Week in Review: a Jail Conversation
“We were reminded. . . that the Commissioners do have a statutory obligation to provide a jail."
Week in Review
County Commissioners, December 23
Commissioners Wiley and Ingles were absent.
Radio Project
After the triumph of safety theater in the August election, the Commissioners moved to sell County Bonds not to exceed $16 million on January 15 to pay for the 800 MhZ radio project. The Commissioners’ approved the final closings for two properties purchased for the radio project.
Commissioner Benzing: “We have a tentative new live date for the new public safety radio system, and that is May of 2026.”
ClearGov
The Commissioners’ approved the purchase of $30,000 budgeting software, ClearGov, for the County to use in 2025.
Commissioner Leininger: “It will help free up time in the finance department office and hopefully for every department head when it comes time to budgeting and keeping track of their budget.”
Emory Park Grant Award
Hillsdale County was awarded a grant from the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund for $255,500 to be used to aid the decaying Lewis Emory Park. The money from this will go to rebuilding docks and walkways. None of the funds can be used for dredging the ponds.
Former Senator Bruce Caswell briefed the Commissioners on the specifics of the grant and how to best check all the state’s boxes for future grant applications. A new 5-year recreation plan must be written for future grants to have success.
A Jail Conversation
Ingles and Benzing met with Judges Lisznyai and Stiverson, the prosecutor-elect, and other officials to discuss the overcrowding of the County jail. Benzing explained that the best rate available to have other jails take some of the County’s criminals is $25 per day per inmate, plus any medical expenses.
Apparently, to help “free up space,” the County needs more Department of Corrections Parole officers, which MDOC could provide, but the County would need to provide “workspaces” for these officers.
Benzing:
on fighting crime with parole officers: “The simplest thing that we can do at this point right now would be to seriously consider adding that additional space to house those MDOC probation officers they’re willing to provide.”
on the crime surge: “We definitely have seen an in uptick in crime, and stronger enforcement of crimes mean more inmates coming into our jail. We are also seeing an uptick in violence and also significantly more weapons in that population of people that they are arresting for those additional crimes. And a lot of those are drug related crimes, particularly methamphetamine.”
on the need for a jail:“We were reminded by the judges that the Commissioners do have a statutory obligation to provide a jail. It is something that at some point that we are going to have to address.”
County Commissioners, January 2
The Board holds a special meeting at the beginning of each year to elect officers, set meeting dates, and adopt rules.
Public Comment
Joe Hendee, reviewing the Commissioners’ 2024 performance: “I urge the new chair along with both new and current members to lead with integrity and transparency. Last year’s Open Meeting Act violation involved a round-robin or around-the-horn decision-making process. It was deeply troubling. This coupled with unconstitutional arrests of individuals exercising their free speech, the manipulation of delegate slots, the mishandling of the 800 megahertz ballot initiative that public officials claimed that lives were at risk if the initiative failed, the misuse of public resources, and violations of campaign finance laws have severely eroded public trust. It’s imperative to restore accountability and reaffirm a commitment to good governance and constitutional principles.”
Chair Election
Leininger nominated Wiley as chair. No discussion. Roll call vote, 5-0 for.
Commissioner Kevin Collins, participating in his first meeting, nominated Benzing for vice-chair. No discussion. Roll call vote, 5-0 for.
Miscellaneous
The Commissioners’ Rules of Procedures and By-laws from 2024 were approved with insignificant changes, 5-0 for.
After a short discussion of whether to send the committee assignments to the Personnel Committee, the same assignments as 2024 were given, with Collins taking over for Lanius’s assignments. 3-2 for, Benzing and Ingles opposed.
The board discussed candidates to invite for interviews for the Emergency Manager Position at the January 14th meeting. Five candidates will be invited to interview.
Upcoming Events
City Council, Monday, January 6
Mayoral Vacancy Election
Before the election of Mayor Pro-Tem Paladino, the city attorney suggested that the Mayor Pro-Tem would fill the mayoral vacancy until the fall of 2026. But, consulting further with City Staff (and one wonders who else), it appears that Toby re-interpreted the law in such a way as to justify a special May mayoral election.1 Citing Michigan Election Law and the Charter, he dubiously concluded that “the next regular state election is May 2025.”
If more than two candidates run in the May election, it would serve as the primary for an August general, wherein the top two May vote-getters would run.
2025 SAD Proposals
City Staff will present three SAD plans for 2025. Barry Street residents have already successfully objected to their assessment.
Airport Hangar Repair
As the Council majority feigns sadness about the inevitability of SADs, the Airport is asking for $105,000 to upgrade its hangars, with the promise that it will someday make more money as a result.
The repairs will allow the Airport to increase rents and provide for a 2-4 year payback period. . . Upon completion of the repairs and increasing of the rents it’s believed the Airport can gradually reduce its dependence on the General Fund to achieve total self-sufficiency over the next 3 years.
What staff calls a “payback period” appears only to mean the period in which the costs of the hangar upgrades will be covered by rent increases, not that the City will be repaid the money it will (undoubtedly) spend from its surplus.2 That is, the Airport, which is an annual $100,000+ drain on the City, is using that very six-figure redistribution as leverage against the City in its negotiations. Or, if you prefer, the Airport is giving the Council majority permission to believe they may not pay as much in the future if they cough up more cash now. See our prior coverage of the hangar troubles for more details.
External Links
“With the addition of LuxWall and GCT America in Litchfield, FCA Packaging in Hillsdale and Triple Diamond Plastics in Jonesville this year, Sue Smith, Hillsdale County’s director for the Economic Development Partnership, is excited to already have a project slated for the new year.” HDN.
“A 420-acre swath of state forestland will be cleared for a solar farm near Gaylord under a lease agreement with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, confirmed a top state official.” MLive.
“While this Court as a matter of law must not make any determination on sentencing prior to giving the parties and Defendants opportunity to be heard, it seems proper at this juncture to make known the Court’s inclination to not impose any sentence of incarceration.” Judge Juan Merchan.
“Too many have bought the lie that the path to prosperity is to flood the nation with cheap labor.” J.D. Vance approvingly quote-tweets Josiah Lippincott, but Elon disapproves!
“What we’re being told (not explicitly, but obviously) is: Whatever the Tech Lords want, they will get. . . . Whatever you want is fine — negotiable, but fine — but you won’t get anything close to what the Lords will get, because they are the answer to China and you’re not.” John Ellis.3
“Under any circumstances, left or right, the power of the oligarchs represents a threat to democracy . . . They will turn us ever more towards a reprise of the Roman Republic, where patricians battle for power and the plebs get mauled in the process.” Joel Kotkin.
“The real clash will be over whether to accelerate through the technocapital singularity into the posthuman epoch or slam the breaks.” Samuel Hammond.
“If conservatives wish to restore the family as the foundation of our civilizational order, they must develop a comprehensive theory of technological change.” Jon Askonas.
“Who are the grand historians chronicling our times, and why is writing and reading sweeping historical narratives such a declining profession and pleasure?” Sumantra Maitra.
“My topic is the perennial debate over universalism and nationalism, from the standpoint of classical law, political theory and political theology.” Adrian Vermeule.
“In an (unpublished) essay presented at the 2019 American Political Science Association, Jose Arevalo gives a synoptic view of state law on education in the Founding period. He summarizes the states’ goals in providing for education under three main headings: to form desirable citizens, to inculcate a common and lasting culture, and to cultivate the happiness of the people.” Ryan Hammill.
May elections tend to have voter turnout around 15 percent.
The City’s financial analysis of this luxury remodel neglects the “time value of money,” and the “opportunity costs” associated with some other use of those funds. If only Council had an economist up to the task of performing economic analysis. But alas. Such considerations pale before the sovereign Multiplier Effect.
Lee Fang and David Deavel have written good summaries of the H1-B affair (and, if you’re into that sort of thing, Auron MacIntyre has conducted an excellent podcast review of the relevant tweets), but we’re still looking for the best taxonomical work: Musketeers vs. Bannonites; tech bros vs. heritage Americans; nerds (or “alpha geeks”) vs. jocks; libertarians vs. protectionists; America [in] First vs. America[ns] First; proposition nation vs. posterity nation; economic zone vs. nation-state; Tech Lords vs. Average Americans; . . . should I ask Grok? . . . Grok, what is the best political taxonomical nomenclature to use when referring to the parties to the recent controversy over H1-B visas? . . . Grok suggests either “Economic Nationalists vs. Globalist Technocrats” or “Reformers vs. Abolitionists.”
We here at HCR are worried that John Ellis is right about how things are going to go, and we looked back through our copy of Chrystia Freeland’s Plutocrats (2012) in order to get a better understanding of how mediocrities like ourselves will be treated by our DOGEan superiors:
Our light-speed, globally connected economy has led to the rise of a new super-elite that consists, to a notable degree, of first- and second-generation wealth. Its members are hard-working, highly educated, jet-setting meritocrats who feel they are the deserving winners of a tough, worldwide economic competition—and, as a result, have an ambivalent attitude toward those of us who haven’t succeeded quite so spectacularly . . . they are becoming a transglobal community of peers who have more in common with one another than with their countrymen back home . . . a nation unto themselves. (5)
“If the transformation of the world economy lifts four people in China and India out of poverty and into the middle class, and meanwhile one American drops out of the middle class, that’s not such a bad trade . . . maybe people in the middle class need to decide to take a pay cut . . . You had your golden period; now, hopefully, we’ll have ours.” (241)