Week in Review
City Council, Monday, November 6
See the agenda here.
Hallett Street Railroad Overpass Letter (39)
The rail bridge over Hallett Street was struck last month by a garbage truck, prompting City Manager David Mackie to send a “grave” letter to our various state representatives and senators requesting that the bridge be not only repaired—as has been done—but also that something be done to raise the clearance of the bridge permanently.
Mackie: “They repaired the bridge, so it’s functional now. . . we are hoping that we could get some movement on the replacement of the bridge. . . so there’s a higher distance there. It looks like it’s probably in the works for 2025 or 2026.”
Sharp: “Sometimes you can’t fix stupid. That’s the bottom line.”
Paladino suggested posting flashing signs for the time being; Mackie promised to “look into it.” The matter will be taken up by the public safety committee.
Hillsdale Mobile Home Park (43)
Hillsdale Mobile Home Park/Alden Global Capital officials returned to the City Council to weasel their way out of paying the “civil penalty” that they ignored and allowed to accrue for over a year. Previously, the council had considered cutting the approximately $210,000 “civil fine” down by 90%, at the request of Mackie and Alden Global. Resolved to make a final decision, the councilmen engaged in a lengthy debate:
Socha spoke harshly but carried a soft stick: “I just want to be straightforward with you: I am inclined to assess the entire penalty and interest and ask the city to continue up until today until you guys pay in full. . . because I’ve had many home owners say, ‘man, I would love not to pay my taxes.’”
Sharp showed up “hungry” but did not feast: “We all pay our taxes on time. To reinvest this by not paying your penalty fee, this is ridiculous. . . You’re a billion-dollar corporation that’s owned, and you want us to give you a break. . . I won’t support this.”
Vear tried to play the adult in the room: “I think this body is being a little bit overzealous right now. . . There’s some people on this council who don’t like the way this company’s doing their business. . . I even thought the $21,000 [the number after the 90% discount] was still a little bit excessive. It’s a private business.”
Stockford changed his tune: “We live in a poor city, and we need low-income housing. . . I agree with Tony [Vear], I think we need to take a step back; I think we’re getting a little bit too personal and aggressive. I think 10% is a good middle ground.”
Stuchell wanted to play hardball: “Part of me agrees with Tony, to a point. But at the same time, we can’t start at 10%. This civil fee—if we can negotiate it, I’m open for negotiation. But we have to be higher than 10%.”1
After the discussion, Stockford and Vear moved to extend the 10% deal, which passed with Pratt, Socha, Vear, Stockford, Morrisey for the offer, and Sharp, Stuchell, Paladino against. Wolfram was absent.2
Library Board Meeting, Thursday, November 9
See the agenda here. Not mentioned below, Stephanie Stockford proposed the addition of an “ethics code” to the bylaws, perhaps to ensure the ethical appointment of library trustees? See some notable comments from the meeting below.
Approval of Minutes from the 10/12 Meeting
Karen was offended by the minutes from the 10/12 meeting, which she felt did not accurately reflect the grandeur of her objections to some of the proposed bylaws.3 This led to a conversation about the expectations that one can have of someone recording the minutes:
Allen did not want to ask the secretary to do too much: “While a certain degree of detail is necessary and desirable in the minutes. . . the most important thing is to report formal decisions made, including motions, seconds. . . I do not want the secretary to feel obligated to include every argument made by every member of the board by every item.”
Karen unleashed some words that she heard when she attended the American Library Association’s Gender Queer day last summer: “That’s basically censorship when there is a discussion. . . of clear points of difference. . . Our community has really supported us through some tough times [insert passive-aggressive glance at Paladino and Allen], some real ups and downs.”
Paladino supported a simple, clear directive: “I can see the argument that you’d want more detailed notes when it’s about policy. . . but we need to establish exactly what types of discussions wherein we want all the points captured by the minutes.”
The board agreed to amend the minutes of the prior meeting to assuage the inflamed vanity of some trustees.
Public Comment
P. Swan, local paparazzi and propagandist, flattered one of her favorite young celebrities: “As an elected city council member, I would expect you [Paladino] to know city codes that you are supposed to uphold and know. You are hardly an ignorant man, and so. . . less—read. . . uh, learn?. . . and so—follow city charter and codes!”
Father Steven Allen expressed hope that the board would not engage in hysterics: “I trust that all the decisions we make will be made based on good governance and rationality, and not on personal agendas, not on personal political ambitions and agendas [cue P. Swan chortling background noise].”
Proposed Revisions to the Bylaws
Board President Allen and Secretary Negus wrote the proposed bylaws in a subcommittee, and, with Toby the lawyer’s approval, brought them before the library board for consideration.
Karen objected to the rules on the ground that Allen delegated the preparation of board meeting agendas to the board president: “The presidential responsibilities are a little bit heavy-handed, and I looked over the Michigan Library Association manual, which does say the board should be careful to respect the management function of the library director. . . like the library director doing agendas and those kinds of things.”
Allen supported the bylaws that he wrote: “I do believe that the preparation of the agenda, as a part of the administration of the board, properly belongs to board officers.”
The new bylaws passed, Stockford, Allen, Paladino, Negus for; Karen against.
Jonesville Community Schools Bond Proposal
Remarkably, the off-year Jonesville Community Schools millage renewal failed by approximately 30 votes. See the comedic millage text below:
Shall Jonesville Community Schools, Hillsdale and Jackson Counties, Michigan, borrow the sum of not to exceed Eleven Million Six Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars ($11,625,000) and issue its general obligation unlimited tax bonds therefor, for the purpose of: remodeling, furnishing and refurnishing, and equipping and reequipping school buildings; acquiring and installing instructional technology and instructional technology equipment for school buildings; erecting and equipping a concession/restroom/team room building and a restroom/ticket booth building; and preparing, developing, remodeling, improving, and equipping athletic fields and facilities, a playground, and sites?
Take note, Hillsdale residents. The liberty-loving citizens of Jonesville freed themselves of 2.36 mills/year ($478/year for a $200,000 property). Still, insiders say that Jonesville schools will not crumble in the coming years. As of this vote, the bond is set to expire in 2030.
The 73rd Anniversary of the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Friday, November 10
The story of the doomed sailors and their ship—told primarily via the corny-but-lovable song—occupies a unique place in the imagination of any boy who grows up in Michigan,4 as does the mystery and wildness of Lake Superior.
Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams
The islands and bays are for sportsmen
And farther below, Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call, 'Gitche Gumee'
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early
Upcoming Events
Hillsdale Winter Market, begins Saturday, November 11
Romeo & Juliet at the Dawn, Saturday, November 11
Hillsdale Academy students’ final performance at 2:30. Reserve tickets here.
Homeless Task Force, Monday, November 13
County Commissioners, Tuesday, November 14
External Links
“My gut has never felt better.” A bunch of feds masquerading as Hillsdale students are participating in a local raw milk “cow-share” program. Beware!
“My teacher and now colleague Thomas G. West, the most careful and knowledgeable living scholar of the American Founding, once said in my hearing that ‘the founders were integralists.’ . . . In a clever bit of sleight-of-hand, modern leftists and their allies in the courts have elevated the most theologically radical of the founders into the spokesman for the founding’s teaching on religion. But in truth, in this respect (as in others), on the terms of Deneen’s own argument, the founders were anti-liberal.” Michael Anton reviews Patrick Deneen’s Regime Change. Another trio of feds. Beware!
“Crazy things never seem to happen to me, or in my vicinity. I’m always at a loss for stories from my personal experiences. If you want to guarantee that nothing really wild ever happens, just keep me around.” George Allen, Hillsdale’s Public Service Librarian. Another! . . . well, never mind.
“Ever since the pandemic, right-wing activists have poured energy and money into previously sleepy nonpartisan school board elections. But in a number of key races Tuesday, progressives prevailed, locking out conservative majorities and hampering their attempts to push school policies in a reactionary direction.” MSNBC. (See also coverage from the Washington Post.) The local conservative must ask himself, “to sleep or not to sleep; or, if I cannot sleep, to appear to be asleep?”
“In the end, pro-lifers don’t have a mere political problem or even, directly, a problem with the American people. We have a problem with the American way of life. That sounds like it’s making the problem bigger. And it is. But this way of life isn’t just a moral offense to the godly few. It’s also plainly unpleasant for the atomized many and unsustainable on the whole.” Michael Brendan Dougherty reflects on the most recent and surprising of pro-life failures.
“Nostalgia is the melancholy longing to be present in the place, whatever its defects, where we can proclaim with joy and satisfaction, “It is good that you exist!” It is piety under duress. As I sat by the backyard firepit with the children in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, I wished that other members of our family were also crowded around us. More difficult to explain, but no less real: I wanted the ground beneath our feet to be the sandy loam of Michigan and not the slick clay of Berwyn. I wanted the twilight to linger long past the children’s bedtime, as it does in the Michigan summer.” James Matthew Wilson.
“As a penalty imposed on the institution, the University football team must compete without its Head Football Coach for the games remaining in the 2023 regular-season, effective immediately.” The Big Ten suspends Jim Harbaugh.
“Whereas, Dana M. Nessel has failed to satisfy her duties and abused her position as Attorney General. She has failed to charge individuals responsible for submitting “clearly fraudulent” voter registration applications while simultaneously bringing felony charges against individuals who she has indicated do not have the requisite specific intent to have committed the crimes charged . . .” Republican representatives have introduced articles of impeachment against Michigan AG Dana Nessel.
“Election 2024 may be the first presidential election during which multiple authoritarian actors simultaneously attempt to interfere with and influence an election outcome. This report principally discusses Russia, Iran, and China, the three nation state actors whose cyber-enabled influence operations we most closely track throughout the year.” According to Microsoft, it will be necessary to fortify the 2024 election.
“Separately, a group has formed to urge retiring Republican Sen. Mitt Romney (R., Utah), also 76, and Manchin to run for president and vice president, respectively, as a unity ticket next year backed by No Labels.” The Wall Street Journal. Fortification underway.
“Male participants appear similar to female participants in their desire and likelihood to disclose positive information but are less likely than women to want to share negative information with others, and less likely to ultimately act on that desire.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
“I suspect the future belongs not to the sedate, polite mindset of logic and science to which Britain gave birth, and which by and large we still prefer, but the far more slippery, immanent, and enchanted one of millenarian religious narratives and wild forest beings.” Mary Harrington.
“I’m Amy Cooper, but you probably know me as ‘Central Park Karen.’ You may not know my name, but you probably know my story—or at least the two-minute version of the story that was broadcast all over the world without key facts or context.” Newsweek.
“We must realize that now is the time of defense, the time of the battle that determines the fate of the state and people, not the time of manipulations, which only Russia expects from Ukraine. I believe that now is not the right time for elections.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Metro Nashville police confirm seven officers have been placed on administrative assignment, as the department continues its active investigation into who leaked three pages from The Covenant School shooter’s writings.” WSMV.
“Daily marijuana use was associated with a 34% increased risk for heart failure within 4 years compared with nonuse, in new observational research.” Medscape.
“Pope Francis has relieved the Most Reverend Joseph E. Strickland from the pastoral governance of the Diocese of Tyler.” USCCB.
In his questioning of Mackie, Stuchell discovered that Mackie and the finance committee had come up with this 90% number in their own deliberations.
The city lawyer—who we will henceforth refer to as Toby (as in, Flenderson)—continued to use his legal counsel to subtly direct the council to his preferred outcome, that is, to letting Alden Global off the hook in this instance.
We will have Karen know that we at the HCR volunteer to write the minutes for library board meetings. Contrary to the opinions of some, we are totally non-partisan and our opinions are backed by the science.
Some people from Wisconsin, or—astonishingly—Minnesota, have tried to claim the song for themselves. But they are wrong to do so.
I realize you don’t like Swan, however she wasn’t wrong. See section 6.7(c) of the muni code.
https://library.municode.com/mi/hillsdale/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=PTICH_CH6THCOPRMIPODU_S6.7ORRUCO