check out the site at www.ci.monroe.mi.us

Home, sweet home

I was talking with a friend of mine today who's a real estate agent.
He's not a happy camper.
He's found that his income has fallen severely the past couple of years and like any good realtor, he's spreading the word about his pain to try to find some leads or drum up business.
I started wracking my brain about people who might be interested in moving up or who are living in an apartment and might figure out that now's a good time to buy.
I came up empty.
Then it hit me -- I know someone who might need a home: George Brown, Monroe's city manager.
As far as I know, he's still not a city resident.
Maybe he is and I haven't heard about it.
Maybe someone can enlighten me.
If he's not, I can understand it.
Here are the top 10 reasons he might not want to move from Adrian to Monroe:
1. He can't sell his home.
2. He's afraid IKO will come back.
3. His wife doesn't like Monroe.
4. He realizes Monroe's unstable and he might be fired by a new administration, just like the last city manager was fired.
5. The city's taxes are too high.
6. He knows the city council doesn't care if he moves here or not.
7. He refuses to live in a town that has a lame riverwalk and way too many graffiti artists.
8. He refuses to live in a town that only charges $5 for parking tickets and half of those are voided by a merchant-backed program.
9. He'd have to pay higher rates for fire insurance.
10. Too many other people in town are named Brown.
If he's already living here -- nevermind.