Ann Arbor: From small college town into the People's Republic of Ann Arbor

The sad but interesting story of the transformation of Ann Arbor into a one-party town written by Ann Arbor's ex-city attorney R. Bruce Laidlaw who helped set the whole process in motion.

The Dear Leader is speaking now...

The Dear Leader

...so there isn't much happening. (10:22 AM) The suits with wires in their ears and unidentified black uniformed men with automatic weapons as well as the local cops have all us peons on lock down. So I am just twiddling my thumbs waiting for the Dear Leader to finish his speech and go home. Hope & change mofo!

Notes and pictures of the ruling nomenklatura class of the People's Republic of Ann Arbor

Old lame Democratic Party hacks from Ann Arbor and its environs like Congressman-for-Life John Dingell, his wife, various local pols, hacks, fanatics, kooks, dopes, and wannabes are pictured and profiled. Know your enemy folks.

No tears in my eyes: No Raises for Ann Arbor Mayor, Council

Ann Arbor's so-called "independent" commission (who are all appointed by the mayor) on salaries for AA elected officeholders says no raises. Reports the Ann Arbor Chronicle:

"Salaries for Ann Arbor’s mayor and 10 city councilmembers will remain constant for the next two years at $42,436 and $15,913, respectively. That was the conclusion of the four members on the local officers compensation commission (LOCC), who met Friday morning for around a half hour." 

And so that's that until 2013.

Never mind the ads; Just make the buses run on time, please.

That is my first impression of the ACLU lawsuit against the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority due to their refusal to run some anti-Israel political ads on the sides of their buses. Well that is the downside of taking on ads for pay isn't it? Sadly the extra revenue derived from such endeavors is likely to be completely eclipsed by the cost of defending this suit if it progresses. Myself,  I would settle for just having the buses keep to their schedules.

Why can't Consumer's Energy and DTE keep the power on?

Every time the wind blows hard enough to blow the leaves around vast swaths of Michigan lose their electricity. More than any place I've ever been other than turd third world countries. Don't we pay them enough for a stable supply? Years ago I purchased a portable fuel powered generator and so this stuff doesn't affect me in a major way any more. But with that said it's still inexcusable for this to happen so often. Fuel prices go up, down, and sideways and all,  but the basic structural necessities to keep the grid up and running reliably seem to me to be pretty well-established and predictable and to be well within DTE and Consumer's Energy's  engineering capabilities as well. So what gives?

Ann Arbor Public Art Commissars decide to expand their role

Great news, eh? We should just go to concrete block Soviet-style statues of Ann Arbor-Mayor-Forever John Heiftje instead of the foreign-produced over-priced bourgeois dreck that they've done so far. But it's all good. Plenty of money in the "public art bucket".

Some public art that Ann Arbor can afford

Here's a picture of some public art that Ann Arbor can actually afford to build and install quickly. Natural looking too. (A public art related article from the Ann Arbor Chronicle here.)

Sign of the times: Good to know, but so what?

Information wants to be free!

David Askins of the Ann Arbor Chronicle written a very detailed article (complete with bar charts and maps) showing the location of campaign contributers to candidates for city council nomination in the Democratic primary election next month. Nicely done Mr. Askins.

However, unless and until Ann Arbor repeals the party label election form of candidate nomination (i.e., Democrat or Republican) this is all merely pro forma BS signifying nothing. The Republicans don't field candidates any longer in most wards and the other challengers to the status quo are either quirky independents (Bean) or odd ball Democrats (Lesko).

My suggestion is this: Let anyone who meets the residency and other requirements gather a couple hundred signatures from voters in their wards and put them all on a no party label ballot and let the voters pick the top two. Ann Arbor is a surprising diverse city for its size and there are a lot of good men and women who's talents should be available to us rather than the limited offerings of a small cabal of Democratic Party insiders (maybe a dozen) and selected by the small number of Democratic party primary voters (a few hundred).