Well, OK, maybe he hasn't gone that far yet. But Mayor Heartwell has been pushing for the sale of Indian Trails, a city-owned golf course at the corner of Kalamazoo Avenue and 28th Street. Had this solon of sanctimony been less of a bungler at his chosen trade of politics, he might have figured out that the denizens of River City would have gone for scrapping the elephantine sculpture next to City Hall long before putting the for-sale sign on the great green expanse of Indian Trails.
Of course, Heartwell wasn't completely alone in this. In a unanimous vote at last week's meeting, the Grand Rapids City Commission agreed to take a look-see at selling Indian Trails to developers. They OK'd the process to seek buyers for the public golf course. I can't see why that in itself should raise the hackles of those who doubt a sale is in the best interest of our community (including yours truly). After all, there is very little owned by the city government that in principle should never be considered a prospect for sale or privatization. As valuable a green space on a congested commercial corridor as Indian Trails is, it's not as though last week's vote were akin to the U.S. Congress proposing the sale of the Washington Monument.
That said, it is curious that the idea of selling the Indian Trails golf course came before the City Commission for any sort of vote at all. The idea was not prompted by any routine government process of reviewing public assets for possible sale. So the prompting must have come from the outside -- i.e., a private party lobbying a city official to put Indian Trails on the auction block. Again, I can't see why this is a problem. There is nothing nefarious in private citizens petitioning public officials to take some sort of action. In fact, that's a right enshrined in the First Amendment.
However, when the petitioning is done behind closed doors where the disinfecting sunlight of public disclosure is shut out, this is a problem. Second Ward City Commissioner Rick Tormala handled a similar situation properly a few months ago when he proposed that the city government consider selling a group of municipal parking facilities downtown to a private party. In doing so, Tormala disclosed who approached him about doing so. No secrets. No one working behind the scenes to gain an advantage at public expense.
Contrast this to how Mayor Heartwell and City Manager Kurt Kimball operated as pitchmen for the now-vanished "Mystery Developer" who wanted to buy the City Island public works. As government officials they signed agreements to keep the developer's name and his plans secret from the public while carrying his water through City Hall. Even if Boss Logie would not have been so foolish as to put his signature on a back-room deal, clearly Heartwell and Kimball stayed true to his legacy of putting the city government in the service of favored dealmakers instead of residents and taxpayers.
And now we have the Indian Trails imbroglio. For more than a year Third Ward City Commissioner Jim White, known friend of developers, has pushed for the sale of the public golf course, yet the public is no wiser as to why he wants this to happen. Why is White so hot on selling Indian Trails? Moreover, why is Heartwell on board? This would seem an odd position for him, a self-styled progressive to the point of obnoxiousness, especially with his bleating on environmental issues (e.g., urban green spaces). Yet Heartwell is in lock-step with White, as evidenced by this statement he e-mailed to key city officials ahead of last week's vote:
"You know what a green advocate I am, so this decision isn't easy for me either. If, when the proposals come in, we find that no development proposal is attractive enough to warrant selling this property, then we won't. But I, for one, want to see what the development community proposes. Commissioner White has been a persistent advocate for using City assets to advance an economic vitality agenda. This is one that may work. Let's give it a chance."
As it turns out, Tormala had been counseling Heartwell and his fellow comissioners to listen carefully to the public before going down any path too far -- and this statement of Heartwell's was in response to Tormala's urge for caution. But Heartwell, knowing that White had not canvassed his constituents in the Third Ward, where Indian Trails is located, instead wanted to ensure that the "development community" got the city government's ear. When all was said and done, Heartwell and White won the vote last week to open the bidding for the public golf course without any public hearing on the matter. While the other city commissioners made a mistake to agree to this in the absence of any public disclosure from White or Heartwell as to the identity of the private parties lobbying for the sale of Indian Trails (or in lieu of that, a public hearing that would tend to flush them or their shills out into the open), they have plenty of opportunity to rectify this.
And they need to do so. As already noted above, there is no reason why the City Commission should not in principle consider the sale of a public asset like the Indian Trails golf course to private parties. Just as fast-tracking the bidding process, as White desires, should be a no-go because it facilitates back-room dealmaking, noisy opposition (such as L.A.W.'s is likely to be) to any sale of the property should not curtail a process of public deliberation over it. Public matters must be decided publicly, especially when they are controversial like the sale of Indian Trails. To ensure this, our city commissioners need to get this process back on the open government track and follow the example Tormala set with the proposal to sell the city's parking ramps. It's long past time to deep-six the Boss Logie back-room arm-twisting way of doing business -- and perhaps Heartwell and White too if they insist upon carrying on that noxious tradition.
Second, Heartwell's change of mind about that perk is a part and parcel of his conception of the office of mayor as a personal fiefdom. Recall that he fought for a big pay raise. He signed the "Mystery Development" confidentiality agreement as mayor to obtain special personal access to information about the project. When Michigan voters passed Prop 2, Heartwell declared he would use his office to advance his personal political beliefs about race without regard to the lawful decision of his fellow citizens. When he wanted to ban smoking, he said as mayor he can demand that we do as he does. When a developer was disgruntled with Heartwell's arbitrary stand against his project, Heartwell proclaimed that as mayor he would fight "tooth and nail" to stop him. And so on, one incident after another reveals that Heartwell understands the office of mayor as his property for aggrandizement. Now as mayor he wants a car from the taxpayers. Not because that would serve the interests of the public, but because he personally needs one.
Grand Rapids City Manager Kurt Kimball met with the City Commission at their annual planning retreat on Tuesday. Kimball told the mayor and commissioners that they are going to have to make more cuts in city services over the next year to cover $5.7 million in increased health benefits to city employees and retirees. Just one more example that Kimball is not a public servant working for you, folks. His constituency are the guys and gals on the city payroll, and he's going to take care of them -- at your expense.
On Saturday Mayor Heartwell a.k.a. Big Sister gave his state of the city address. His theme was "diversity", by which he means skin color. He trumpeted his passion for "civil rights" (as though no one else desires justice in Grand Rapids) and the need for "affirmative action" (as though bigotry is a way of life here in town). He refused to be cowed in his campaign for diversity (i.e., making sure taxpayer dollars and government benefits get distributed on the basis of skin color) by the voters' recent passage of a new law prohibiting Heartwell and all other state and local government officials from doing just that.
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.)
Well, what did you expect from Heartwell? Like many so-called progressives, he is all for the people until the people have the temerity to exercise their sovereignty to make a decision he doesn't like. So, democracy goes out the window, as Heartwell and his ilk use any lever of power they can pull to thwart the will of the people. Typically that means finding a friendly judge on a federal bench who will put more stock into what he or she thinks the law should be rather than what it actually is. But it can also mean raising bureaucratic obstacles to implementation of the people's decision or even plain ol' foot-dragging. Sometimes it is more vicious, like the intimidation the leftist group "By Any Means Necessary" used to monkey-wrench the initiative process to try to stop Michigan voters from even getting a chance to vote on Proposal 2.
It’s been nearly two decades since the Berlin Wall fell, but the Marxists are alive and kicking at City Hall. It’s clear that the Grand Rapids city commissioners, the planning commissioners, and all the other official meddlers don’t grasp the concept of private property. They can’t merely keep the peace in our burg by zoning land into broad categories so that my neighbor doesn’t start up a pig farm next to my house. These days they think they have a warrant to tell us what we can build on our land, how we will build it, and what it will look like. And, oh yes, for the privilege of being told what we can do with our property, we get to pay taxes on it to the city government.
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