Week in Review: An InDecorous Affair
"Thank you Councilman Stuchell for giving me this opportunity.”
Week in Review
City Council, Monday, March 17
Back room machinations, melodramatic resignations, pedantic scoldings, backstabbing pettiness—what else could one want out of a City Council meeting than this dramatic chess match? Ditch your overpriced Comcast subscription and tune into the hottest show in town on the first and third Mondays each month at 7 PM; it’s free on YouTube, and will help you save a few dollars to pay your SAD—a Win-Win! (We recommend the The Adams Times channel for getting the best feel of the meeting.) County Commissioners, take note if you wish to someday equal the immortal fame of the Hillsdale City Council—
Road Diet Discussion
Zoning Administrator Alan Beeker presented his schemes for the Road Diet, which appeared to be entirely unchanged despite resounding opposition to the plan at a January public meeting.
Paladino, on the bike lane grant: “Is there any way to get this money without the bike lanes?”
Beeker: “No. It is a Transportation Alternative Program. And that means that it has to be non-motorized improvements.”
Councilman Morrisey: “Will any residential property taxes be used for this project?”
Beeker: “$100,000 would most likely come from the General Fund.” Department of Public Services Director Jason Blake amended this, telling Council that at least some of that money would come from local and major street funds—as if that’s any more reassuring.1 The rest of the City’s contribution would allegedly come from TIFA.2
Councilman Flynn: “Is there any way to keep Cook Street open for the churches?”
Blake: “We looked at putting a drive approach in off Bacon Street.”
Bentley, as hungry as Old Bruce Sharp with Homovec on his mind: “Mr. Beeker, if you’ll forgive me. . . This is my first opportunity to engage with this process. I don’t understand how it’s gotten to this point without input from the public. You were at the library. . . We heard almost unanimous negativity to the whole project, especially the bike lanes. . . What changes came out of the library public hearing?”
Beeker, on transparency: “There’s been public hearings all along. There have been public hearings for every one of the Master Plans. . . We did not change the fact that there are bike lanes because. . . they are required.”3
Bentley, on City Staff’s selective hearing: “My issue is that there was a public hearing, but the public was not heard. . . It seems like there were discussions going back over ten years, but now there’s a plan, and at what point do any of us as the representatives of the people get to weigh in on the ten slides? And, by the way, I find almost nothing to commend any of the ten slides.” On the bureaucratic steamrolling of ordinary people: “I hear so much around here about the importance of the committee meetings, and yet this most sensitive, most political of anything we do—fundamentally changing the artery through downtown that everybody uses—and treating it like a technocratic issue for experts to solve when there are very strong feelings in the community that we don’t want this. And you and some on this Council just plow ahead, indifferent to the will of the people.”
Beeker, yielding: “If Council does not want me to continue to pursue it, tell me tonight.”
Bentley, unrelenting: “I can’t even visualize a wheelchair going down Broad Street, and I don’t know why it was included. . . I think the bike lane plan is egregious, and I think each of its parts are, and I think the process is indefensible because the people can’t be heard.”4
Paladino, driving home the farce: “So it’s too late to add, subtract, or change any of the specifications of this project?”
Beeker: “Yes. . . By mid-April, we’ll be told whether or not we’ve received the grant funds.”
Bentley: “I move that we kill the project tonight, as Mr. Beeker requested.”
Bruns: “I think that we need to give him a straight answer right now, so I second.”
Bentley and Bruns in favor. Morrisey, Socha, Wolfram, Paladino, Flynn opposed; Stuchell, emphatically opposed: “Hell no!” Motion failed, 2-6. Grant logic has filled the heads of Council and its Mayor Pro Tem. If and when the grant is got, the Diet appears to be on, with a strong Council majority favoring the will of the Staff over the will of the people.
Airport Director Ginger Moore’s Resignation
Ginger Moore wrote a letter of resignation to Council, but not before taking a passive-aggressive swipe at the people of Hillsdale, their representatives, and their “social media.”5 Moore:
While I am grateful for my time here, I also feel compelled to share that the negative atmosphere that has been surrounding the airport whether it be in town, at City Council meetings or on social media has brought me to a point where I believe it is my best interest to step away and retire.
Stuchell, sad, scared, Decent: “As a Council member. . . I would just like to apologize to Ginger for the abuse and negativity—I think we had a good display of that just a few moments ago with Mr. Beeker. You know, there’s a decorum that we should carry.”6
Bentley, candid & grateful: “I think I take offense at that. I treated Mr. Beeker professionally, and I respect the job that staff does. . . I treated [Mrs. Moore] respectfully and heard her out and voted No respectfully. . . Voting No is not disrespectful, and it’s not negativity. . . Thank you Councilman Stuchell for giving me this opportunity.”7
Paladino: “Separate negativity from the policy discussions. . . Our citizens want public safety and roads, and then the other things.” Unfortunately the citizens didn’t realize that Decorum prohibits them from having opinions.
Barry Street SAD Public Hearing, cont.
In response to an email exchange that Council had, the Nazi-hunters of Facebook (Swan, King, et al.) were out in full force, spinning their ineffectual wheels for hours on end in an effort that will amount to nothing, as usual.8 In the view of this sanctimonious few, Council once more exposed its darker side when they wrote emails to each other about the Barry Street SAD, potentially violating the Open Meetings Act in an easily-resolvable manner. Those emails were included in the meeting packet.
Paladino, on Mackie and his media correspondents: “This [letter] has been described as an OMA violation by the City Manager and by people on social media.”
City Attorney Toby: “The email itself, if you send out an email to other members of the Council, that’s probably okay. . . But what people invariably do is they hit ‘reply all,’ and when they hit ‘reply all,’ and if their response goes to enough people that it’s a quorum of the body, then that’s an OMA violation because they have started to deliberate.”
Paladino, on the expectations of the Disingenuous Majority: “Here’s the problem: I bring forward a proposal to Council, the only time we’re all together, and I’m met with: ‘This isn’t the proper time.’ I send an email to the Council, and this is a violation of our laws.”
Bentley, on the HR Regime and its enforcers, on Council and otherwise: “I agree with you, and the irony is rich: you were disparaged for bringing it up at Council, and you were also dinged for the email.”
Having thus paid homage to the sacred OMA, Council finally moved into a discussion of the Barry Street SAD.
Following a contentious meeting two weeks ago wherein the Disingenuous Majority scolded Mayor Pro Tem Paladino for having an idea and saying it—exposing everybody else’s total incompetence—Council had initially planned to take up the Barry Street SAD again at the April 7 meeting, with some hoping to establish the SAD at a more affordable rate. At that meeting, the Experts were to attend, and by their very presence enlighten Council while punishing the inDecorous trio of Paladino, Bruns, and Bentley—people who just don’t get it. (We shake our head at them in Decent disgust.) At Bentley’s request, the Barry Street SAD appeared on the agenda for this meeting. Council deliberated with the intent to vote next month.
Bentley, slowly being briefed into the SAD regime: “For our 48 miles of road. . . I don’t know how we talk to our constituents about how we’re going to fix a third of a mile of road in 2025. . . I hope we can find a solution to Barry, even if it is ad hoc.”
Paladino, trying to explain his reasonable idea to a group of people who long ago decided not to care: ““I’m looking to build a road. . . We could put the residential cap at $3,000 and we would still take in $50,000 in new revenue under the new policy that we passed in February than we would have under the old policy. . . because we adjusted the rates, I think justly.”
Socha, erupting in a protracted and scattered rant directed in Bentley’s direction: “You are all for ignoring the Road Diet and abandoning that because the people said they don’t want it, but the people of Barry Street said they don’t want this Special Assessment, and now you’re trying to find a workaround?. . . It’s very difficult to take the time and understand completely how much the project truly costs the city. We want to abandon a Road Diet. Alan Beeker said he spent 150 hours in the last six months. . . The State doesn’t come up with these TAP Grants and offer them to the City just on a whim. The State does that and they have rules. . . I live on Broad Street. . . Getting back to Barry Street: the people have resoundingly said No. . . We could have just said No in December 2nd. . . The people that we’ve assessed in the past are going to feel that it was unfair, and the people in the future are going to expect the same in the future.”
Paladino, addressing Socha’s final point: “What is it when the government cuts taxes? They’re treating one people differently at one time than people at the next time. Policies change in government. . . The voters can judge us at the ballot box.”
Bentley, on Barry residents: “They have an overwhelming negativity to the way we’ve handled this. . . They’re not overwhelmingly against having a new road. And I’ve talked to at least half a dozen of them that are interested in a compromised position.”
Stuchell, fighting imaginary opponents: “I still want to hear the Experts talk. And to have a vote seems very immature.”
Jogger, ready to play ball: “If it turns out that Barry Street has to pay $3,200 and I had to pay $5,000, I was under the old law.”
Council suspended the public hearing, to be resumed on April 7 with Experts present to guide the Process with heavy hands.
Public Comment
On the Road Diet
Shannon Gainer, on the farcical nature of public hearings: “The Road Diet report almost sounds the same as before, except instead of saying a ‘Bike Lane,’ now they have a lane that wheelchairs, bikes, people, extra space, can walk. It’s still going to be a bike lane.”
Zech Steiger, on the same: “I want to voice my opinion about why this Road Diet is still moving forward when the overwhelming majority as I saw it was against developing this.” On the argument that the City has to do everything that prior Councils directed: “Just because we’ve already spent a bunch of money and time into researching projects that we have not yet decided on is not a good argument for continuing to move forward with it.”
Toby, using billable hours for public comment?: “I’m going to take my attorney hat off for a second and put my member-of-the-public hat on. . . As someone who owns three properties on M-99. . . the traffic diet makes sense going all the way down to Steamburg Road.”
Joseph Amoros: “It seems like it’s the same story in every issue and everything that comes up, from the bikes to the SADs. . . I don’t think the same old, same old should keep happening.”
On the Airport Director’s resignation
Joseph Hendee: “I want to speak on Mrs. Moore’s resignation. . . Instead of taking responsibility both [Mrs. Moore and her predecessor] chose to step away, blaming the community rather than addressing concerns. It is no coincidence that Moore’s resignation immediately after Council decided that Airport Improvement Funds before tapping into the City’s General Fund. . . Moore’s resignation is a relief. . . For over 50 years the Airport was run at little to no cost to the taxpayers, until the City decided to meddle.”9
On SADs
Joe Hendee, on the Developmental Mind: “[City Staff] had a vested interest in paving Hallett for Three Meadows development. Nobody paid a SAD on that road. Nobody. Fayette Street: nobody paid a SAD on Fayette Street. . . That street benefits Hillsdale College more than it benefits anybody. . . I was up here before and talked about this, David. . . You paved right down Hallett Street from Reading Avenue to your development.”
CJ Toncray, Barry Street property owner: “For those that had Special Assessments before, I was one of them. And the last thing I want to do is change what you already did, because I understand when you change policy. . . but we’re never going to improve the City of we don’t change the way we run things. . . I love the fact that you guys are up here discussing these things, because this is the only place we can hear it.” On the justice of businesses paying more for SADs: “Of course the people that cause more traffic on that road should be accountable for more.”
Jeff Fazekas: “I would like to make a comment about one of the Council members’ comments that we’re unruly and obnoxious. . . If you don’t understand the frustration, I’m sorry. What I see is a waste of money on a day-to-day basis by putting these things in place, not listening to the constituents, and then wondering why we’re upset.” On the Process: “You had to submit the stuff before, not really knowing what was going on, told that you could make adjustments, and then today were told that there’s no adjustments. . . It’s irritating to me to hear that because we’re trying to work together as a community, have dialogue, yet we’re not allowed to have any dialogue, just vote Yes or No and let the people suffer.”
Former Mayor Scott Sessions, on making the people equal in despair: “Discrimination by this City Council, if the relief that is being proposed is not being given to the rest of the residents that have already been paying the SAD Special Assessments.”
Council Comment
Mackie, on Aldi: “They were very excited with the turnout. There were at least a couple hundred people in line, and some actually got there at midnight.”
Flynn, comforted by Aldi: “The overwhelming thing that I heard that made me smile was that, ‘I can now shop at Aldi, I can now shop at Kroger, I can now shop at Meijer’. . . It’s comforting to see. . . The people in the front of the line—I kid you not: they were there at midnight—they came all the way from Flint.”10
Stuchell, still desperately virtue signaling: “Can we write a letter to Ginger from Council for gratitude? Something that she could hang on a wall?”11
Socha, with an esoteric dissertation on City & Man: “The City has always been challenged financially over the years. . . The financial situation we’re in is not any of our faults; it is what it is right now. . . We’re trying our best to serve our citizens of the City, and listen to them. At least I do listen, and I believe I can speak for my peers here that they can do the same. Our infrastructure is in dire straits. . . Councilman Morrisey and myself, we decided to donate $5,000 of our own money to the city in solidarity.12 I believe Councilman Morrisey has already paid his off. . . I don’t know if I’ll be assessed with the Road Diet or not—if I am, I’ll vote for it. . . If we want to live in the City of Hillsdale and see it maintained and be a beautiful place to raise our children’s children, then let’s—instead of—I don’t want to spend your money—I despise property taxes. . . If there’s another way to fund the City, what if the College started an endowment? What if we endowed the City $250 million somehow?. . . I do listen to the people.”
External Links
“The market is just not favorable for (development).” Blake Jenkins.
“Hillsdale Municipal Airport Manager Ginger Moore has resigned.”
“The Rotary Club and the City of Hillsdale are collaborating for the creation of a park at 155 E. Bacon Street, currently a grass field at the northwest intersection of Carleton and Bacon.” Hillsdalian.
“We are very concerned about the impact of this across the country.” JJ Hodshire laments the decline of the Obamacare state.
“That is why he started the Hillsdale Homestead, a roughly 3-4 acre farm built on property the College bought from the now-defunct Glei’s Orchard.” Hillsdale College blog.
“Boiled down to its very essence, fulfilling the promise of personal liberty is impossible if you can’t actually own a piece of real property.” Pennsylvania state Rep. Russ Diamond.
“To create affordable homes on federal lands, the federal government shouldn’t sell lands for development — it should lease them.” Joel Kotkin.
“The U.S. is facing a judicial coup.” Nayib Bukele.
“I’ll be filing Articles of Impeachment against activist judge James Boasberg this week.” Congressman Brandon Gill.
“We currently rely on cheap food to mask the prevalence of poverty in Britain, but that trick relies on subsidised farming and technological breakthroughs that are now slowing.” James Rebanks.
“A whole microgeneration experienced, on the cusp of adulthood, a collective and officially enforced reality in which every rule suddenly turned nonsensical and authoritarian, at their expense and in the name of a threat that didn’t really affect them.” Mary Harrington.
SADs are subsidizing downtown parking lots and bike lanes?
Later in the meeting, Shannon Gainer, on the assertion that TIFA would pay for part of the Road Diet: “I’ve heard that TIFA doesn’t have any money.” Councilman Stuchell, with the answer: “You’re right; we don’t.” Gainer: “I wouldn’t apply for something that there’s no money [for].”
All you had to do was read a poorly-written, 120-page document that you didn’t know existed and you would have known about it, you moron.
Has Bentley not heard? Deafness to the people is a feature of the Developmental Mind.
Fauxglin is always telling us to be more Decent. Alas!
Anyhow, should the City hire Jeff King for the gig? It’s not every day one has a chance to hire such a Galt-like figure, one who boldly—nay, heroically—bickers on Facebook for hours every week. And surely the City Council would be game to fork over some General Fund cash to get a cry room installed out there—for King’s more fragile days.
Ah, Decorum, that admirable trait by which one never asks any questions, never investigates anything, never does one’s job, and only groans and rolls one’s eyes and throws up one’s hands in public while gossiping and complaining about others behind closed doors. Sweet, sweet Decorum.
Bentley’s point is strikingly obvious, and yet bears repeating, as some seem constitutionally incapable of understanding it: saying No does note create a “negative atmosphere,” and it is certainly not “abuse,” unless one interprets ordinary policy disagreement as “abusive.” Why would one accept a public job and then become embittered by policy disagreement? Well, the Developmental Mind must have its martyrs. . .
With the Hitler card played out and exhausted (at least for a few rounds) Ms. Swan penned a post about the OMA so uninteresting we cannot bear to recount it here. In the comment section, however, the theater kids were out en masse, encouraging poor Swan to do their dirty work from their armchairs. It is amusing to consider how badly they need Bentley & Paladino. As for King, well, he’s still riding high from one petty win a decade ago: some people are easily satisfied.
Hendee continued: “Privatization should be strongly considered, with its users taking responsibility for routine maintenance. . . This approach would reduce financial strain on the City. . . I urge the Council to take this opportunity to restore a proven system.”
We are at a loss for words.
Should Stuchell resign as a matter of Decorum? Perhaps Council could give him something to hang on the wall, and everybody might be happier.
For some of its members, the main business of Council is congratulation, of which the most satisfying part is self-congratulation.
Not one, not two, but three+ mentions of me in this weeks column. I hardly feel worthy, in particular since it's been over a week since I last trolled "you".
I must really get under your skin.