THE LOCAL AREA WATCH

LOCAL CLINICS NOT AVAILABLE TO CATHERINE'S CARE PATIENTS

Last month Saint Mary's hospital announced that it will no longer support Catherine's Care Center.  The reason for this decision has not been made clear; however Saint Mary's assured everyone that this present no problem for the Care Center's 2,500 patients (mostly indigent or uninsured), because other nearby clinics can pick up the slack.  The Wege and Belknap Commons Health Centers were prominently mentioned in this regard.  A survey of community healthcare clinics in the area by L.A.W. does not support Saint Mary's contentions.

L.A.W. contacted nine clinics in the Grand Rapids area which are identified as healthcare facilities available to the general public and the underserved in particular.  Our survey excluded those clinics which have a narrowly targeted clientele, such as Clinica Santa Maria serving Hispanics or the McAuley Center treating HIV/AIDS patients.  The survey group consisted of Catherine's Care Center at 224 Carrier Street, N.E., in Grand Rapids; Belknap Commons Health Center at 751 Lafayette Avenue, N.E.; Wege Health Center at Saint Mary's Hospital at 300 Lafayette Avenue, S.E.; Cherry Street Health Center at 550 Cherry Street, S.E.; Ferguson Adult Health Center at 75 Sheldon Avenue, S.E.; Burton Health Center at 2133 Buchanan Avenue, S.W.; Salvation Army Booth Clinic at 1215 E. Fulton Street; Westside Health Center at 669 Stocking Avenue, N.W.; and Sparta Health Center at 475 S. State Street in Sparta.

We asked each clinic if an appointment was available within the week to see a doctor about a "female" infection.  Each clinic was informed that the patient was uninsured and had little or no means to pay for any care.  The results were as follows:

[1] Catherine's Care Center could see the patient within 48 hours.  Payment, if any, would be on a sliding scale based upon income.  The same for lab work, some of which is done in-house.  Financial assistance could also be provided for prescription medicines, including distribution of free samples.

[2] Belknap Commons Health Center was not taking any new patients.  The soonest that might change is in August.  They refered the patient to Cherry Street Health Center.

[3] Wege Health Center was welcoming until the receptionist learned our patient was uninsured and passed her off to another person.  Wege had no immediate appointments available but could see the patient in July.  However, the patient would have to pay for the visit ($79) and lab work (extra) with insurance or cash.  No financial help was available for prescription medicines.

[4] Cherry Street Health Center (which is affiliated with Belknap Commons) had appointments available within the week.  The clinic required a $15 payment to see either a doctor or nurse, which included lab work if done in-house.  If the patient met the income requirements, Cherry Street might also be able to help with free samples of prescription medicines if available.

[5] Ferguson Adult Health Center had appointments available within the week if the patient was willing to see a male doctor.  A female doctor would be available during the following week.  Payment for the office visit would be determined on sliding scale of fees based upon income.  No specific cost was given.  The same sliding scale applied to lab work also.  Prescription medicines were not included in this, but Ferguson would try to help the patient get into a PAP plan if long-term medication were needed.

[6] Burton Health Center did not have any openings for adult patients at this time; perhaps later this year.  They recommended the patient to Cherry Street Health Center.

[7] Salvation Army Booth Clinic was able to see the patient within the week, although that would not always be the case because of varying patient load.  They refered the patient to Planned Parenthood for her problem if she could not wait.  The Booth Clinic, like Ferguson, charged on a sliding scale based upon income for office visits.  No information on financial assistance for lab work and prescription medicines.

[8] Westside Health Center could probably see the patient within the week.  Payment similar to Ferguson; a sliding scale fee for office visits and lab work, and help with a PAP plan for prescription medications.

[9] Sparta Health Center might be able to the see the patient the same day.  Payment for office visits and lab work on a sliding scale based upon income, plus they would assist the patient with enrolling in the Kent County Health Insurance Program.  No information regarding financial assistance for prescription medicines.

In summary, three of the eight alternatives to Catherine's Care Center were not taking new patients (Belknap Commons, Wege, Burton).  Of the remainder, only Sparta Health Center could see the patient as soon as Catherine's Care Center.  As for payment, only the Sparta Health Center was as accommodating as Catherine's Care Center to our uninsured patient, although Saint Mary's Wege Health Center was the only one unwilling to provide any financial assistance.

In our assessment the Sparta Health Center compared well with Catherine's Care Center.  However, Sparta's primary mission is caring for migrant farmers and is located more than twenty minutes (by car) from downtown.  If a patient has some ability to pay, the nearby Cherry Street Health Center, Booth Clinic, and Ferguson Adult Health Center provide an alternative to Catherine's Care Center.  But, it looks doubtful that these clinics could absorb the Care Center's unique clientele of 2,500 mostly uninsured patients -- not to mention the few thousand other people in Northeast G.R. that Catherine's Care assists through its outreach programs.

The bottom line of our survey is that all of these clinics have their place in the local healthcare system, and none of them are poised to replicate the role Catherine's Care Center plays in our community.

THE BLACKBALLED REQUEST

Below is the text of the Freedom of Information Act request L.A.W.'s office manager Mary Hines, my brother Brian Tingley, and I separately made to the City of Grand Rapids.  I invite our readers to send in the same request to see if the City will also refuse to release the documents to you on the basis of some tenuous connection with me.  If prominent developers in River City made false statement to City officials to improperly reduce their tax assessment, we are entitled to know that information.  It's time for the City to stop blackballing the following request:

[your name & return address]

[date]

Grand Rapids City Attorney’s Office

Office of FOIA Coordinator

300 Monroe Avenue, N.W.

Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503

Re: Freedom of Information Act request

Dear Sirs:

I request a copy of certain public records pertaining to the property located at the 900-1100 block of Monroe Avenue N.W., commonly known as “The Boardwalk” including:

1. The building permit submitted by Pioneer Inc. for the main building representing the cost of improvements as “$150,000,000” [sic] and for the parking ramp representing the cost of improvements as “$5,000,000”;

2. A letter and all attachments from Thomas E. Beckering to the City of Grand Rapids, dated about February 2001, representing the actual cost of the Boardwalk project as $31.5 million;

3. A letter and all attachments from the developer of the Boardwalk to the City of Grand Rapids representing the actual cost of the project as $20 million (this is the letter City Assessor Glen Beekman identified in an e-mail message to City Manager Kurt Kimball on April 28, 2005, at 4:28 p.m.);

4. All other records that the developers or contractors of the Boardwalk project submitted to the City of Grand Rapids as proof of the project’s cost.

I make this request under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act, Public Act 442 of 1976. I do not wish to inspect these records first, so please send copies to my mailing address at the top of this letter. For purposes of determining the applicability of any fees, you should know that I am not seeking information for a commercial use. Specifically I am asking for these records for the purpose of making them public, therefore under City policy no fee would be appropriate. If you conclude that a fee is applicable, please inform me first.

Sincerely,

[your name]

Good luck!

CITY REFUSES TO DISCLOSE BOARDWALK DOCUMENTS

About an hour ago the Grand Rapids City FOIA appeals committee rubberstamped "Shredder" Ophoff's denial of our requests for public records related to the valuation and subsequent tax assessment of the Boardwalk property located north of downtown on Monroe Avenue.  So those records, for now, remain under lock and key (assuming the Shredder hasn't come up with a pretext for destroying them yet).

From our readers we learned of the existence of a letter from the Boardwalk developers to the City stating that they had invested only $20 million in the property.  Apparently this figure was used to justify a low tax assessment of the Boardwalk.  However, that figure contradicts the $30-35 million the Boardwalk developers had told its lenders they had invested in order to support a $26.5 million in loans against the property.  On the one hand the Boardwalk developers gave the City a low-ball figure to get a cheap assessment and on the other they gave the banks a big figure to maximize the amount they could borrow.

If the Boardwalk developers lied to the City, then they cheated to get a 50% reduction in their tax assessment.  If they lied to the banks, then that would appear to be bank fraud.  If, if, if ... we needed the facts.  So we made requests of the City to get the relevant public records.  On behalf of the City, "Shredder" Ophoff refused.  We made appeals to the City Commission.  Today the City Commission subcommittee in charge of FOIA appeals met and told us to take a hike.

General George, a.k.a. Mayor Heartwell, took command of the situation even though Commissioner Jendrasiak was nominally the committee chairman.  The General gave voice only to the Shredder's arguments for denial and invited him to speak to that end.  Of course, the Shredder made all the necessary noises, and I, as one of the appellants, was not permitted to address the committee to counter his nonsense.  The General then struck a deliberative pose and declared, by gosh, we need to deny the release of these documents.  Jendrasiak and Commissioner Dean, the third member of the committee, fell into line and agreed.  In short, the City's FOIA appeals process is a joke.

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly and completely our elected officials forget that they do not represent the City, they represent us.  Even if Heartwell, Jendrasiak, and Dean sincerely thought Ophoff had the legal basis to deny disclosure of the requested documents, they had the authority to release in the name of the public good.  But no.  They closed ranks to protect the City staff and the stink emanating from the conflicting values placed upon the Boardwalk property by its owners.

So the herd instinct of the Grand Rapids City Commission is alive and well, which explains the mooing you thought you heard at City Hall.

MONDAY MUSINGS

This and that on a Monday ...

[1] The Pistons are in the NBA championship series.  That's certainly front-page news -- in the sports section!  However, in its relentless quest to make the news marshmallow soft, the Grand Rapids Press has taken to reporting each blow-by-blow of the Pistons tussle with the Spurs on Page One.  Let's consider this for a moment.  What must the Press think of us when it headlines huggable news instead of hard news on its front page?

[2] Guv Jen, statehouse Republicans, the Grand Rapids Press, Dr. Luis Tomatis, Peter Secchia, and all the players downtown have drilled into us that bio-tech is our future.  Who can argue?  Bio-tech is hardcore science and technology, and there the path to progress always lies.  (Yes, that's a none-too-subtle pun.)  Leading the bandwagon is River City's premier hi-tech organization, the Van Andel Institute.  A curious thing about that.  This paean to science was the late Amway-founder Jay Van Andel's favorite project.  But how soon we forget Jay's second favorite fancy -- a creationism center in Arizona.  To think the foundation for River City's bright and shiny bio-tech hi-tech future was laid by a fella who wanted to prove the Earth was created in 4004 B.C. and men walked with dinosaurs.

[3] Conflict of interest alert:  The other Amway founder, Rich DeVos, has partnered up with old friends to build a series of medical towers across the street from Spectrum Health's main campus.  Spectrum will be an anchor tenant in these new buildings, yet Spectrum CEO Richard Breon told us a couple of weeks ago that the hospital needs to jack up rates by 8% next month to help purchase new buildings.  So if we all have to pay more because Spectrum needs to buy buildings, why does Spectrum also need to plan on renting buildings from DeVos?  No doubt Spectrum's board has approved all of this with good reason.  After all, the board is fortunate enough to have DeVos as a member who can give them all the good reasons they need to rubberstamp these plans.

[4] The City Attorney's office is batting for the Boardwalk polluters again.  Last week Assistant City Attorneys Daniel Ophoff and Catherine Mish filed an appeal with the Michigan Supreme Court asking it to dismiss the Toxic Towers hazardous waste complaint against the City and the Boardwalk developers.  It's a "Hail Mary" pass that none of the other defendants in the case could justify spending any money to make.  However, the City Attorney's office has you the taxpayers to cover the cost, so Ophoff and Mish are making this snowball's-chance-in-hell appeal, which, if on the slight chance it succeeds, benefits all of the defendants.  Shamelessly the City continues to use your tax dollars to help protect these polluters.

LOST CAUSE

At the June 10th annual meeting of the Monroe North Business Association, developer Jack Buchanan of Blue Bridge Ventures pitched a plan to demolish the Western American Mailer and GR Spring industrial facilities for a "mixed-use" development of those properties.  Lunch buckets are out and suits & ties are in, as he announced that the Monroe North district is no longer suitable for an industrial park.  What a shame.

Monroe North was ideally suited for redevelopment as a city center industrial park in the wake of Autodie's collapse into bankruptcy twelve years ago.  In the heart of River City it had all the infrastructure modern manufacturing required including a railroad spur right through the middle of it, yet it had the unique quality of being surrounded by buffers to keep it separate from the residential and business districts around it:  To the west was the Grand River, to the east Lookout Hill, to south the I-196 freeway, and to the north Leonard Street.

Monroe North was an opportunity for Grand Rapids to show how a rust-belt city could successfully integrate manufacturing into its very core on the brink of the 21st century.  Regardless of the century and the promises of this or that neat idea for the future, a city needs a strong job and tax base to prosper.  That is what manufacturing provides.

Instead Grand Rapids city planners continued their blinkered campaign to drive manufacturing out of the city and into the suburban greenspaces surrounding it.  They became enamored with the idea that Monroe North should be converted into a mixed-use zone in which offices, apartments, and factories would happily jostle up against one another.  Of course, that sounds like precisely the opposite of zoning, which is intended to keep incompatible uses apart from each other.  However, even if a mixed-use zone abandons the very rationale for zoning, it does allow city planners to control the plan for the zone.

That control was important, because then-mayor Boss Logie and his business clients had plans for Monroe North as early as 1992 for a new satellite campus for Butterworth Hospital (now Spectrum Health), educational and research facilities along the lines of the Van Andel Institute, and all the latte-sipping amenities and loft apartments that appeal to the non-profit crowd.  To that end the City wrangled millions of state and federal tax dollars to prettify the district on the false promise that there was nearly $300 million in private investment ready to be poured into Monroe North.  To help justify that figure, the City initially booked the Boardwalk project as a $150 million investment.  (That's now down to $20 million and the subject of the current FOIA fight with the City.)

However, Logie's agenda collided with a development plan promoted by Proto-CAM Inc., a manufacturing company (owned by my family) located in the heart of Monroe North.  Proto-CAM put together a plan backed by venture capital from Chicago and elsewhere to redevelop the district as an industrial park based upon its Datafacturing® technology which creates good-paying jobs for low- or no-skill core city residents.  The plan also called for a charter vocational high school to be located in the district.  To kickstart its plan, Proto-CAM filed a request with the City Planning Department in 1996 to convene a hearing before the Grand Rapids Planning Commission to clean up the industrial zoning of Monroe North that had been sliced and diced to accommodate Logie's agenda.

And that's where the industrial resurrection of River City got strangled in the cradle.  Proto-CAM's re-zoning application simply disappeared into the bowels of City Hall, exposing the company's utter lack of political clout.  Unsurprisingly the venture capital behind the plan then also disappeared because Proto-CAM's owners were unwilling to launch a Datafacturing industrial park elsewhere.  However, the conflict did expose the machinations by Boss Logie's camp and so their big vision for Monroe North didn't come to pass either.

Now neither fish nor fowl the redevelopment of Monroe North drifted.  Because River City had made itself unattractive to manufacturing, by default Monroe North fell towards commercial and residential redevelopment to the point where, as Buchanan announced, an industrial park is no longer in the cards.  But worry not, folks!  The politicians, the bureaucrats, and the Van Andel panhandlers will make good on this lost opportunity for Grand Rapids with the bright shiny future of bio-tech -- if we agree to fork over to them a billion bucks or two.

SHREDDER OPHOFF TO DEFEND FOIA DENIALS

Assistant City Attorney Daniel Ophoff, the City's FOIA coordinator who notoriously destroyed the minutes of closed sessions of the Grand Rapids City Commission to prevent them from being disclosed, will appear before the City's Committee on Freedom of Information Act Appeals on Tuesday, June 21st.  "Shredder" Ophoff is being called by the committee to defend his decision to deny three separate FOIA requests for the disclosure of documents concerning the value of the Boardwalk apartment-office complex, a.k.a. Toxic Towers, located at 940 Monroe Avenue N.W.  (Click here for the background on this issue.)

The three FOIA appeals were filed by me, your executive director; Mary Hines, L.A.W.'s office manager; and Brian Tingley, a person we are associated with for reasons beyond our control.  Ms. Hines and I will also be appearing before the committee to state our reasons for appeal and answer questions.  Sitting on the FOIA appeals committee are Mayor Heartwell and City Commissioners Dean and Jendrasiak.  The hearing is at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday and open to the public in Room 601 of City Hall.

TSUNAMI RISING

Grand Rapids Community College is raiding its piggy bank to cover a huge increase in health insurance and retirement benefits for its employees.  They are expected to jump by fifteen percent or more next year.  Robert Partridge, GRCC's CFO announced that the college will be looting three separate funds to cover these employee benefits.  He expect to withdraw $734,000 from savings, $500,000 from the reserve fund, and $234,000 from a fringe benefit stabilization fund.

That's a hoot.  Interesting how what were long ago termed "fringe" benefits has transmogrified into a financial tsunami of health and retirement liabilities that could wash away the college and other government institutions in the grip of public employee unions demanding 100% subsidized healthcare and defined benefit pension plans.  Indeed, Partridge forecasts that GRCC will be underwater by $15.7 million come 2010 if the trend continues.

I wonder what River Rat Gary Schenk, a member of GRCC's board, thinks about this mess.  I doubt the same tricks he has used to get his client Dykema Excavators off the hook with the Department of Environmental Quality will work to spare the college of the folly of its antiquated budget-busting employee benefit policy.  Too many people will be watching.  Then again maybe he won't be around when the tsunami crashes over GRCC.  After all, who are the first to leave a sinking ship?

SPEED CRATERS REDUX

We had thought all those gaping holes in our streets were "speed craters", a clever plan by the City to slow down speeding traffic.  We now learn from a report put out by The Road Information Program, or TRIP, that those holes are in fact evidence of deteriorated streets in immediate need of repair.  According to the TRIP report, nearly one-third of Grand Rapids streets are in poor condition and another quarter in mediocre condition.

Only the streets of perennial basketcase Detroit were in worse shape among Michigan cities.  The TRIP report calculates that bad streets in Grand Rapids nick the average motorist nearly $400 a year in extra repair, fuel, and tire costs.  So not only are your tax dollars not buying you the basic infrastructure you expect from the City, the City's misfeasance depletes your wallet even further.

This is what happens when the City officials forget why we have a city in the first place.  We don't need a bloated City Manager's staff with fat salaries; we need streets in decent repair.  For more information on the TRIP report, go to www.tripnet.org.

RECTIFYING THE RECORD RE RICK

Second Ward Commissioner Rick Tormala complained to me this weekend that L.A.W. has mischaracterized his record with the Grand Rapids City Commission in the article I wrote last week concerning Third Ward Commissioner James White's hue and cry on the City government's impending financial meltdown.  Tormala states that he has been a fiscal hawk and doesn't deserve blame for the current crisis.

Is the good commissioner's complaint valid?  If I didn't make my point clear enough in the original article on White's warning, let me do so now.  The problem was that Tormala's response to White's charge that the receivership is immiment for the City gave the appearance of complacency in the face of the worst financial crisis this town has ever encountered.  Tough action is needed, and it is not enough to point the blame at the end of revenue-sharing -- i.e., the City government getting a share of state and federal tax dollars -- which Tormala is adamant about.

While that was the subtext of my criticism of Tormala (and First Ward Commissioner James Jendrasiak) in the original article, it was not clear even when reading between the lines.  Furthermore, there is now a question as to the sincerity of White's dire public pronouncement that the sky is falling:  Is he trying to get his fellow commissioners to buy his silence in exchange for re-directing tax dollars to the Third Ward?  Finally, Tormala has been critical of City spending priorities and fat management salaries and has voted against the budget.  That's good.  Let's hope he starts targeting the City employee pension tsunami ready to engulf us.

So, all in all, we think Tormala's complaint has merit.

However, it's good to keep in mind that we're not only critical of Tormala.  We have also given him credit where credit is due.  For example, we've noted Tormala for criticizing the charade City Manager Kurt Kimball put together to solicit public comment on spending priorities; denouncing Mayor Heartwell's new subcommittees that do an end-run around the Open Meetings Act; taking the City Attorney's office to task for being quick to settle instead of trying frivolous lawsuits; and most recently intervening to end Assistant City Attorney Daniel Ophoff's leadership of the defense of the Toxic Towers developers.

And we'll also give Tormala a thumb's up for not accepting as final Ophoff's half-assed investigation of financial improprieties involving the Grand Rapids public museum (f.k.a., the Van Andel Museum Center).

Now let's see if Commissioner Tormala will get serious about getting the City Attorney's Office to quit its suicide pact with the Toxic Towers developers in the hazardous waste complaint currently pending in Kent County Circuit Court.  If the City gets tagged with helping the developers to deliberately violate Michigan environmental law and expose hundreds of people to poisonous concentrations of toxic chemicals, the potential fines could bankrupt it.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

A recent survey shows that Michigan public school teachers spend on average $466 a year from their own personal funds on books and supplies they need in the classroom.  Reaction to this fact from the usual suspects suggests that this is a bad thing.  It's not.

Margaret Trimer-Hartley, spokesman for the Michigan Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, complains, "Professionals ought to be given the tools to do their jobs and not be expected to dip into their own pockets for such basics."  Rhetorically she asked, "Are we asking lawyers and accountants and other professionals to provide their own paper and pencils and typewriters?"

Well, yes, Margaret, we do expect these professionals to provide for themselves those things.  Just like we expect carpenters to own their hammers, machinists their micrometers, and plumbers their wrenches.  The taxpayers of Michigan are not stingy in the salaries and benefits they pay public school teachers.  So it's not unreasonable for them to do the same as the rest of us and pay for at least some of the tools of their trade.