Week in Review: Community Improvement
October 7, 2023
Week in Review
City Council
Keefer House Hotel Amendment Resolution
By way of review, in April of 2019 the city granted the Keefer House Hotel (across from the Pub) an Obsolete Property Rehabilitation Exemption Certificate, which freezes the taxable value of the property for the duration, 12 years in this case. According to the resolution, the Keefer House was to complete the project by the end of 2021. The Keefer House is requesting an extension for the project to August 1, 2024 as a precautionary measure to ensure that the State Tax Commission does not revoke the exemption certificate. After some promises on the part of the new project manager, council engaged in a lengthy discussion:
Stockford: “I’m not voting for this. I’m not impressed with the flurry of activity when you’re contract is going to be violated again. That doesn’t mean I wish the project to fail. . . but this is excuse after excuse after excuse after excuse. . . I’m next to that building every day, and there’s months and months that go by and I don’t see any activity at all.”
Morrisey: “As you know, we’ve had a lot of deadlines, promises, etc., and I hope that now that you’re on the job, this thing will be done. . . I’ll vote for it, but I commend the mayor for not voting for it, too.”
Sharp: “I took a tour of the place; I don’t want to see us just give up on it. If we have them walk away, that building will just collapse. . . I would like to see it get done.”
Vear: “If this council were to pull their support of the Keefer, [within] ten years it will be a structural hazard, at which point the city will have to pay somebody to tear it down.”
Socha: “We need occupancy in this building. . . it’s going to be a magnificent preservation of the 19th century. . . I am a visionary; I believe that you’re going to do what you say.”
Stuchell: “We’ve got to play the long game here. . . If CL Enterprises had known what they were getting into, chances are they wouldn’t have purchased it. . . so we really have a blessing here.”
The discussion concluded with a promise made by CL Enterprises to have the project completed by August 1, 2024. Council voted 7-2 to extend the OPRA completion date, Pratt and Stockford against, all others for.
Hillsdale Mobile Home Park Monthly Payments
Hillsdale Mobile Home Park (MHP) failed to pay monthly fees to the city (in lieu of property taxes) under state statute. Between missed fees, interest rates, and late fees, this has added up to $220,000 over three years. Because MHP has paid its previously missed property taxes, most of the accumulation was due to the state’s “civil fine,” which the city has the liberty to waive. MHP’s representative, John Salzman, said that he did not know about the law. The city attempted to offer a 90% discount to MHP, which requested an even larger discount. See the council comments below:
Stuchell: “I assume you [the representative] have some policy process to deal with those who fall behind on their lot rent. What is your recourse? Are there late fees and fines?”
Sharp: “I’m disgusted in that trailer park. It is unbelievable what I saw there. . . I think they should pay their 10% or whatever it is, and get over it. . . I could not believe people would live in a place like that. . . The money is there. . . You’re crying poverty, but you’re saying ‘we’ll put [the money] back in the trailer park.’”
Morrisey: “My view is that ignorance of the law is no excuse, and that they’ve been given a 90% discount on this already, and that they should pay something.”
Socha: “Lack of knowledge isn’t an excuse. If I don’t pay my property taxes the city is going to assess me penalties and interest and I can’t just go and say I’m sorry. . . I can’t see forgiving 90% personally, but I’ll vote for that because that’s what Mr. Mackie said he’d appreciate.”
Stockford: “I think we need to treat everybody equally. . . Whether it’s a hotel or trailer park, we need to enforce what we have on the books.”
Paladino: “Ten percent seems like an arbitrary number.”
John Salzman: “My concern is putting this back into the community, to improve the community for the residents.”1
The motion to fine MHP 10% of the initial fee failed, with Stuchel, Wolfram, Morrisey, Sharp for, and Vear, Stockford, Paladino, Pratt, Socha against.
Upcoming Events
Tuesday, October 10, 9:00 AM: County Commissioners
Thursday, October 12, 5:00 PM: Library Board
Luke Robson’s Hillsdale Renaissance
Fauxglin recommends that you spend some time this weekend perusing Luke Robson’s Hillsdale Renaissance substack. Robson, a graduate of Hillsdale College, describes himself as a “trust fund baby with a half-functioning sense of noblesse oblige,” one who has “fallen in love” with the City of Hillsdale, and who has already purchased 15 buildings with an eye toward “completely alter[ing] the feel of downtown.” Robson is clearly a great and good man, and of course we are always dazzled by someone who is able both to have plans and to put them into effect.2 We devotees of small town, lowbrow third-placery can only support the aims of one who hints at moving a highway in order to make downtown more walkable, who prioritizes “basic civic order,” and who would open a “fine trades” college3; but we must confess that we were given some pause by the main thrust of Robson’s agenda—that the best and most lucrative path forward is to “capitalize on” the college’s “prominence in the conservative mind” by transforming the city into a “conservative retreat center.”
The City of Hillsdale can become a living, breathing convention center.4 Some lectures will take place up the Hill, at the College. Downtown Hillsdale’s various spaces will host other events. A lesson on the joys of cooking and natural nutrition will be offered in a top-tier restaurant. Discussions of politics will rumble in the smoke-filled rooms of a cigar lounge. Concerts will take place in a rebuilt Hillsdale Opera House.
Robson envisions upwards of 100,000 seasonal arrivals jetting5 into our newly-renovated little town and opening their wallets to surviving local businesses and tradesmen. We have no doubt he will succeed in his plans, and we have no desire to nip at his heels as he strides by, but we encourage you to take a moment and reflect on the change that is undoubtedly coming.6 If you have a few dollars handy, now’s the time to open up a bow-tie store.7
External Links
“If you have somebody who says that they’re paranoid, and they’re dangerous, and they’ve got firearms, and somebody gets an order that tells this person you need to turn in your firearms, who’s going to go to this house with the dangerous, psychotic person that’s paranoid and try to take their guns from them?” The executive director of the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police wonders who will enforce the state’s new “red flag” gun laws.
“In order to be fair and impartial, courts, as the face of the third branch of government, must conduct business in a way that does not give the appearance of misgendering individuals, intentionally or otherwise . . . this change is to ensure that the judiciary operates in a manner that is objectively respectful of the individual identity and personal pronouns of the members of the public that we serve.” Associate Justice Elizabeth Welch, concurring with the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision to require state courts to know and use (or, at least, not misuse) the preferred pronouns of any parties in any case.
“It was a subtle change, little noticed, but a gigantic departure for the Bureau. Trump and his army of supporters were acknowledged as a distinct category of domestic violent extremists, even as the FBI was saying publicly that political views were never part of its criteria to investigate or prevent domestic terrorism. Where the FBI sees threats is also plain from the way it categorizes them—a system which on the surface is designed to appear nonpartisan.” Newsweek.
“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas.”
Donald Trump. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.“I cannot holler at the umpire from our team’s bench. He was completely justified in ejecting me. For those that wanted to see me play today, I am sorry.” Joey Votto on his last act as a Cincinnati Red.
“Without a doubt, the natural resources required by technology, such as lithium, silicon and so many others, are not unlimited, yet the greater problem is the ideology underlying an obsession: to increase human power beyond anything imaginable, before which nonhuman reality is a mere resource at its disposal. Everything that exists ceases to be a gift for which we should be thankful, esteem and cherish, and instead becomes a slave, prey to any whim of the human mind and its capacities.” Pope Francis, writing in Laudate Deum.
“Scripture makes a crucial distinction, lost in English, between the “public enemy” and the “private enemy,” and we are not only not commanded to love the public enemy (hostis in the Vulgate), but we are commanded to defeat him. Any Christian who says that harsh, decisive political action is inherently a failure of charity, even against the enemies of God, which is who the Left are, is either ignorant or mendacious, and he spits on the memory of the millions of Christians who have died to defeat the adversaries of Christ.” Charles Haywood defends his “No Enemies On the Right” principle.
“While the Claremont Institute takes no institutional position on the question, we must take Christian nationalism seriously. The debate over it represents a new stage in the ongoing realignment of our politics and culture, touching directly on how Americans should regard and relate to ultimate questions of the human soul and the highest good. The rise of Christian nationalism, along with post-liberalism, Catholic integralism, and other overlapping yet distinct attempts to answer the deepest theological-political questions facing our nation, speaks to mounting levels of dissatisfaction with our current failing paradigm.” Mike Sabo, writing at The American Mind.
Which vanity project in Hillsdale, we ask, is not “improving” the “community?” The city is brimming with altruism and those who have transcended profits!
Fauxglin’s most recent big idea for civil renewal was: “Can someone just re-open the Coffee Cup Diner?”
Fauxglin is still looking forward to the opening of New Polity’s College of St. Joseph the Worker in Steubenville.
Read “living, breathing convention center” in the style of Cheech Marin’s Banzai.
“One aspect of my project will be making the case to airlines in Chicago to connect to Hillsdale.”
Have a thought, for example, for the nightly denizens of Here’s to You Pub & Grub!
Or, based on current masculine summer trends, a Magnum P.I. Shorts could be the way to go.