Week in Review
Homeless TASK FORCE Meeting, April 26
The resolve of the Task Force remains a serious question after the latest round of resignations and no-shows. The Force failed to garner sufficient attendance to register a quorum, derailing the meeting attempt. Nonetheless, the members present reportedly heard a presentation from Shannan Clevinger of LifeWays, a person-centered therapy operation with a main office in Jackson County and a branch in Hillsdale.
LifeWays, aside from its own endeavors in the local schools and its partnership with pharmaceutical outfits, works in tandem with another Jackson-based organization, A.R.E. (Activities, Recovery, Empowerment), to bring to Hillsdale the Drop-In Center. Both organizations purport to help people learn that they need to ask for help, help which aims at no particular recovery benchmark: recovery, after all, is a lifelong pursuit of wellness, as those in the “mental health world” understand it.
The organization secures funding both through the state, and through county tax millages. In their own words, they aim to
expand services to include increased mental health education to our community, serving those who are uninsured/underinsured, implementing social enrichment for those with developmental disabilities, and continued support for those with mental health needs in our local jails, schools, and communities.
In respect to addressing the needs of the homeless, several citizens also spoke of a “tent city” located behind Hillsdale Community Thrift—a local non-profit. Some said that creating more tent city options in town is the only answer until permanent year-round housing can be acquired.
Leaf Materials Matter
The City of Hillsdale announced in a March 28 Facebook post that your leaves will not be collected this year, despite your having paid for the leaves to be collected. The reasoning?
Because of the abundance of brush resulting from the Feb. 22 ice storm, we estimate that it will take a minimum of 3-4 weeks to complete the collection throughout the entire city. For this reason, there will be no curbside leaf collection this spring.
As you may recall, the Wall Street Journal ran an embarrassing 2021 story on “America’s Love-Hate Relationship with Fall Leaves,” featuring Hillsdale’s very own $198,234 (allegedly) labor-saving leaf-collecting machine.1 At the time, Mayor Stockford suggested that the city hire a contractor instead to remove the fallen leaves; perhaps the 2017 council should have followed his lead before purchasing a finicky machine that won’t be used each time some branches fall.
What about burning the leaves? you may ask, now that you know our slick new machine will spend the season in the garage. I’ve seen people doing that around here. Naive reader, the municipal code prohibits such depraved activity in no unclear terms:
The burning of leaves, weeds, brush, stumps, and other vegetative debris, open or otherwise, by any person, firm, association, partnership, corporation or governmental entity other than the City of Hillsdale is prohibited.
No, you may not even compost your leaves on your own land without risking harrassment.2 City officials alone can safely dispose of what they often refer to as "leaf materials." But with no recourse for leaf materials removal, we can expect large piles of leaf matter to rot by the streets through the summer.
(A related aside: while perusing the municipal code, we found that “ground cover or lawn is required in all landscaped areas.” No surprise here—but fortunately, “ground cover” is nowhere defined so as to prohibit more creative approaches to “landscaped areas.” If you are interested in converting unused sections of bluegrass lawn into something demanding less maintenance, we suggest browsing the Michigan Wildflower Farm website. They sell native Michigan grass and wildflower seed mixes for all types of soil and for all conceivable purposes. Once established, most options require little more than an annual Spring mowing.)
Upcoming Events
Monday, May 1, 7:00 PM at City Hall: City Council will determine the fate of the fifth library board seat. Some councilmen have indicated in the past that they are mere puppets of public opinion, and so will vote based upon the number of emails received from each respective side (though the dispute is of course not partisan.)
Tuesday, May 2: Special election regarding the public school sinking fund millage; also the recall election for residents of Adams Township. The “Adams TWSP First” signs are up:
May 4: The America First! Hillsdale County Republican Party will host its first annual. . . Comic-Zoo. . . at Old Wilson Hall. See the flyer below for more information regarding this. . . exotic. . . event. We expect it will live up to—no, surpass—its bold and daring name.
May 15: City Council will take up the no-camping ordinance proposal. The council, as usual, will surely appreciate your input.
May 20: Pub & Grub Beginning of Summer Street Party.
External Links
Last Friday, Newsweek was on the digital scene as 5th District Republican Chair Jon Smith may or may not have been evicted from a property that may or may not have been his home. They were “supplied” with a recent picture of the newsworthy premises and also knew to contact concerned citizen, Penny Swan, who was happy to twist the knife.
American Classical Academy, a charter school network that uses curriculum provided by Hillsdale College, had applications rejected in three Tennessee counties this week: Robertson, Clarksville-Montgomery, and Maury. ACA was approved in Rutherford County, and awaits an April 27th vote in Jackson County.3
A truly remarkable number of citizens throughout the United States are attempting to deal with the presence of pornographic LGBT propaganda—often specifically marketed to children—in their local libraries. Consider the plight of the residents of, to name only a few, Ottawa County (MI), Boise (ID), Liberty Lake (WA), Fremont (NE), Ouachita Parish (LA), Blount County (TN), Lake Luzerne (NY), and Greenville County (SC).
President Biden (4/24): “Rebecka put a teacher’s creed into words when she said, ‘There’s no such thing as someone else’s child.” No such thing as someone else’s child. Our nation’s children are all our children.”
At The American Conservative, David Polansky attempts to show how the “idea of representation” has led to “the belief that democratic politics is fundamentally a spoils system that one accesses through participation in a given interest group.”4
Tucker Carlson has been fired by Fox News. Our preferred explanation is the one offered by Gabriel Sherman in Vanity Fair: “Rupert Murdoch removed Carlson over remarks Carlson made during a speech at the Heritage Foundation’s 50th Anniversary gala on Friday night. Carlson laced his speech with religious overtones that even Murdoch found too extreme, the source, who was briefed on Murdoch’s decision-making, said. . . . ‘That stuff freaks Rupert out. He doesn’t like all the spiritual talk,’ the source said.”5
If you’ve seen this thing in operation, you may question the description offered by its proponents.
The municipal code states: “it is unlawful for any person to place, deposit, or permit to be deposited upon public or private property within the city, or in any area under the jurisdiction of the city, any human or animal excrement, garbage, or other objectionable waste other than in an authorized sanitary landfill.” Some in positions of authority have interpreted this to mean that composting is only permissible within city-approved plastic safety vessels.
It is interesting to note, in passing, that each article linked here, though penned by a different local “journalist,” includes word-for-word the same background information about, for example, how Hillsdale College president Larry Arnn “came under fire” for accurately describing the way American public school teachers are trained. Like our own Hillsdale Daily News, each of these “local” publications is owned by Gannett Co., Inc.
See also his interesting conversation with the American Cinema Foundation’s Titus Techera on Terry Gilliam’s 1985 dystopian film, Brazil.