The Local Area Watch

BIG SISTER WHIMPS OUT

As noted in our last report on Grand Rapids mayor George Heartwell's campaign to file a federal lawsuit to overturn the voters' approval of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, Heartwell a.k.a. Big Sister seemed to lack the stomach to battle the City Commission's opposition.  After his defiant pledge a couple of weeks ago to sacrifice his office to fight the good fight, this week Heartwell conceded that the city government wasn't going to fight that fight.  He acknowledged the plain fact that the federal courts have spoken clearly on the issue, plus the cost of pointless litigation for the budget-crunched city government would be far too expensive.

Heartwell's surrender to reality is a good thing for the residents and taxpayers of Grand Rapids.  It certainly seemed to take the steam out of his sanctimony, which is obnoxious.  But to whimp out so quickly on issue that he bellowed he would stake his political career upon ... Hmm.  Well, folks, I didn't think it was possible, but Heartwell has managed to make his trademark sanctimony even more contemptible by making it so spineless.

THE CHAOS IN CITY SCHOOLS

One of our readers, in response to our article "New School for No Students", commented that his firsthand experience of the lack of discipline in Grand Rapids Public Schools forced him to place his son in a parochial school despite the high cost of doing so.  After witnessing the violence and mayhem at his neighborhood public school, he said, "It's all but impossible to achieve academic parity -- never mind excellence -- when one's mental energy is spent figuring out how to avoid being the target of some delinquent thug's nefarious intentions each day."  How true.

I know this for myself.  Ten years ago I purchased a house for my sister and her children in the Twin Lakes neighborhood of the city.  So two of her children enrolled at Beckwith Elementary and the oldest at Northeast Middle School.  I saw for myself how corrosive the constant bullying, intimidation, and threat of violence from fellow students was upon the emotional well-being of these kids.  It was heart-breaking.  And then it was infuriorating, because neither the teachers nor the administrators would do anything about it for fear of offending the parents of the aggressors.  Soon afterwards, I gave up on the city schools and moved my sister and the kids out into the suburbs, where they excelled in the Rockford public schools.

Our reader regrets his decision to abandon the Grand Rapids Public Schools, because he places great value on the public school experience.  I understand that.  I share the senitment.  I'd be surprised if most of the parents who over the past decade have pulled 500 students out of city elementary schools on the Northeast side and another 800 on the Southeast side don't also share the sentiment.  They aren't so crass as to value shiny new buildings over the physical and emotional security of their children.  Besides what possible good can new buildings be that students who know no discipline within their walls will soon trash?

There's no question that the GRPS needs to build and maintain its infrastructure.  But the infrastructure that is in dire need of renovation isn't physical, it's social.  Rebuilding the communities that used to support neighborhood schools won't be done by throwing money at it.  It requires the will to maintain student discipline on the grounds of the schools, the will to offend the parents of bullies who think their darlings should have free rein, the will to defy the hucksters of the grievance industry who seek pay-offs for invented outrages, and the will to truly put the needs of students first and foremost -- even when that means being tough with them.

But there is no evidence of that will.  Take a look at Union High School, which made the news this week.  [1] The principal was decked and put into the hospital by student when she attempted to separate the kid from a brawl -- a planned brawl that had drawn sixty eager fellow students as spectators.  In response, the mother of the brawler demands that the principal should be fired.  [2] Vandals then shut down Union for a day by putting glue into the locks of most of the classroom doors.  [3] Meanwhile, fighting is endemic at the high school with as many as six outbreaks a day while teachers have their cars stolen from the school's parking lot.

When was enough enough?  Now?  Now that one of the management of the GRPS, the Union High School principal, was physically harmed by the chaos in our city schools the administration will clamp down?  Perhaps, and that would be desirable, but that would also go to show that the GRPS is rotten at its core.  The persistent violence and intimidation faced by students wasn't a sufficient call to action, because the students only matter as a raw body count to boost taxpayer funding for the GRPS.  Only when the violence strikes out at management does the problem get the system's attention, because their welfare, not the students', is its priority.

If you doubt that, watch how this event unfolds.  The student who decked the principal may well be expelled from the GRPS.  Rightly so.  But consider why that student or the many others who have been brutalized fellow students have NOT been expelled for that violence.  What other answer is there than a principal matters to the GRPS and student victims of assault don't?  Little wonder then that parents who have gotten this message loud and clear over the past ten years have pulled their kids out of the chaos of the city schools. 

LOSER BUSINESSES

The Grand Rapids City Commission did the sensible thing yesterday of nixing developer Jonathan Rooks's request for a fifteen-year extension of the tax-free Renaissance Zone that includes an old factory he wants to remodel as an apartment building.  Rooks has an option to buy the old Sligh Furniture factory, currently in use as a warehouse.  His plan is to convert it into 400 residential apartments, but he complained that without this big tax break his venture won't make money.

So that's our problem?  That is, the problem of the rest of us taxpayers who have to make up what Rooks's project and renters don't pay in state and local taxes?  In effect, Rooks is asking you and me to provide his profit to him.  Hell no to that.  Of course, this is the problem with these targeted tax breaks like Renaissance Zones.  Taxes are too high, and that dampens business growth -- and no doubt some marginal businesses go under because of them.  So a general tax cut is good policy.  But little good comes of giving tax breaks to businessmen who can't make money without them.  Why would a city, like Grand Rapids, want to promote the development of businesses so marginal that they would be defunct if they had to pay taxes?

Let's be clear.  When I talk of businessmen, I'm not talking about the small-timer or the guy who is making a buck on the side, such as a B&B owner, where the demand by the government to collect a few dollars in taxes snuffs out a small venture.  I'm talking about developers like Rooks, the new German owners of Autodie, and the alleged billionaire Rich DeVos.  If these guys can't figure out how to turn a profit without stiffing the tax coffers that pay for all of the municipal services they are using, then their businesses are losers.  Why should they be encouraged at the expense of the rest of the taxpayers eludes common sense.

SPEND IT IF YOU GOT IT

This is a follow-up from Monday's article "New School for No Students".  GRPS Superintendent Bernard Taylor has recommended to the Board of Education a plan for consolidating elementary schools on both the Northeast and Southside sides of town.  Eastern Elementary is to be closed and its students distributed to Kent Hills, East Leonard, and Coit schools.  Including North Park and Aberdeen schools, that will leave five elementary schools on the Northeast side.

As mentioned previously, the school district has $8 million available to spend on new construction on the Northeast side.  Instead of building a new school outright, Taylor is recommending that Kent Hills have $5.5 million in "renovations" (in effect, a new building) while East Leonard gets $750,000, North Park $1,000,000, and Aberdeen $750,000.  You might be wondering how those figures were determined.  Is that the actually cost of what is needed to be done?  Is it only a coincidence that the amount of renovation required equals the amount available, $8 million?  Or is this another example of spend it if you got it?

COHLE VOTE CLARIFICATION

Yesterday we posted an article that the Kent County Board of Commissioners re-appointed Dr. Stephen Cohle as medical examiner.  We noted that two of the commissioners questioned Cohle's conflicts of interest as the owner and operator of a pathology services firm.  We left the suggestion that was all they did.  Phyllis Jennings of Family United for Justice sent us this clarification: "Our families wanted to let L.A.W. know that two Kent County Commissioners (Dick Bulkowski and Paul Mayhue) voted no last week on the Kent County Medical Examiner's new contract and big pay increase. At least these two commissioners questioned this matter on behalf of the taxpayers."

Thanks, Phyllis.

COUNTY COMMISSIONERS O.K. CONFLICTED COHLE

Last week the Kenty County Board of Commissioners re-appointed Dr. Stephen Cohle as medical examiner for a four-year term.

As you will recall, we have reported Cohle's gross conflict of interest as both medical examiner and the owner of a pathology services firm.  The conflict puts Cohle in the position of passing official judgment on suspicious deaths involving clients of his firm.  Furthermore, in the cases of the Jennings and Sallie families at least, this conflict is more than just an appearance.  As medical examiner Cohle exonerated his largest business client, Spectrum Health Corporation, from any liability in the suspicious deaths of members of those families at Specturm facilities based upon shoddy and incomplete investigations by his office.

Two of the county commissioners, Paul Mayhue and Dick Bulkowski, had the wits to raise the obvious question of Cohle's conflict of interest.  Cohle dimissed the question with a shrug.  He said that the commissioners should just trust him.  The commissioners didn't press the issue except to say that it might make sense for Kent County to eliminate the conflict issue by hiring a medical examiner as a direct employee instead of contracting out the office to a private practitioner such as Cohle.

The county attorney Sherry Batzer argued that the county is allowed by state law to hire for the medical examiner's office a contractor like Cohle instead of a direct employee.  She claimed that this is no different than hiring other types of contractors to do work for the county.  Hmm.  Maybe we should then contract the sheriff's office to a private investigator and the prosecutor's office to a criminal defense firm.  What eludes Batzer is that the medical examiner's office is part of the justice system and so the citizens of Kent County are entitled, when it comes to the law, to the undivided loyalties of the person filling that post.

However, one the administrators for Kent County did tell the commissioners that they will be studying next year whether to hire the medical examiner as a direct employee.  The rationale for doing so will be reduced cost.  With all that on table, the county commissioners approved Cohle's re-appointment.  So even if justice doesn't catch up with Cohle, maybe his price tag will.

NEW SCHOOL FOR NO STUDENTS

We reported last year on the insanity of the Grand Rapids Public School District's desire to spend millions on a new elementary school on the Northeast side of town where existing schools are closing because students are fleeing to suburban, parochial, and charter schools -- 500 in just the past decade.  North of Knapp Street alone there were once six elementary schools:  Huff, Aberdeen, Riverside, Crestview, Wellerwood, and North Park.  Now there are only two, Aberdeen and North Park, which are under-used.  However, the school district has $8 million burning a hole in its pocket for new construction on the Northeast side, and so the money's gotta be spent.  (Apparently the idea of returning unneeded construction funds to the taxpayers isn't within the comprehension of school bureaucrats.)

So now the new school superintendent Bernard Taylor needs to come up with a plan to shuffle around the kids on the Northeast side of town (and also the Southeast side which has lost even more kids, 800, during the past decade).  It seems that one of the favored options is to close down Eastern Elementary.  However, Eastern is the one school on the Northeast side at full capacity that has a good community base.  But the school district says that the building needs renovation and renovated buildings don't draw new students, only new buildings do.  As evidence of this, the district points to Coit School which was renovated a few years ago and is only half-full, whereas the three new buildings the district opened this fall (elsewhere in the district) were packed.

What a load of rubbish.  First of all, those new buildings did not draw new students INTO the Grand Rapids district.  They pulled in existing students from other parts of the districts.  The task on the Northeast side isn't to re-shuffle existing students, but to attract students currently attending non-district schools.  There is no evidence that new construction does this.  Second, the renovation of Coit School failed to draw new students, because they aren't enough students in the area with East Leonard and Eastern so close to it.  The renovation was a stupid idea based on emotion and misguided notions of historic preservation.  Third, renovated or not Eastern is succeeding.  That is testament to the disconnect between bricks-and-mortar and community.  One does not necessarily follow the other.

Fourth, and most important, the Grand Rapids public schools are failing because their communities are dysfunctional or non-existent.  Granted a sense of community more readily develops around a school that serves an immediate neighborhood.  Geography does play an important role that is difficult to exploit when city schools must be consolidated to cope with the massive outflow of students to other schools.  But then that begs the question of why Grand Rapids public schools are losing students in the first place.  No doubt the teachers' union is a primary culprit as the government school bureaucracy was perverted from educating students to serving educators.  Of course, that didn't happen without the acquiescence of supine school superintendents.  In turn, past school boards deserve their share of blame for hiring careerist hacks for the top job rather than innovative outsiders.  But then we the voters elected those school boards, didn't we?

We also voted another way.  We voted with our feet and sent our kids to suburban, parochial, and charter schools instead of city schools.  And this brings us back to the same question:  Why are the city schools losing students?  Why has the trickle become a torrent?  The increasing lack of discipline in those schools, even the elementary schools.  The community necessary for a successful school will not develop where mayhem, intimidation, and violence reign.  The pathetic response of Superintendent Taylor to this is that the principals and teachers of the Grand Rapids public schools are not sensitive to the culture of their students.  Translation:  White educators don't understand black and brown students.

Again, what a load of rubbish.  If Taylor wanted to argue that careerist educators are too busy ticking off the days to collecting that pension check and so are too lazy to mete out the discipline kids from unruly and broken households need to get a good education, that would be one thing.  But it is another thing to argue that a kid's skin color makes him incapable of understanding the normal and ordinary demands of discipline needed in a classroom.  All kids thrive on those demands.  To deny it to them is cruel.  If they don't get it from home, then they must get in school.  If they aren't getting discipline in school, because the teachers and principals won't provide it, then Taylor needs to get his cattle prod out.  However, if it is because the teachers and principals can't provide it, because they are hamstrung by the district's bureaucracy, then Taylor needs to bust through the bureaucracy and clearly establish discipline as part of the school district's mission.

The problem with the lack of discipline is that it is both "won't" and "can't", which leaves everyone collecting a paycheck from the Grand Rapids Public school district in the happy position of pointing fingers at each other as an excuse to do nothing.  Meanwhile, the students in our city schools remain ill-served, the remaining communities supporting those schools continue to break up, and the blueprints get drawn up for a new school for no students.

HEARTWELL: I WILL SACRIFICE MY OFFICE!

This morning the Grand Rapids City Commission met for the first time since Mayor George Heartwell proposed that the city government should file a lawsuit to overturn the voters' approval of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative in last month's election.  Heartwell's proposal was the first item on the agenda, and the mayor declared at the outset that he was willing to lose his office over this issue.  (Although he didn't seem so eager to do so by the end of the discussion.)

Here is what everyone had to say this morning ...

Mayor Heartwell stated that sometimes in life you have to take a stand.  He had always fought for equal rights and affirmative action, so he opposes the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative.  He thinks the city government must file a lawsuit to stop implementation of the new law.  Heartwell rationalized his readiness to defy the voters by noting that a small majority of voters in the City of Grand Rapids had voted against the ballot initiative.  He said that he is willing to lose his office over this fight.

Heartwell that his proposal to overturn the decision of the voters has generated a firestorm.  He has received over 180 e-mails about this, mostly in opposition to him.  He complained about being called a "despot" and a "dictator".  Curiously, he then said that he was able to divine that those who sent him critical e-mails were white.

Heartwell concluded his remarks by noting that the issue was too contentious to settle by a vote of the city commission today.

City Manager Kimball did not have much to say other than the costs of a lawsuit to overturn the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative would have to paid for from the city's general fund.  That may entail cutting services elsewhere or increasing taxes.

City Attorney Balkema said that the lawsuit proposed by Heartwell would not make any claims or legal arguments that the federal courts have not already rejected.  He noted that California passed a similar initiative banning government racial and gender preferences ten years, and that law was repeatedly challenged in the most liberal circuit of the federal judiciary and still stands.  Balkema further noted that the "By Any Means Necessary" group, who have already filed a lawsuit along the lines proposed by Heartwell, raises no issues that the federal courts have not shot down.  Precedent is against the Heartwell lawsuit succeeding.  Furthermore, Balkema consulted with a civil rights attorney who advised that such a lawsuit would be very expensive, and even if an attorney represented the city government pro bono, there would still be considerable costs beyond attorney fees the city would have to pay.  Although Balkema made clear that Heartwell's proposed lawsuit was a loser, he waffled in declaring himself against it.

Second Ward Commissioner Bliss and Third Ward Commissioner Lumpkins did not have much to say other than the city government should research the issue further.  Neither gave any indication that they had consulted their constituents about this.

First Ward Commissioner Schmidt praised Heartwell for his courage.  However, his constituents were strongly against Heartwell's proposed lawsuit because it thwarted the "will of the people".  Schmidt said he understood the sentiment of constituents.  He recalled how a measure he had once voted for was overturned by the courts and left him with a sour attitude toward government.

Third Ward Commissioner White was unequivocal in supporting the Heartwell lawsuit.  He stated that the city government had the best affirmative action program in the state, and that the city shouldn't let whites trample over the rights of minorities.  White declared that we should fight to overturn the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, but spend no money on doing so by filing amicus briefs in support of other lawsuits against the new law.

Second Ward Commissioner Tormala declared that he, like Heartwell, has fought for civil rights and supported affirmative action.  He had opposed the Michigan Civil Rights ballot initiative, but the bottom line was respecting the will of the people.  Tormala then covered the financial and legal problems confronting Heartwell's proposed lawsuit, as had been addressed by Kimball and Balkema.  Furthermore, he was concerned that Heartwell's battle to overturn the election would drive wedges between city residents.  He thought the right course of action was to review city policy, implement the new law by the deadline of December 22nd, and begin hiring city employees and contractors on merit.

First Ward Commissioner Jendrasiak stated that either democracy counts or it doesn't.  Americans have given their lives to defend the right to vote, and so a fair vote must stand.  He then challenged Heartwell's characterization of opposition to his proposed lawsuit as "caucasian".  Jendrasiak wanted to know how the mayor could know this from e-mail messages, because he had canvassed his constituents and found opposition to the mayor ran across racial and ethnic lines.  Heartwell responded to Jendrasiak that he knew for a fact that some of the critical e-mails he had received were from whites.  Then looking discouraged, Heartwell wrapped up the discussion by suggesting that city government do some more research into the issue for the time being.

As it now stands, the Grand Rapids City Commission took no action against the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative.  Therefore, the city government must implement the law by December 22nd and end all racial and gender preferences in hiring city employees and contractors.  It is not certain that Heartwell, despite his pledge to sacrifice his office over this issue, will raise it again with the city commission.  The only votes he clearly has to file a lawsuit to overturn the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative are his own and White's -- and White doesn't support an independent action.  Schmidt, Tormala, and Jendrasiak are against a lawsuit.  Bliss and Lumpkins are uncommitted.

CITIZENS NIX BIG SISTER'S CALL TO OUTLAW THE MICHIGAN CIVIL RIGHTS INITIATIVE

On the heels of the Grand Rapids City Commission's last "Committee of the Whole" session two weeks ago, we reported that Mayor George Heartwell (a.k.a. Big Sister) told his fellow commissioners that the city government needed to consider a lawsuit to overturn the voters' passage of the Michigan Civil Rights ballot initiative.

We, of course, had our say about the mayor's contempt of the democratic process.  Since then, the Grand Rapids Press, which opposed the ballot initiative, has strongly editorialized against Heartwell's call for a lawsuit.  More important are the letters to the editor printed in the Press that have been running five or six to one against Heartwell.  The people have spoken clearly (twice now).  So hope that Heartwell has gotten the message and gets back to doing his job as mayor -- you know, that job he wanted a big pay raise for doing.

Even if Heartwell hasn't got the political sense to give up his campaign against the will of the voters (I stress "political sense" because he plainly lacks the decency to respect the voters), the matter does not lie in his hands.  Second Ward Commissioner Rick Tormala informed our editor that the mayor cannot order the City Attorney to file a lawsuit without the support of the majority of the city commission.  Despite the liberal bent of the city commission, that support does not appear to be forthcoming.  For example, Tormala who, by his own words, "vigorously opposed" the Michigan Civil Rights ballot initiative, states:  "[I]t is no small thing to overturn the will of people.  It should only be done in cases of extreme necessity when there is a demonstrable clear and present threat to justice or the common good."

No doubt Tormala put it that way with the knowledge that the highest court in the land hasn't viewed the termination of "affirmative action" programs as such a threat.  Indeed, after a decade of legal challenges to a similar ballot initiative passed by California voters, the U.S. Supreme Court has declared that while public bodies can have "affirmative action" programs, they are not obligated to do so.  And that's what Michigan voters did in last month's election.  They declined to continue supporting state and local government "affirmative action" programs.

It is the collective judgment of Michiganders that after a generation of successful battles against racial and sexual bigotry, they can trust their government to treat people fairly on their individual merit without regard to race or sex.  In a democracy such judgments belong to the people, who are sovereign; not to unaccountable black-robed solons -- let alone a pol like Heartwell who is happy to harness the power of the courts to his leftist agenda whenever the voters reject it.  That is why the people are supreme and not the Supreme Court, even when the people get it wrong.

Unfortunately these days, the sovereignty of the people doesn't always get its due.  This month, maybe as soon as tomorrow's city commission meeting, we'll see if Tormala's respect for the voters or Heartwell's jihad against them will prevail.

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW!

Oh the horror!  It's snowing in December!

As usual River City missed the worst of it.  The ice stayed to the south and the heavy snow stayed to north.  Nevertheless, Grand Rapids public schools shut down for the day.  That makes for a nice three-day weekend for the teachers while raising havoc with the work schedule of parents who unexpectedly have kids to watch.

Now I hesitate to put it this way, but ... when I was a kid, the Grand Rapids public schools NEVER shut down for snow.  Yes, there was that blizzard in the late '70s -- and it was a real blizzard, not this "winter storm warning" nonsense that the National Weather Service puts out every time the skies threaten to drop a few inches of the white stuff upon us -- and the schools, like everything else, closed for a few days.  (And that turned out to be an opportunity to fatten my wallet when I teamed up with a buddy of mine to shovel snow off the roofs of houses in the neighborhood.)  Then there was an ice storm now and then, but during the fourteen years I attended Grand Rapids public schools, from Headstart to graduation, I don't remember getting to stay home and play in the snow more than four or five times.

Well, if today's weather is the new standard for closing the schools, we better dig in for a long winter with the little darlings at home.