THE LOCAL AREA WATCH

GENERAL GEORGE PLANS OFFENSIVE AGAINST TAXPAYERS WALLETS

General George a.k.a. G.R. Mayor Heartwell, with a wink and nod from City Manager Kurt Kimball, wants to raise your taxes to bail the city government out of its fiscal mess.  His big complaint is that the State of Michigan no longer subsidizes the city's budget.  True enough.  The taxes the state collected from us on the pretext that it would redistribute them to municipalities like River City now go to alleviate the state government of its own fiscal woes.  (But when the crunch came, did you really expect honor among thieves, folks?)

However, the primary services of the city were never dependent upon that annual subsidy from Michigan taxpayers, which mostly went to fatten executive staffs, bloat employee benefits, and pork up hand-outs to the most vocal and connected special interests.  Of course, now that the gravy train has stopped, the insiders still keep most of what they got during the city's go-go days.  Instead, Heartwell and Kimball have decided to hold the city's primary services hostage until the ordinary residents and workers of Grand Rapids cough up more taxes to them.

Meanwhile, City Commissioner Rick Tormala reminds us that in addition to leaving a lot of fat in the city budget, Heartwell and Kimball are still sitting on a big pile of cash and want to add more to the city's savings account.  Why?  Tormala hasn't offered an opinion, but the money has gotta come from somewhere to fund Heartwell's hippy-dippy fantasies of subsidizing corporations that fit into the environmentalist agenda of the Technology Sustainability Advisory Council.  In other words, Heartwell wants the residents, workers, and businesses that he doesn't care for (i.e, socially undesirable elements) to pay the way for the ones who conform to his progressive ideology.

Fortunately, Heartwellistas are hard to find, so I don't expect General George's revolucion to overtake River City anytime soon.  However, that doesn't mean he won't try to bank your tax dollars to build up a warchest in the meantime while trying to fill the gap by conning you into paying more taxes to cover primary services.  That's the real problem.  There is no need for new taxes while there remains fat to cut out of the budget and savings to spend.

ENCORE: HOW LEAN GOVERNMENT MEANS HIGHER TAXES

[NOTE:  On Saturday, General George a.k.a. Mayor Heartwell told us in his annual State of the City address how the new lean management of the city government justified a tax hike of $8.5 million a year upon the residents, workers, and property owners of Grand Rapids.  Back on October 24, 2005, I told you how the city government's purported commitment to lean management would mean higher taxes ... ]

A Public Pulse letter in the G.R. Press on Friday caught my eye.  Nancy Ayres, general manager of Clipper Belt Lacer and a member of The Right Place committee urged the denizens of River City to applaud the Grand Rapids City Commission for spending fifty grand on a consultant to instruct the bureaucrats of the city government in the ways of “lean management”.  (This is the same report that gained notoriety in the dispute over closing the restrooms at Aberdeen Park.)  Ms. Ayres reminds us that the principles of lean management have served business well.  So they have to the extent that lean management is nothing but the umpteenth repackaging by consultants of the old wisdom of waste not, want not – or in a word, efficiency.

Exactly why the City Commission needs to spend $50,000 in taxpayers’ money to be told that if the city government uses its resources more efficiently, it will need fewer resources to do the same job is beyond me.  Perhaps the consultant will advise the City Commission on specific changes to make the city government more efficient, although I would think that city employees would know better than an outside consultant as to how they could be more efficient in carrying out their work.  But there’s the rub, isn’t it?  A more efficient city employee is a more productive one.  Increased productivity means fewer people can do more work.  Because we don’t need any more government than we already have (and probably can do with a whole lot less), the bottom line to all of this is fewer city employees.  Little wonder they aren’t going to tell anyone how we can get by with fewer them on the city’s payroll.

So maybe we do need a consultant to tell us how we can reduce the biggest expense the city government has, its payroll.  Not according to Ms. Ayres.  Lean management properly implemented by the city government means staffs won’t have to be cut.  Really?  So how does the city government use lean management to cut costs?  By savings in the future, according to Ms. Ayres.  Hmm.  I think I begin to understand the value of this $50,000 report on lean management for the City Commission.  If it works like Ms. Ayres says it should, the City Commission won’t have to rile the primary constituency for more government, city employees, with lay-offs while mollifying the taxpayers with promises of a “lean” future that will hold present costs in check.  Then again, you’d think politicians wouldn’t need a consultant to instruct them in telling tall tales.

Now here’s the real deal with all of this lean management nonsense.  Businessmen have a built-in incentive to operate their companies efficiently.  If they don’t, they do not make money.  If they don’t long enough, they go broke.  Bureaucrats have no such incentive when running a government agency.  They take home no reward from running their departments in the black.  It’s just the opposite.  Their power comes from spending.  Spend more, more power.  So they spend this year’s budget completely to argue they need more for next year.  The deeper they run in the red, the more they show how urgent their need is for more money.  The only check on this native impulse of bureaucrats are our elected officials who vote on how much to spend and how much to tax.

That works so long as the elected officials will stand up to the bureaucrats.  Unfortunately, with a few exceptions, our City Commissioners are notoriously supine when it comes to the city staff.  They are happily led around by the nose by the staff and seldom challenge them in any serious way, especially their head honcho City Manager Kurt Kimball.  That’s why this $50,000 report on lean management appeals to the commissioners.  They can wave it around to show the taxpayers they’re doing something about the city’s budget crisis while giving the city staff a wink and nod to not even break a sweat over anyone losing his job.  In exchange the city manager will put together a citizen budget advisory panel as a Trojan horse provide political cover for the commissioners to raise taxes as way to balance the city’s books.  So, at the end of the day, the commissioners thump their chests on what a swell job they did, the city staff keeps their jobs without having to work any harder, and the taxpayers cough up more dough to hold the whole mess together until the next budget crisis.

Too cynical of a read, you think?  Well, folks, two weeks ago City Commissioner Rick Tormala was emphatic that he is against new taxes to cure the city’s budget woes.  Yet the very first public words to the G.R. Press from one of his picks to Kurt Kimball’s budget panel, K.C. Caliendo, were that it is a “no-brainer” that taxes will have to be raised.  It’s still the same ol’ game with the same ol’ result –- the taxpayer loses.

TAXPAYER-SUBSIDIZED AWARD FOR TAXPAYER-SUBSIDIZED BILLIONAIRE

On Friday the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (WWICS) announced that local kingpins Peter Secchia and Rich DeVos are recipients of this year's Woodrow Wilson Awards.  Secchia is receiving the award for public service in honor of his role as ambassador to Italy during the first Bush administration many moons ago.  DeVos is getting the nod for [ahem] corporate citizenship.

Yes, dear readers, I know your eyes are rolling at the idea of DeVos getting recognition as a model coporate citizen when he is the man who perverted the American dream into the Amway multi-level marketing scheme and never put a dime into any public project in River City unless there was business angle for either him or his late partner, but you need to understand the purpose of the Woodrow Wilson Awards.  It's a fundraising gimmick for the WWICS.

The WWICS is a creature of the federal government.  It was created in 1968 as a "living memorial" to the allegedly idealistic public policy-making of our 28th president, Woodrow Wilson.  (Funny how Wilson's implementation of racial segregation in federal employment is one of his "idealistic" policies that doesn't get much mention.)  Your federal tax dollars subsidize 45% of the center's budget.  The remainder has to come from donations.

So the fund-raising arm of the WWICS targets a community with a couple of bigwigs with plenty of deep-pocket friends and hangers-on to hand out the Woodrow Wilson Awards to those bigwigs at a benefit dinner.  This year the WWICS put River City in its sites to raise funds from Secchia, DeVos, and friends at a celebration on April 19th at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel.  In the recent past the WWICS targeted Portland, Oregon, and downriver Detroit in the same way.

All to what end?  Well, when was the last you heard of a policy paper from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars?  Hmm.  I'm sure what they do there is all too high-minded for working-stiff taxpayers like us to know about, let alone understand.  At least we can take comfort that the WWICS provides pleasant sinecures for distinguished ex-congressmen, like the current executive director, Lee Hamilton of Indiana.

NO ONE'S ANSWERING THE PHONE

My wife and I live in a house on Heritage Hill that we renovated a few years ago.  We topped off our project with a traditional staff-mounted flag on our front porch, where it is has flapped in the breeze ever since.  Well, until last week.  Someone stole our flag.

Nothing but an act of vandalism, of course.  While the flag was a high-quality nylon one, it's just not the sort of thing that has enough value to fence.  So profit couldn't have been the motive, just mindless destruction.  That is disturbing.  Theft is reprehensible, but I can understand it.  A thief expects to gain from his crime.  But vandalism?  It's nihilistic.

It's not useful to read too much into what happened.  After all, some idiot teenager more full of beer than commonsense is probably responsible.  Nevertheless, my wife that it made sense to inform the Grand Rapids Police Department of the incident in case it was part of a larger pattern of vandalism in the area -- for example, the recent vandalism of churches on the north end.  Four times during the past week my wife phoned the non-emergency number for the GRPD, letting it ring for up to fifteen minutes at a time, and no answer.

City Manager Kurt Kimball and the Grand Rapids City Commission can squawk about the city government's budget crunch all they want, but so long as they have money to subsidize the hotel projects of local billionaires, let top city officials double-dip by drawing a full salary and full pension simultaneously, and staff Kimball's office with highly-paid assistants -- the city has enough money to spend on public safety.  At least enough to answer the phones.

L.A.W. UPDATE

Many of you contacted us yesterday to report that Local Area Watch website was unaccessible.  The glitch has been eliminated, and we appreciate the reports of problems like that.

Also, some readers have been concerned about the lack of daily articles.  Be assured that we are still going full bore here, and that the level of articles will increase again.  We are a small organization, and periodically we need to devote all of our time to other matters.  One big thing is the FOIA lawsuit we filed against the City of Grand Rapids to obtain the release of documents related to a possible property tax fraud.  The judge has asked us and the City to file briefs so that he can make a final decision.  So that has taken quite a bit of our time.

Another thing is our investigation of the Kent County chief medical examiner's conflict of interest and possible misfeasance by his private medical firm as a result.  This is a serious problem caused in no small part by the way the Kent County Board of Commissioner outsources that top job.  You'll hear more from us on this as the story develops.

Finally, there are important developments in the Boardwalk hazardous waste dumping scandal and all its tentacles reaching into the MDEQ, the City government, Fifth Third Bank, big-name contractors, and the local bar.  Our exposure of the corruption behind the Boardwalk project helped to ratchet back an "Amway" culture for doing business in this town.  With luck we will be able to report in the near future how these recent developments have resolved this scandal.

Meanwhile, keep checking here, and don't forget our excellent archive of past articles you might have missed.

CONGRATULATIONS TO MELVIN "SUGAR" MCLAUGHLIN

Your Executive Director would like to give a thumb's up to his old classmate, Melvin "Sugar" McLaughlin.  Melvin is well-remembered in town as a basketball star for Creston High School and Central Michigan University.  Today he is still in the game as a volunteer assistant coach at Creston.  This evening Creston is holding a ceremony to retire No. 15, Melvin's jersey number.  It is a long overdue honor.

I attended school and graduated with Melvin.  Unlike him, I wasn't much of an athlete.  But with his friendly encouragement to excel, even I of all people managed to letter at Creston.  So, congratulations, Melvin.  Plus the staff of the Local Area Watch also wish you a swift recovery on your knee surgery.

KENT COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINER COMPROMISED

Over the past few months, we have received information from three different local families that reveal a conflict of interest involving the Chief Medical Examiner of Kent County, Dr. Stephen D. Cohle.  You may have heard of the name.  Cohle is a bit of media hound.  Last year the Grand Rapids Press ran a feature story on the man in which the good doctor bragged about the emotional boost his new Porsche gave him after his recent divorce.  Unfortunately, the issue at hand is not the trivial matter of Cohle’s personal priorities.

Each family has reported to us a similar story:  A close relative died while in the care of a Spectrum Health Corporation facility under suspicious circumstances.  The grieving family ordered a private independent autopsy from Laboratory Pathologists P.C. for $2,500.  The findings of the autopsy from Laboratory Pathologists exonerated Spectrum Health of any wrongdoing.  However, upon closer examination the autopsy was incomplete and failed to meet professional standards.

Come to find out, Laboratory Pathologists is not independent at all.  It has a big contract with Spectrum Health to provide its network with pathology services.  Moreover, nine of the thirteen physicians who own Laboratory Pathologists are on the staff of Spectrum Health.  In fact, one of the owners is a Spectrum Health medical director and two others are associate medical directors.  Obviously, Laboratory Pathologists know which side of its bread is buttered, and it isn’t the side providing purportedly independent autopsies to the families.

Of course, the families cheated by Laboratory Pathologists have recourse to the government right?  The Kent County medical examiner can and should investigate suspicious deaths, right?  You would think so, but think again when the county’s chief medical examiner is an owner and an officer of Laboratory Pathologists.  That’s right, folks.  Cohle, our chief medical examiner, owns and operates Laboratory Pathologists.  In fact, Cohle provides his services to Kent County through Laboratory Pathologists.  So, the chief medical examiner, unlike the chief prosecutor or the police chief or the fire chief, is not full-time government official but a part-time private freelancer.  The bottom line is that Cohle earns a substantial portion of his income from Spectrum Health, so he cannot make any disinterested judgment as to whether or not a death in a Spectrum Health facility is suspicious and merits the attention of the county’s medical examiner office.

The Kent County Board of Commissioners is well aware of this conflict of interest.  They have been advised of the actual problems that have arisen from this conflict and the distress it has caused at least three local families.  Yet they have done nothing about it.  This conflict is unacceptable.  We would not put up with a county prosecutor who was also a partner in a law firm providing criminal defense services.  Why is it OK to have a medical examiner who is a hireling of the local healthcare behemoth where legitimate questions routinely arise as to its culpability for deaths occurring in its facilities?  It’s not.  We are entitled to have all of our principal public safety officers serve as disinterested public servants whose judgments are not compromised by private business deals.

Give your support to these local families who got no justice from Cohle and his company.  Demand that the Kent County Board of Commissioners hire a chief medical examiner who works only for us.

NOTE:  Also read about other developments, how Spectrum cowed the reporting of WXYZ-TV news and how the City of Grand Rapids erased the record of this issue from the City Commission minutes, here and here.

BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN

Editor Bridget and yours truly, the Executive Director, will be back from our holiday hiatus on Monday, January 9th.  We will have an interesting story for you about the Kent County Medical Examiner.