Week in Review: At least the library . . .
"We’re not going to continue to gain ground if we stop spending money."
Week in Review
City of Hillsdale Council Budget Work Session 2, Monday, April 29
See our coverage of the first session, and the budget packet, if you desire such punishment.
Library
Under the sound leadership of Board Dictator George Allen, it appears that the library’s financial situation is quite solid. In other news:
Rebekah Dobski, Library Director, contra library board hysterics: “I’ve only been here for six months, and honestly, things are pretty smooth sailing. . . I don’t deal with any of the issues that I feel as though previous employees have told me. So I show up every day, I get to process books and help out the staff.”
Department of Public Services & Engineering
Road engineer, on the roads: “We’re gaining some ground, but we’re not going to continue to gain ground if we stop spending money. Unfortunately, with the system being as bad as it is, we are now having to [pay for] the high-dollar fixes.”
City Manager Mackie, defending his road program: “Prior to 2016 there really wasn’t much road work done because they didn’t put these type of revenue streams in place, so all the city had was the $200,000.1 That being said, that’s why it’s important to continue the current program in place, with the special assessments and the millage, because. . . we’re able to make meaningful improvements over time. There really hasn’t been any other alternative brought forward that would have provided about $650,000 worth of revenue. . . This was the best we could come up with.”
Sharp, condescendingly chiding Hillsdale residents for their stupidity: “Everybody thinks the taxes they’re paying should go right to the streets. They don’t understand the pie chart.”
Board of Public Utilities and Sewers
Seems to be keeping the city financially viable.
Upcoming Events
City Council, Monday, May 6
Westwood Special Assessment Letter (75)
Martin Ricketts, a city resident, wrote the following letter to Council concerning his forthcoming special assessment:
“I am writing to formally contest the special assessment imposed upon my property. . . I have lived 171 Westwood Dr. for 20+ years paying my taxes yearly and on time2 and being a longtime resident of Westwood Dr. I believe that I have paid for my portion of the street. My daily route of travel 100% of the time is backing out of my driveway and driving 40-50 feet to Spring St and I turn either left or right to travel to my destination. . . I must express my concern regarding the fairness and justness of the assessment. . . As a responsible citizen, I fully appreciate the necessity of contributing to the betterment of our community. . . [h]owever, in this instance, the magnitude of the assessment is disproportionate to the benefits received. I humbly request your understanding and reconsideration of this matter, and I implore the council to grant forgiveness for this assessment.”
Set Public Hearing – Application for OPRA Exemption Certificate – 37 McCollum Street
The owner of 37 McCollum (downtown, west of the Masonic Lodge) is asking for an OPRA property tax freeze—that is, an “Obsolete Property Rehabilitation Exemption Certificate.”3 This exemption freezes the taxable value of the property for up to 12 years, to help stimulate Development. Where citizens are forced to publicly beg for mercy, Developers need not even show up to request favors. To be granted at a later date.
External Links
“On Monday, the Hillsdale County Election Commission approved recall language filed by Ted Jansen who is seeking a recall election for Hillsdale Mayor Adam Stockford and Ward 1 Councilman Greg Stuchell.” Hillsdale Daily News.4
“After my daughter’s birth, I have often struggled with the near-daily routine of heading into work and limiting my time with her to the mornings and evenings. Sometimes it feels as though my daughter and I are not bonding as much as we could be, and I feel a twinge of guilt for my work.” Luke Robson.
“The Woke Left controls American culture at the point of a gun. Copyright law is the source of this power.” Josiah Lippincott.
“For the past 26 years, the American Legion National Oratorical Contest has been held in Indianapolis, home to American Legion National Headquarters. But in 2024, the Legion received an opportunity to relocate the 86-year-old program that educates youth on the U.S. Constitution to the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Michigan.” American Legion.
“The operation features unmarked spotter vehicles with a law enforcement officer in the passenger seat, in coordination with the Transportation Improvement Association. When the officer spots a traffic violation, they notify a fully marked law enforcement unit to initiate a traffic stop.” Operation Ghost Rider is launching in Michigan.5
“On a basket of 50 typical household items, Aldi’s prices were about 6% cheaper than Walmart’s through the first three months of the year, according to retailing research and consulting firm Customer Growth Partners. Fresh and frozen items were nearly 16% cheaper.” Wall Street Journal.
“America’s private sector has always outperformed government in solving problems. It is time to unleash America’s entrepreneurs in foreign policy to cut costs and restore American credibility.” Erik Prince.
“You know, one of the reasons why our economy is growing is because of you and many others. Why? Because we welcome immigrants . . . Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they’re xenophobic.” President Biden.
“In huge core areas of human endeavor, the old rules are dead or dying but we’re still here, in the Sweet Hereafter, eating, sleeping, working, while we wait for … something to heave into view that will give us structure and direction.” Mickey Kaus.6
“The American people are in an extraordinarily vulnerable and weary spiritual state. Amid the constant panic concerning their various forms of division, disfigurement, derangement, and decline, what they need is some human expression of divine patience, even though the hour be late and the spiritual urgency great. A little patience can go a long way, and the appointed end, which might come at any time, is nevertheless not for any of us to know.” James Poulos.
“My research eventually led me to believe that what America has is a fragile society, and that the heart of our social decay is not something national but something local, with effects showing up downstream in our politics. The less we are connected to one another—embedded in institutions that support us and those around us in our daily lives—the more destructive our social problems are likely to be.” Seth Kaplan.
“If virtue without skill results in ineffectual warm fuzzies, skill without virtue results in careerist consumerism. Hence, Christian education ought to offer not merely a training in skills but also a criticism of those skills and the formation of the discipline and wisdom needed to use our skills in love. Without such charity, credentials and skills become means of satisfying consumer appetites.” Jeffrey Bilbro.
“I honestly cannot imagine how anyone who takes the teachings of Christ seriously, and who is willing to listen to those teachings with a good will and an open mind, can fail to see that in the late modern world something like such socialism is the only possible way of embodying Christian love in concrete political practices.” David Bentley Hart.
“The United Methodist Church overturned its 40-year ban on gay clergy Wednesday, marking a historic shift in the church’s stance on homosexuality.” CNN.
“The choir director, a fixture at St. Maria Goretti for nearly 40 years, was suddenly gone. Contemporary hymns were replaced by music rooted in medieval Europe. . . . ‘It was like a step back in time,’ said one former parishioner, still so dazed by the tumultuous changes that began in 2021 with a new pastor that he only spoke on condition of anonymity.” Associated Press.7
“A federal court has ordered the governments of North Carolina and West Virginia to provide coverage for sex-change operations in state health care plans offered to state employees and through Medicaid.” Catholic World Report.
“The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Monday said employers refusing to use transgender workers' preferred pronouns and barring them from using bathrooms that match their gender identity amounts to unlawful workplace harassment under federal anti-discrimination law.” Reuters.
“The policy of secretly socially transitioning students will spread even further . . . The regulation says that Title IX doesn’t strictly require that transitioning be concealed from parents . . . [but] . . . If a child says she doesn’t want her parents to know, the Biden administration insists that the school will be totally compliant with federal law by keeping it secret.” Max Eden.
“Leaders of the United Methodist Church are gathering this week and next in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the international General Conference. They will almost certainly liberalize the church’s teachings on the very topics that led to its schism.” The Dispatch.
“Importing ringers from abroad to vote for you is bad enough, but then encouraging racist animus toward other Americans to keep your ramshackle alliance from turning on itself is even worse.” Steve Sailer.
“Thus, a theory whose theoretical concern was in part reinterpreting the natural law in response to the moral epistemology of the Enlightenment ended in endorsing many of the particular political and juridical conclusions that originally stemmed from Enlightenment thought.” Pater Edmund Waldstein on the New Natural Law.
“Newly deciphered passages from a papyrus scroll that was buried beneath layers of volcanic ash after the AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius may have shed light on the final hours of Plato, a key figure in the history of western philosophy.” Guardian.
Alluding to the $238,000 listed on packet 177.
Hillsdale is increasingly no longer for those who have lived here for 20+ years.
The aim of OPRA is to “rehabilitate older buildings into vibrant commercial and mixed-use projects.”
Is Penny Swan paying Corey Murray to keep her name in the news? Does she know that his “Stockford and Swan used to be close” line—repeated ad nauseum in our city’s leading publication—is not only intended to make the mayor look bad now?
That’s at least three separate state employees involved in the first stages of a hearsay operation.
It would have been better to have entered into the Sweet Hereafter under the auspices of Kaus’ Civic Liberalism, the last “decent constitution” that could command the “unhesitating loyalty” of the people, the gentlemen, and the philosophers. But that ship appears to have sailed, even in Hillsdale.
“Perhaps, just perhaps, we’re seeing a new generation recognizing that there is a world more real and more true than the increasingly unreal one that has been, for too long, presented to them.” Stephen P. White.