Week in Review: Corecoyle Saga Concludes

"I think we’ve been played."

Week in Review

City Council, Monday, July 15

Keefer House Update

The Keefer House Hotel project is one of the Development projects that the City Council has undertaken with your money on behalf of the forthcoming mass of tourists. It’s latest self-appointed deadline was August 2024. (By our count, this is at least the fourth missed deadline.)

• Morrisey: “When do you anticipate being able to get a certificate of occupancy?”

• Keefer Official: “I don’t know what that date is right now. Every time I open up a wall, I find something else.”

• [Uneasy silence]

• Stockford: “ETA?”

• Keefer Official: “That’s what we’re working on.”

The Corecoyle Saga Concludes

In 2017 Council gave Corecoyle a tax exemption for a project to be completed in December of 2020. The project is still not completed. Homovec, the proprietor, was to give Council a tour before the meeting so they could see the operation they insured with your money. The tour fell through when Homovec wanted Council to sign a Nondisclosure agreement. See our prior coverage for more detail.

• Stockford: “The tour was cancelled because Mr. Homovec wanted us to sign a non-disclosure agreement.” The NDA was sent to City Staff the day before the tour was to take place. “If you found a non-disclosure agreement necessary, why didn’t you tell us at the last meeting [four weeks prior]?”

• Homovec, wanting the City to continue to provide insurance for his project with no oversight: “I am very disappointed that the meeting was cancelled last week—by Mr. Mackie. . . I wanted to be able to provide Council and staff with a thorough overview. . . You have to allow me the opportunity to show you the scope of the rehabilitation.” On his theory of government: “You’re here to revoke it; that’s not how this should be. This should be a city that is trying to develop and nurture businesses in the area.”¹

• Sharp, finally catching his prey: “You signed [the agreement] in 2017. You had two years to get jobs in there. That didn’t happen. . . All I wanted to do was walk in the building. I didn’t want to see what you’re making there, that’s your business. I wanted to see the improvements that you made there. . . You haven’t done what you said you were going to do.”

• The City Lawyer read aloud from Homovec’s proposed NDA, which was, via its overly-broad construal of “confidential information,” to effectively eliminate the possibility of public discussion regarding his project, despite Homovec’s demand that he continue to receive public benefits.

• The Jogger, with incisive economic insight: “It’s not like he hasn’t been doing anything. . . There have been circumstances beyond his control.”

• Vear, having had enough: “To imply that this Council would go in there and divulge all his secret manufacturing practices—which have yet to start—I find that kind of demeaning. And this has nothing to do with things outside of his control. . . I think we’ve been played.”

• Stuchell, in agreement: “He’s been playing us for quite a while.”

To recommend that the state revoke the tax abatement: Pratt; Sharp; Stuchell; Vear; Paladino; Stockford; Morrisey.

Against revoking the abatement: Wolfram.²

Sandy Beach Fee Increase

The fees to access Sandy Beach are increasing from $5 to $10, because of . . . inflation?

• Paladino: “The park seems like one of the things that you want to keep accessible.”³

Homeless Taskforce Recommendation Follow-up (257)

Council discussed the Homeless Task Force report at greater length, with input from Police Chief Scott Hephner.

• Stockford, wanting the City to to do fewer things better: “Usually we have four or five goals. . . We should have two goals: streets and public safety.”

• Police Chief Scott Hepher, on a reasonable solution to proliferating crime: “We cannot make custodial arrests on misdemeanors, except for drunk or drugged driving, domestic violence. . . [Expanding] the jail capacity is number one.”

Public Comment

• A citizen of 48 years in Hillsdale had a “circle driveway,” that is, a U-shape driveway with two points of road entry. City Staff, in the name of Fairness, deemed that, in accord with the municipal code, each parcel may have only one road entrance. So City Maintenance installed a curb at the end of one of his driveway’s road entries, thus rendering half of his driveway unusable. The proprietor, on the City’s absurdity: “I’m thinking about leaving Hillsdale because of this.”⁴

• Bob Eichler, Scipio Township, on the crushing effects of decadent millages while the County fails to secure basic law and order: “It has been refused on many occasions to place lawbreakers [in the Branch County jail] because of costs. . . If you want to go to the [County Commissioner] Chair, Mark Wiley—anybody can get a millage from that guy, because it’s not his money he spends.”

• Uncle Ted Jansen, overflowing with (ironic, passive-aggressive) gratitude: “I’d just like to thank everybody for their time.”

Council Comment

• Paladino, on the appropriate way to use the $3 million budget surplus given the continued use of Special Assessments on the part of the City: “The suggestion was not to take the $3 million surplus and repave one neighborhood; the suggestion is to. . . allow that money to collect interest at about five percent, and to pull from that amount every time we need it to cover the Special Assessment portion. . . I don’t know if they’re just not catching that side of the argument or. . ?”⁵

• On the neglect of law and order in Hillsdale County on the part of our decadent ruling class: “There is not a general breakdown of law and order in the County in that the average citizen is in danger. Thankfully, we are very safe here unless you’re trying to get yourself into trouble. But the inability to arrest people for things like failure to appear in court is actually a general breakdown of law and order in the County. That is a serious offense; it means you are simply ignoring the government, which has no ability to enforce its laws and to punish criminals properly. . . Low level offenses that are allowed to persist really do lead to things like the death of an officer.”

Upcoming Events

County Commissioners, Tuesday, July 23

Hillsdale County State Rep. Primary, August 6

Our August 2024 Primary Coverage so far:

• Incumbent grades for County Commissioners and City Councilmen.

• Our preview of County Commissioner and City Council primary races.

• Primary ballot millage proposals.

This week we dish out more cold, hard facts regarding the State Rep. race. The platforms of the three candidates are mostly filled with the same blandishments: pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, pro-Constitution, local control of education, lower taxes, etc. None of these things are in any way noteworthy for a Republican candidate campaigning in Hillsdale County.

In order to differentiate the candidates, then, we will focus on two criteria: (1) the unique reasons Why each candidate claims that you should vote for them, and (2) our evaluation of each candidates’s ability to achieve something in Lansing on behalf of the people of Hillsdale.

Tom Matthew

• Matthew, septuagenarian Branch County Commissioner and enemy of America First Republicans, believes that you should vote for him because he’s an immigrant who achieved the “American dream” by getting a Master’s Degree from a prestige university (Notre Dame). He claims to stand for “conservative values,” but you would have heard the same “I came from India with eight dollars in my pocket” line when he ran as a Democrat ten years ago in Ohio.

• Matthew’s platform is so vague that it’s almost impossible to say what this devotee of managerialism would try to do as our representative, and his tendency to shirk candidate forums does not inspire confidence.

Jennifer Wortz

• By all accounts and appearances, Jennifer Wortz (née Leininger) is an excellent sort of person—wife, mother, grandmother, teacher, campaign manager, etc.—but she does not possess either the public charisma or the local knowledge that we want representing us in the Michigan House.

• Wortz has been endorsed by the milquetoast Sen. Bellino and appears generally to be the candidate of the establishment interests in both Branch and Hillsdale counties, not to mention Consumers Energy.

Adam Stockford

• Stockford believes you should vote for him because he wishes to return political power to local governments.

• Stockford has been endorsed by State Sen. Jonathan Lindsey, one of the few sensible and astute men in Lansing, Steve Meckley, and Hillsdale College president Larry Arnn. He has ties to the America First Republicans, though appears to exercise independent judgment. His legacy as Mayor of Hillsdale will be very positive, and for good reason (the opinion of a noisy Facebook minority aside). Unlike the other candidates, he knows of the particular things that trouble the people of Hillsdale and Hillsdale County, and he therefore has things to say and do that are more concrete than the tiresome repetition of ambiguous ideological creeds, which go to Lansing to die. We back Stockford.

External Links

• “If we are to rediscover the lost art of statecraft, we must first rediscover a national morality of moderation and humility.” Dominick Sansone.

• “The absence of true dark is one of the facts of our world.” Dwight Lindley.

• “Manliness is as American as apple pie.” David Azzerad.

• “At this time, we do not have any information to share.” ALDI spokesman.

• “Michigan abortion providers performed more than 31,000 abortions in 2023.” Bridge.

• “Mr. Biden . . . is irritated at Mr. Obama as well, seeing him as a puppet master behind the scenes.” New York Times.⁶

• “The scene on Saturday night in Pennsylvania was the ultimate confirmation of his status as a man of destiny . . . touched by the gods of fortune in a way that transcends the normal rules of politics.” Ross Douthat.

• “It has never been more over for the libs.” Josiah Lippincott.

• “Vance did what poor white trash types who do not wish to remain poor white trash do: He got out.” Kevin Williamson still hates himself his old neighbors.

• “There were some sort of Easter eggs of white nationalism in [Vance’s] speech . . . he went on . . . about this plot in eastern Kentucky, where his 7 or 6 generations of his family are buried, and his hope is that his wife and he are eventually laid to rest there and their kids follow them.” MSNBC’s Alex Wagner.⁷

• “Discussion of Carl Schmitt, Martin Heidegger, and Ernst Jünger is no longer confined to idiosyncratic philosophy departments or German studies.” Casey Spinks.

• “Secondary sources are strictly forbidden from my classes. That means no scholarship, of course, but also no books at all. No students, either—not even me. Just the principle of all things, the ultimate cause of the being of the beings, the primary source par excellence.” Alex Priou.

1. Homovec, the Council majority, and City Staff all agree that the purpose of government is to prop up flailing business ventures.

2. HDN’s article is here.

3. Allow us to complete the sentence for him—“or intentionally misconstruing the argument because they have decadent Development designs for that surplus?”

Paladino, on a few other ways the City could afford keep parks accessible and clean: “When you think about Dial-a-Ride drawing $130,000 from the General Fund this year, the airport drawing $120,000. . .” Both of these entities could be self-sufficient, and yet they continually draw on tax money in the amount that would eliminate Special Assessments and make some progress toward ending the road millage and the leaf collection millage.

4. We wonder whether a special assessment was necessary for this bit of business.

5. The latest Special Assessment projects have run about $120,000 per neighborhood. Five percent annually from a $3 million investment (the size of the surplus) is $150,000. This is an important point to recognize ahead of City Council elections: The solution to Special Assessments is available to Council right now—in the budget surplus, in annual airport expenditures, and in the Dail-a-Ride program. To put it more simply, the Council is not interested in ending Special Assessments and lowering taxes; they are interested in leveraging you for business projects.

6. Will Democrats be able to silence President Biden once he’s removed from office / the ticket?

7. You will eat the bugs, you will live in a pod, you will own nothing, your ashes will be scattered to the four winds, your posterity will be unburdened by what has been, you will not have been a white supremacist,—you will be happy.