THE LOCAL AREA WATCH

SEX AND THE CITY

Yesterday the Grand Rapids City Commission passed the new adult entertainment ordinance outlawing nude dancing at strip clubs along with a host of other restrictions that will surely render these fine establishments pointless to their clientele.  The lone dissent was Second Ward City Commissioner Rick Tormala, who objected to the City getting mired into another Velvet Touch fiasco.  Mayor George Heartwell, moralizer-in-chief, disingenuously explained that the ordinance was vital not for moral reasons but as a public health measure.

In fact, for the past two years Heartwell has been pressured by neighborhood activist Judy Rose who has vociferously opposed the opening of Mark London's new all-nude strip joint on Market Avenue in the southwest corner of downtown.  (Not incidentally, right smack in the middle of the "Mystery Development".)  In response to one of Rose's letters to him, Heartwell copied it to the City Attorney's office with plea to find out a way to appease her.  The result was the new ordinance crafted and advocated by a lawyer out of Tennessee, who just happened to be the very same outside counsel for the City in the Velvet Touch litigation that the City lost and cost the taxpayers more than a quarter million dollars in attorney fees and other expenses.

Looks like the man from Tennessee has got himself a new gig, because London and the owners of the Parkway Tropics and the Red Barn have vowed to file suit against the City's enforcement of the new ordinance, provoking the costly legal battle that Tormala wanted to avoid.  Of course, Heartwell and the others will argue that they anticipated this and so got a financial commitment from activist Rose to fund the City's defense of the new ordinance.  Indeed, Rose claims to have a secret group of backers who have pledged $100,000 to cover the costs of the City Attorney's office.  For anyone who has any sense of what properly constitutes democratic governance, this is all very troubling.

First of all, there is problem of the pledge itself.  There is no contractual obligation for Rose or her group to provide any funds to cover the City's costs.  This has been confirmed by a FOIA request we made to the City, which Assistant City Attorney Catherine Mish answered by certifying that no such contract exists.  So there is no enforceable commitment by anyone to defray the costs the taxpayers will have to bear for this boondoggle.

Second, even if we trust Rose to produce the funds she collects, where are they?  What assurance do the taxpayers have that they exist?  The only cash in hand Rose admits to having is about $1,000.  The rest are pledges from a secret list of businessmen.  No one in the City has this list, which again was confirmed by our recent FOIA request.  The only thing we know is that City Attorney Phil Balkema claims to have seen Rose's list, but he is committed to not disclosing what he saw.  Just who the hell is Balkema working for?  Rose or the taxpayers?

Which brings us to the final point:  The blithe disregard our elected officials have for, what is in effect, the purchase by a secret group of private citizens of the city government's legal standing to pursue their agenda in court.  Assume that the money Rose says is pledged to the cause of shutting down London and his ilk will be produced to pay for the City's litigation costs.  Why are Heartwell and five city commissioners ready to sell her the City Attorney's office?  If Rose and her cohorts can buy the City's lawyers to do their bidding, where does it stop?

It is lethal to democratic governance to permit the sale the City's sovereignty to anyone with the bucks to employ it to his private ends.  The authority of the City government exists to serve the general public interest, not that of any particular private party.  If the City cannot afford to defend a controversial ordinance that a vocal element of the public wants, then it should not pass the ordinance, period.  Taking money from the proponents of the ordinance to overcome that problem is to post a for-sale sign on lawmaking.  Shame on Heartwell and his allies who passed the new adult entertainment ordinance.

THIRTY-SIX BUCKS

Grand Rapids City Manager Kurt Kimball released the annual budget for the city government yesterday.  He told the Grand Rapids Press it was a "tortuous process" eliminating dozens of city hall office jobs including twelve assistant city managers.  (Twelve!  Why did we ever need so many?)  It is interesting that Kimball said the process was "tortuous" which means "marked by devious or indirect tactics" as opposed to "torturous" which means "painfully difficult or slow".  I wonder what trickery might be involved in this new budget.

For one thing is Kimball's great howls of distress over a budget deficit that is actually quite small.  Relying upon the figures printed in the Press, the general fund budget (which isn't all that the city government spends, but accounts for most its operations) for the next year is set at $118 million.  The budget shortfall will be $3.2 million.  That's it.  A 2.5% across the board cut in the general fund expenditures would balance the budget.  But that will never happen, because that would mean taking a slice out of the 800-pound gorilla of city expenditures, the salary and benefits of city employees.

That's where most of your city tax dollars go, folks.  As a result the average annual salary and benefit package for a city employee is $81,552.  Not bad for government work.  After Kimball reduces the city staff by a net total of 43, there will still be 1,690 city employees.  If, instead of the taxpayers and residents of Grand Rapids receiving fewer services and paying higher user fees, city employees bore the brunt of the $3.2 million budget shortfall, then the cost to each one of them would be only $36 a week.

Is that so much to ask of public servants who, on average, are more highly compensated than the people who are paying their salaries?  Of course not.  But then City Manager Kimball works them, not you.  So don't expect him to put the public interest ahead of their pecuniary interest.

THE CHIRPING OF CRICKETS

It's so quiet you can hear the chirping of crickets.

A reader wrote to us remarking upon the silence of the local media since the Mystery Development became not so mysterious.  Indeed, we now know that Duane Faust's River Grand project for the southwest corner of downtown G.R. was in fact a plan to gain control property that could then be flipped to developers with the real cash and means to remake that part of town into a residential-commercial complex.  So much for the knee-jerk boosterism of the local media.

Well, of course, the Mystery Development was a genuine story to be reported by the Grand Rapids Press, the Business Journal, and the local news shows.  But where was the clarity that comes of skepticism?  Remember the tales of the billions to be invested and 10,000 new jobs that would result?  Or how Grand Rapids was to become the new music recording mecca of the Midwest?  Where was the gimlet eye of business reporting that pierced through the P.R. and the hype?  Where was the number-crunching to show how much financial sense the Mystery Development made?  Where was the serious analysis of the impact upon G.R. taxpayers if the City Island was sold?

Yes, there was some good reporting that touched upon some of these topics, but nothing in depth.  And now no follow-ups.  Yet there remain questions about Mayor Heartwell's commitment of his public office to Faust's project while keeping the nature of that commitment secret.  The same with public employees City Manager Kimball and Deputy City Manager Delonge.  What public policies have been affected as a consequence of the secrets these public officials have kept from us?

This tale merits a solid review by the local media, including their own role in it.

THE AMWAY PROMISE

Amway co-founder Rich DeVos addressed the Grand Rapids Economic Club on Monday and said, "If it's free, it's not worth much."  That quip was in reference to the Kalamazoo Promise, a charitable program bankrolled by an anonymous benefactor providing college scholarships to graduates of Kalamazoo public schools.  Since the advent of that remarkable program, there has been a great deal of curiosity as to why our local tycoons, namely the DeVos and Van Andel families of Amway fame, aren't doing something similar.

After all, if Forbes Magazine estimated correctly just DeVos's fortune, he is netting $8 million a week.  That's a heckuva lot of dough, folks.  With just one week's cash, DeVos could put 200 kids through college.  A couple of months' cash takes care of all the seniors in the G.R. public school system, still leaving DeVos about $300 million in new cash to roll around in every year.  Of course, the real question is whether that Amway fortune is a growing pile of cash or the smoke-and-mirrors of P.R. flacks.  If it's the latter, then we know why the DeVoses and the Van Andels will never sponsor a Grand Rapids Promise.  They can't.

But, of course, the success of the Amway (now Quixtar) scheme is the illusion of great riches that can be had by selling their soap and vitamins and other stuff.  That illusion isn't going to be too convincing if the owners of Amway do not appear to be fabulously wealthy themselves.  The DeVoses and the Van Andels have put on a good show in that regard, until it comes to the point of "show me the money!"  Where is it?

What happened the Van Andel Foundation that supported the Van Andel Institute?  Where is the commitment from the Van Andel children to replace the missing foundation funds with the purported fortune they inherited from their father?  Why do the Amway billionaires need taxpayer subsidies for their business ventures?  Why does DeVos have his share the Orlando Magic in hock to the banks for a quarter billion dollars?  Why did he have to sell the debt-encumbered Plaza Towers building for chump change?  Why does every public project the DeVoses and Van Andels donate money to end up streaming out cash back them?

And, of course, why does DeVos tell the Economic Club that the Kalamazoo Promise is a worthless program?  Why does he make the sour joke that kids trapped in wretched urban school districts can earn millions by skipping college and playing NBA basketball?  All of these things point to the conclusion that the DeVoses and the Van Andels only pretend to be billionaires, because that hype is critical to sustaining the Amway/Quixtar deception that selling their soap is the path to fame and fortune.  Actually, the real Amway Promise is that they'll suck you dry while they dazzle you with the illusion of wealth.

Having run out of marks in the private sector, the Amway clans are having success in re-jiggering their formula to extract cash from taxpayers and charitable donors.  It's you, folks, who need to pony up to them.  It you who must provide the tax subsidies (new hotel downtown, medical complex on Michigan Street), business franchises (the Van Andel Arena, the DeVos Convention Center), the higher rates for health care (so Spectrum can do its part in subsidizing DeVos's new medical complex), and donations (to pay for the Van Andel Institute now starved of Van Andel family financial support).  So forget that nonsense about the DeVoses and Van Andels funding a Grand Rapids Promise.  You people just don't understand which direction the cash is supposed to flow in.

[NOTE:  I should make clear that I believe no businessman like DeVos is obligated to turn over one dime he earns to charity.  He owes you and me, as members of the public, nothing.  However, he and his Amway cohorts have opened the door to this scrutiny by putting themselves out as great public benefactors, while in fact reaping substantial benefits from the public.  I find dishonesty in this, and that is why I bring attention to these matters.  Click here for links to related articles.]

BIG BUCKS FOR NEW SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT

The Grand Rapids public school board is gushing over its offer to compensate Bernard Taylor $200K+ a year over the next five years to serve as the district's superintendent.  According to the Grand Rapids Press, the board members drove the pay package far beyond the compensation for outgoing superintendent Bert Bleke to top the offer the wealthy Forest Hills public school district made to its new superintendent.  If Taylor accepts the Grand Rapids offer, he will be the highest paid school superintendent in Kent County, perhaps West Michigan.

Interesting that what suburbanites living in McMansions outside of town have decided to pay their superintendent dictates what Grand Rapids taxpayers' should pay theirs.  Despite the inclination of board member Jim Rinck and board president Amy McGlynn to crow about the top-dollar deal they negotiated with Taylor, that's nothing to brag about -- especially when they guaranteed it for five years when the norm is a three-year contract.  After all, Taylor needs the gig more than the Grand Rapids public school district needs him.

Of course, officials like the board members of the Grand Rapids public school district are spending other people's money.  I suppose we shouldn't be surprised then that they think it's a brilliant piece of negotiating to give a man just fired from his last job a big raise.

IT COULD BE WORSE

As bad as the economic and fiscal fortunes of the Great Lakes State are and the unsatiable public sector unions, the growth-stifling Single Business Tax, the moribund automotive industry, the slough of Detroit, a governor who's in over her head, and a challenger whose only experience with making money is a pyramid scheme, let us count our small blessings and remember we aren't New Jersey.  Read here Steven Malanga's article in "City Journal" about how the Garden State is consuming itself in a downward spiral of overtaxation, overregulation, and the corruption that comes of that.

TORTUOUS TIMELINE

For the legal eagles out there, here is the twisted and bizarre path our hazardous waste lawsuit against the Boardwalk polluters has taken so far:

June 2002 - We file the lawsuit pro se in Kent County Circuit Court.

July 2002 - The local court dismisses the lawsuit, ruling that we have no standing to bring a hazardous waste complaint without representation by an attorney.

June 2004 - We appeal pro se to the Michigan Court of Appeals, which rules that we do have standing to bring the lawsuit and remands the case back to Kent County Circuit Court.

February 2005 - The local court rules that we have standing to bring the lawsuit under the stricter standards imposed by the Michigan Supreme Court in its recent Cleveland Cliffs decision.

February 2005 - Bizarrely the Michigan Court of Appeals issues an order sua sponte vacating its June 2004 decision in our favor.

May 2005 - The Michigan Court of Appeals reverses itself declaring the sua sponte order was an error and returns our lawsuit to the Kent County Circuit Court.

June 2005 - Defendant City of Grand Rapids, acting on the taxpayer's dime as lead counsel for all of the defendants, files with the Michigan Supreme Court a request for leave to appeal the appellate court's reversal of itself.

July 2005 - The City Attorney's Office then files a motion with the local court to stay all proceedings will the Supreme Court considers its request for leave to appeal, which is granted.  This shuts down discovery for us.  (No coincidence:  Knowing that we can't use discovery, the City Attorney's Office then uses the fact of this lawsuit to deny us our FOIA request for documents related to the Boardwalk developers' contradictory statements about the value of the project.)

April 2006 - The Michigan Supreme finally responds to the City's request for leave to appeal in a 4-3 decision.  Instead of denying it (as the law and prudence would dictate) and returning the case to the Kent Court Circuit Court for normal proceedings, the majority vacates both the June 2004 and May 2005 decisions by the Michigan Court of Appeals and orders it to reconsider the case.

For those who want to check out the record in further detail, the appellate decisions were made for publication.  Here are the case numbers:  Michigan S.C. Nos. 128901, 128907, and 128909; Michigan C.O.A. Nos. 243171 and 244609; and Kent County Circuit Court Case No. 02-03723-NZ.

TUNE OUT

... That's what the Michigan Supreme Court did to justice.  Somehow they managed to bollix a simple decision to deny an interlocutory leave to appeal by the City of Grand Rapids, Pioneer Inc., Dykema Excavators, and the other defendants in the Toxic Towers (a.k.a. The Boardwalk) illegal hazardous waste dumping lawsuit (here and here for details) we filed against in them -- in 2002!  Four years later and the case still hasn't even gotten into discovery.  And now four of the seven justices of the state's high court have imposed even further delay by handing our case back down to the Michigan Court of Appeals, instead of the trial court, to mull over the issue of our standing to bring the lawsuit -- which has been decided three times now in our favor!

I should give credit where it's due.  Justice Elizabeth Weaver penned a dissent strongly rebuking the majority's decision to send the case to the Court of Appeals instead of simply denying the leave and returning the case to the trial court so that discovery could proceed.  Two of her colleagues also voted to deny the leave.  So the high court was split down the middle.  Small comfort.  Justice delayed is justice denied, and the bad guys once again avoid facing the videotape, photographic, and forensic evidence in open court that shows that they faked worker affidavits and soil tests to obstruct the MDEQ's original investigation of the complaints about their illegal dumping of toxic soil at the Monroe Avenue Water Filtration Plant (now the DeVries' Clear Water Plaza, subsidized to the tune of $6.6 million of your state tax dollars) and other locations northeast of Grand Rapids.

Our lawsuit is a victim of the Supreme Court's power politics.  The majority has tried to gut the Michigan Legislature's creation of statutes that vest ordinary citizens with the power to enforce violations of environmental laws in local courts.  They believe that the Legislature poached on their turf to decide who has standing to bring a lawsuit, and so have made rulings to alter the interpretation of the plain language written by the Legislature to empower all citizens to restrict it to those citizens who clear certain legal hurdles.  So much for the high court's deference to the people's elected representatives.

Fortunately, the Michigan Court of Appeals has already twice ruled we have standing to bring the lawsuit, so they will no doubt do so again.  (On top of that, the local trial court also ruled in our favor applying the stricter standard for standing that the Supreme Court recently imposed.)  So the battle isn't over to hold the Boardwalk polluters responsible for dumping toxic concentrations of lead, mercury, arsenic, and a couple dozen other hazardous substances in our neighborhoods.  Keep your fingers crossed for us.

TUNE IN

An interview of your Executive Director by WOOD-TV news reporter Anne Schieber is scheduled to air on this evening's newscast at 6:00 p.m. on Channel 8.  Ms. Schieber is doing a report on the new adult entertainment ordinance targeted at Mark London's strip club downtown that the Grand Rapids City Commission is currently considering.  Tune in.

HOW DICK JR. SAVED RIVER CITY

I saw the latest campaign ad for Dick Jr.'s run for governor.  It opens with photographs of a dilapidated downtown Grand Rapids circa 1970, which Dick DeVos credits himself for rescuing from its pit of despair.  Other than Dick Jr. being barely out of short pants when he allegedly began his program to renovate downtown, there's the inconvenient fact that the Amway co-founders, his father Rich DeVos and the late Jay Van Andel, took the credit for everything.  Well, maybe Dick Jr. was working behind the scenes.

Even so, I think there were other factors involved in bringing downtown out its funk of the '70s.  For example, the strong economy of the '80s and '90s that brought renewal to city centers across the country.  But, I'll let Dick Jr. have credit for all the glory of a reinvigorated downtown Grand Rapids, if he makes public all of the benefits he, his family, and the Van Andels have reaped from their involvement in downtown development projects.