Benton Harbor -- Rachel covered the emergency power dickhead tonite

[LiberalFighter]

Why don't they run the scumbag out of town? Or just make his life miserable.

[baldguy]

1. Why doesn't this violate Art 4, Sec 4 of the US Constitution?

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.

The Governor seems to be acting as a dictator.

[jberryhill]

2. Who passed the emergency manager law?

The State of Michigan.

Was it done by an elected legislature and signed by an elected governor? Yes.

It is definitely a crummy situation, but it is not a violation of the US constitution. If the voters of the State of Michigan wanted to put a stop to it, they could do so. But the US Constitution guarantees the State of Michigan a republican form of government, and by golly they got one.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

3. I missed Rachel tonight...but the BH EFM seemed to be doing a reasonable job and was

planning to exit last I checked. What were her complaints? What has changed.

Benton Harbor was about as FUBAR as a city could get and the EFM was appointed by the prior Democratic Governor.

[unionworks]

5. doing a great job

Of picking the meat off the towns corpse. It is to the towns credit he hasn't been tarred feathered and run out on a rail.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

6. Any specific concerns? Where you aware of the state of things prior?

Have you read the report on Benton Harbor prepared by a Democratic administration that later and reluctantly ordered the state takeover?

[Major Nikon]

8. There's a bit more to it than that

The state law was changed to give emergency managers pretty much unilateral power to do anything they want, including selling off the city's assets. In this case it meant selling off a beachfront city park to an investment company that built a golf course which charges yearly membership fees that are half the local per capita income. The very best you can say about it is it's an extreme perversion of the intent of the emergency management law.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

9. Indeed there is

http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/04/column.html Rachel is a bit off base on that one...happens to the best of them.

Another interesting tidbit I had missed...the EFM put a restructure of the city government on the ballot...and every issue lost: http://www.eclectablog.com/2011/11/benton-harbor-emergency-manager-joe.html

[Major Nikon]

12. Rachel didn't claim the original city management wasn't in disarray

I didn't see the original story, but nowhere in the episode that aired last night did Rachel imply that the emergency manager was appointed by the Republican governor.

The story you posted also leaves quite a few things out. Apparently the lawyer working for the city who drew up the 2006 agreement was also working for the developer. The story you posted makes it appear as if the city government knew what they were doing when they entered into the 2006 agreement, and this doesn't appear to be the case. The 2006 agreement specified that any development must be for public use. The developer then used a loophole in this agreement because under Michigan law a golf course is considered public use. I doubt there's any way the city officials could have known this at the time. That's why they hired a lawyer who appears to have been working against their interests.

Regardless of who the emergency manager is or who they were appointed by, the city manager should be working in the interests of the citizens of that city, and the citizens of that city clearly didn't want their park turned into a golf course. The Republican governor did sign legislation that allowed that development to proceed undeterred, which rendered the pending environmental impact federal lawsuit moot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Klock_Park#Development_vs._Preservation

[unionworks]

4. Benton Harbor

Was once the home of the now defunct VOM corporation. They made American Made turntables and stereos.I own one. Fucking sad.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

7. The city was seriously FUBAR...is it better or worse now?

[unionworks]

10. It's gone

...along with most of the American dream and the middle class. And it's going to rise up and bite the 1% in the ass. Start taking Occupy movement quite seriously.

[unionworks]

11. BTW

... bring your Union Jack to my town of Erie Pa. We have something for that. It's called the "U.S.S. Niagra"

[ProgressiveProfessor]

14. My avatar is the State Flag of Hawaii

An I have ridden through Eire and elsewhere in PA

[unionworks]

15. Oops

Sorry, now I feel like a dumazz.

[Major Nikon]

13. Obviously it is far better because they can now get jobs carrying rich people's golf clubs

[unionworks]

16. that is what

They are trying to turn Erie Pa into. Since Palin put our city in the "crosshairs", they have tried to run all the industry out of this Democratic stronghold and turn it into a playground for rich people.

[girl gone mad]

17. One thing I don't get..

Why does Rachel spend so much time and energy covering Benton Harbor, while never making the connection to what's happened with our national housing market, the ongoing bank bailouts, and the global financial Ponzi schemes which have resulted in people from Oakland to Athens losing their sovereignty, losing their rights and being stripped of their public commons? Is she so blind that she can't see that these same frauds are occurring on a massive scale throughout the world? There's a name for the class warfare and the philosophy behind these tactics. It's called neoliberalism. Many of the politicians she regularly shills for subscribe wholeheartedly to this philosophy.