Week in Review: Deep Concern
“I can’t even balance my own checkbook."
Week in Review
City Council, Monday, December 2
Public Comment I
Related to the Mayor Pro Tem election debacle:
Uncle Ted Jansen, college crony?: “Dr. Morrisey is still Mayor Pro Tem until a new one is legally, lawfully elected.”
Penny Swan, trying to initiate a motion: “I’m calling for a public re-vote, so we can have an OMA-legal and transparent vote.” Is Swan aware that she’s not on Council?
Related to the City’s zoning enforcement regarding Camp Hope:
Shelley Hebert, questioning the timing: “Why now?”
Melissa DesJardin, on the alleged inaction of paramedics at a Camp Hope incident: “A client was laying on the ground having a seizure. . . This is Jimmy’s fourth or fifth seizure on the property. . . I want to find out who called for the stand down. Was it because it was Camp Hope?
Related to SADs:
CJ Toncray, on the unspoken reason Barry Street was chosen for a SAD: “All I keep thinking is: there are a lot of streets that are worse than Barry. . . There is so much traffic on those streets because of the schools.”1
Audit Report
Councilman Flynn, uninterested in doing his job: “I can’t even balance my own checkbook, so I trust [city staff] to know the numbers. . . There seems to be a belief—true or otherwise—that the City of Hillsdale. . . is sitting on millions of dollars. . . Can you tell me if that’s true?”
Karen Lancaster, Finance Director: “There’s a fund called ‘Capital Improvement,’ and that has $3.9 million of cash in it.”
Mayor Pro Tem Paladino: “We have $1.65 million in the General Fund balance. . . we’re very good there. the question is the Capital Improvement Fund, which is over and above the General Fund balance which we have as reserves. And again, even then, I’m not suggesting that we blow that all. . . We can maintain a high Capital Outlay balance with enough investment revenue that we can pare down not full road construction costs, but just the Special Assessments.”2
Barry Street SAD Petition
The residents of Barry Street submitted a letter objecting to the SAD. Council will now need seven out of eight members to vote for the SAD to override the petition—a highly unlikely outcome. The question is now whether Barry Street will be repaved without the SAD.
City Manager Mackie: “I would ask Council to forgo Barry Street at this time, and just focus on [Monroe and Arch].”
Paladino: “I’d like to move forward with it. . . But that can be a discussion for a later date.”
Camp Hope Code Violation Discussion
Camp Hope is in violation of the municipal code, and has been ordered to cease activities by late January. The proprietors pined for an extension until the end of winter.
Councilman Socha: “If Council would agree, I would like to encourage the City to delay enforcing the citation until the thaw in April.”
Paladino: “We’ve gone through the delaying enforcement thing before.”
It was informally resolved that City Staff will receive a letter from Camp Hope requesting an extension until the end of winter before the code is enforced.
TIFA Development Plan
TIFA—an organization sanctioned by state statute to skim tax money off the top of the downtown district to be reinvested in various downtown projects—has updated its schemes, perhaps for the better, as the Keefer House (allegedly) nears completion.
Councilman Jogger, chasing subsidies: “There’s nothing in here about the Dawn Theater. . . I believe TIFA owns the Dawn Theater. So I was wondering why there isn’t something about either putting in the video system or putting in the organ.”
TIFA Chair Andrew Gelzer, not amused by Jogger’s query: “TIFA has outlayed a signficant amount of money into the Dawn Theater, and it was worth doing; however, the downtown is larger than the Dawn Theater.”
According to Gelzer, TIFA’s main objectives include focusing on downtown infrastructure and paying off the debt it has taken on to spur Dawn Theater Development. Council accepted the plan, 8-0.
Mayor Pro Tem Vote Minutes Discussion
At the November 18 meeting, Council chose Paladino for Mayor Pro Tem by a 5-4 written ballot, a method used to satisfy the City Charter. After the meeting, it appears that City Staff requested that the various councilmen divulge their votes, allegedly in order to satisfy the Open Meetings Act, which in this case arguably (and only arguably) overrides the Charter provision. Councilman Matthew Bentley was unhappy with City Attorney Toby’s complete failure to anticipate this alleged issue until someone else brought it up after the fact.3
Bentley: “The vote was conducted as written ballot, implicitly understood as a secret ballot. . . There were no objections to the election process. . . The result was implicitly accepted by all present, and deemed conclusive by the presiding officer.” Wondering where from the new demand originated: “Who brought the complaint to the city? Who is their legal advisor?” The answer? Former Mayor Scott Sessions. Continuing: “I do not insist on a specific course of action to correct this situation except that lines five and six be struck from the minutes.”
At Bentley’s request, the Council voted to affirm Paladino as Mayor Pro Tem, splitting on 4-4 lines and resulting in Paladino’s continued occupancy of the Mayor Pro Tem position.4 Bruns, Paladino, Socha, Bentley affirmed; Flynn, Morrisey, Wolfram, Stuchell opposed, effectively denying the prior vote having happened. Council further voted 7-1, Bentley opposed, to keep the lines denoting who voted for whom in the November 18 minutes.
City Board Appointments
At the November 18 meeting Councilman Flynn demanded that he be given a chance to vet all nominated board candidates to ensure that they don’t have conservative political opinions. The Councilman used this opportunity to “grill” library board candidate Jaminda Springer, who responded nimbly to his rigid bloviating.
Flynn, concerned a dozen times over: “I don’t know you, but there are a lot of people. . . that are concerned about your nomination. . . I find it concerning that a number of people would reach out with concerns saying that you want to ban books from our library—Is that true?”
Springer: “I think that there should be quality literature in our library.”
Flynn: “I did have one constituent say that you are not a fan of the American Library Association. . . What concerns you about that?”
Springer: “I think there are some problems in the way that librarians are educated. I think there’s a lot of politics in the education of librarians.”
Flynn: “Is it the role of the library board to determine the community’s culture?”5
Springer: “Absolutely. . . For the library board to not be concerned about what is in the library would be not doing its duty. Who else would be concerned about what’s in the library if not the board?”
Bentley, after some minutes of Flynn’s questioning: “How many vacancies did you say we have on boards and commissions. . . And are we going to grill them all like this?”
Flynn, trying to hide his views behind the opinions of others: “The only reason I asked so many questions is because after the agenda was released on Friday I was flooded with emails and phone calls from people. . . voicing their concerns.”
All in favor, Flynn excepted. His vote indicates that he quite clearly did not ask so many questions merely because of the concerned residents, as he claimed, but rather because he agrees with those people who wish to use public money to place LGBT books in the children’s section of the library. So much for our unity candidate. In a mere two meetings, Mr. Flynn has already shown himself to be for the decency platform: Children’s LGBT books; SADs; Development spending; maximal taxes. That his standards for board candidates are arbitrary was apparent in the subsequent nominations, beginning with Shade Tree Commission candidate Parker Hjelmberg—
Hjelmberg: “I like trees. I would like for the city to look nice. And I would like to be involved in the running of the city in whatever humble way I can.”
Paladino: “We need to line Carleton with trees.”
8-0 in favor, including Flynn, who must know Mr. Hjelmberg personally, per his own stated criteria. The last new board candidate was TIFA nominee Luke Robson.
Robson: “I love downtown Hillsdale. . . I’m happy to help out any way possible with TIFA.”
8-0 in favor. Rounding out appointments, Andrew Gelzer was unanimously reappointed to TIFA, and Matthew Kniffin was unanimously reappointed to the Zoning Board of Appeals.
Public Comment II
Jack McClain, on the good old days: “I can remember when cocaine first come around. . . And only the wealthy could afford it, and only the wealthy used it. So I think we need to stop shoving it off on the homeless, that they’re the only ones using needles, because we know that’s not true. Mr. Biden—I think he had some problems there too.” On the library board: “Let the people set their own culture. We don’t need somebody telling us that we’re only going to read books about white people. We don’t need that. We need books that say, ‘we’re going to look at all races.’”
Shelley Hebert, with a dystopian idea: “A suggestion on the needles: sharp containers. And probably the [Hillsdale County] Opioid Committee could pay for that, have them on the trails, in the town.”
Council Comment
Flynn, television connoisseur: “As a 50-plus year subscriber to cable TV, this [Comcast] letter pisses me off. . . Is there a way that we could write a strongly-worded letter?”6
Upcoming Events
County Commissioners, Tuesday, December 10
External Links
“Tonight, the HCREC met to vote on the new officers. Brent Leininger will continue to serve as party chair. . . Abe Dane will continue to serve as treasurer. Kathy Schmitt will serve as deputy treasurer. Jennifer Wortz was appointed by the chair as parliamentarian.” Rebekah Jean on the new Hillsdale County Michigan GOP Executive Committee.
“This is a huge disconnect for the council. They put roads and police and fire at the top, and then say there’s no money in the general fund for roads.” Paladino.
“We are in the process of hiring a consultant to evaluate options for the replacement of the Hallett Street bridge.” Michael Frezell, MDOT.
“President Joe Biden’s grant of clemency on Sunday night — an extraordinary political act with extraordinary legal breadth — insulates his son from ever facing federal charges over any crimes he possibly could have committed over the past decade.” Politico.
“Michigan Republicans will also vote on a new chair early next year after current party Chair Pete Hoekstra was nominated by Trump as the nation’s ambassador to Canada.” MLive.
“To ensure academic freedom, the UM Board of Regents needs to scrap the Collegiate Fellows Program—and all DEI litmus tests.” John D. Sailer.
“I propose an ambitious counterrevolution blueprint that can begin on Day One. Immediately on assuming office, the president should issue a suite of executive orders to “surround and smother” left-wing ideologies across six domains: bureaucracy, content, policy, funding, behavior, and personnel.” Chris Rufo.
“A quarter of foreign criminals went on to reoffend in the UK after being released from jail and remaining in the country.” Telegraph.7
“A century and a half on from Mrs Grundy’s heyday, then, it’s clear that Mrs Grundy won, in the sense that her Christian nationalism entrenched itself in the architecture of the British state. But she lost, too, as it subsequently evolved into something actively solvent both to Christian doctrine, and to national identity as such.” Mary Harrington.
“Both Islamist terrorists and the German authorities share a similar objective. Both want to silence critics of Islam.” Spiked.
“To have a transgender child has made me so much more interesting.” Annette Benning.
“Many of the men leaving Protestant churches are not leaving ‘traditional’ churches . . . they are leaving anti-traditional Protestant churches for Orthodoxy . . . This is not historic Protestantism.” Zachary Garris.
“What if a team could choose one at-bat in every game to send its best hitter to the plate even if it wasn’t that guy’s turn to hit? That’s the Golden At-Bat concept in a nutshell.” The Athletic.
Toncray’s point is valid: the residents of Barry Street were to pay for a new street largely on behalf of Hillsdale’s public schools. Rumor has it that another new school millage is on the way.
Paladino has made this point several times over the past few months, and yet it is studiously ignored or misunderstood by the council majority. The conclusion: they either cannot or will not address the Special Assessment problem, or, alternatively, Special Assessments and maximal property taxes are part of their plan for your pocketbook.
Why did the attorney allow this to happen? Is he more ignorant of the OMA than Sessions? His job is to counsel the City to act in such a way as to remain in compliance with state law before it acts, not after; that apparently did not happen here.
An evenly-split vote means the motion fails. We anticipate the beautiful failure of many motions in the coming years.
Flynn and company, it seems, would prefer that the ALA “determine the community’s culture” rather than the people of Hillsdale.
This is what will bring us together—common opposition to a multinational cable company’s incremental price raises.
“Previous governments were running an open-borders experiment.” British PM Keir Starmer.
At risk of speaking past Chair Andrew Glezer, as a member of Hillsdale's TIFA Board, I'd like to respectfully disagree with your characterization of our reason d' tre. Probably mostly semantics, but there are those in our wonderful community who routinely take snippets out of context & make returning to common sense a long haul.
"TIFA—an organization sanctioned by state statute to skim tax money off the top of the downtown district to be reinvested in various downtown projects..." would be much more aptly defined by referencing the statute or the city's iteration at https://www.cityofhillsdale.org/bc-tifa, or more simply just stating that we recover property tax funds from the county for the downtown business district to ensure infrastructure & presentiment are business-friendly. Go local!
Historically, counties sapped all property tax funds from downtown areas & built their facilities & attracted businesses outside of city centers, leaving unfunded needs like GROUND WATER MANAGEMENT literally eroding the ability to maintain a business district. With cities increasingly reliant upon unelected professional managers whose modus operandi is to over-spend budgets on daily operations, shorting infrastructure needs until Special Assessment Districts can be devised to increase budgets under management and fame for the self-interested managers, TIFA gives communities control of property tax funding to drive projects like paving parking lots, supporting greenery & seasonal decorations, & facade improvement.
We're not "skimming", but recovering property tax money we pay that used to go to funding county priorities while downtown businesses dealt with water flowing through & forming subterranean rivers & lakes & chloride crystals adorning entire roadside walls in basements from seepage due to winter road & sidewalk salting. For instance, one Keefer House delay was a significant destabilizing underground pool not known of until the contractor began working on building a foundation. Dawn Theater also fights groundwater issues like every other property downtown that has not had major basement remediation in the past 5 years or so, and those who have had remediation cause islands increasing pooling & flow under & in businesses around them, so we need a comprehensive groundwater management program. Without TIFA, there would be slim hope of getting a county like Hillsdale to fund major remediation projects like is needed for our known groundwater problems or to support flowers, banners, & facade upgrades keeping our business district attractive to business owners & clientele.