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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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The Journal has their opinion and I have mine. I have been told that Walling and Eason want me off the internet and have sought the advice of an attorney to no avail.
In my opinion Walling is using the media, especially Channel 12 and the Journal, as the bearers of his campaign rhetoric. While I don't like either candidate, Buchanan should at least get as much coverage on the issues.
The editorial on the 8th appears to be a reaction to the vision of Dan Kildee I recently posted on Flint Talk. KIlldee with his former research branch, the Genesee Institute, performed extensive research and offered solutions that were specific to Flint. Walling was a part of this research organization when he first ran, but I saw no research documents bearing his name.
There is too much literature out there on shrinking cities for the Journal editorial board to put all the future on a master plan. Many groups, such as Kettering, downtown, Hurley and U of M have created plans and some of these plans were outdated within months. Will this master plan take areas of the greatest decline out of service so to speak. Will the city continue to provide services to areas with no houses to pay for these services?
None of the media initially told the truth about what happened at Back to the Bricks.
The media is not telling the public about the problems at Smith Village although the Journal gets copies of the new law suits.
It is an election year and the Journal appears to be using an editorial board to promote Walling. Can we expect a pro Walling editorial once a week until the election. Kildee understood the issues of a shrinking city and Walling, despite the editorial board support, does not.
In the September 4th editorial, the editorial board is not looking at the abuses of the Walling administration and their role, as well as council's in the overspending of the budget. The council has implemented a monthly budget- to- actual to keep check of the budget. And yet as Freeman keeps telling his cohorts, spending resolutions keep coming with items purchased from line items with no funding or departments spending many times over what they spent in previous years in one line item.
What about the DCED and the federal government debacle that is ensuing. I read the same reports as the Journal and it is clear the Journal writer does not understand the issues HUD raises. To continually paint this picture of everything will be fine if we all support Walling is ludicrous.
Torn From the Front Page: Flint and its people begin to tackle new topographic of a smaller city
Published: Thursday, September 08, 2011, 5:38 AM
By Editorial Board | The Flint Journal The Flint Journal
The city of Flint needs a new map.
It’ll have downtown, a lot of the same streets and many neighborhoods that are still largely intact.
But it won’t have the giant industrial complex of General Motors factories that built this city, and probably not a lot of what have become known as America’s emptiest neighborhoods.
While city officials and community leaders have been vehement in their refusal to “give up” on any part of Flint, the new topography of the city is already becoming known.
Large tracts are abandoned; if the people still living in those areas are fortunate, demolition crews have already been through to mow down the eyesores, the dilapidated houses and buildings that become magnets for trouble and havens for prostitutes, drug dealers and gangs.
The new master plan that city officials are drafting for the first time since 1965 will re-map a Flint that residents who lived here during its heyday may never have imagined.
Flint needs the honest introspection of that process — the admission of what the city has become, and the planning of what it can be.
Call it a re-mapping, then, if other terms are more offensive.
City politicians and community leaders shrank in horror from the term “shrinking cities” that former county Treasurer and Genesee County Land Bank Executive Director Dan Kildee used several years ago to describe a concept of former neighborhoods given up to sparsely populated green areas.
“We’ll never give up on any part of Flint” was the sort of refrain we heard back then.
That was even as parts of Flint already had been given up by the people who had abandoned their property and let it fall back to the banks in mortgage foreclosures, or to the Land Bank in tax foreclosures.
Now, the transformation of Flint is already taking root in some places.
Churches such as Metropolitan Baptist Tabernacle on East Myrtle Avenue are taking ownership of many neighboring properties, and taking care of many more vacant parcels as part of the Land Bank’s Clean and Green program.
But the efforts in Flint’s emptiest areas also look forward to a new vitality amid all that green space. The North Flint Reinvestment Corp. was formed to revitalize the area.
They’re investing hope in neighborhoods of the city that feel left out of Flint’s renaissance downtown. And they are adjusting to the new realities of a city half the size it was when 30,000 workers a day toiled around the clock at the fabled Buick City factory complex.
Our leaders and neighbors who cringe when anyone talks about “right-sizing” the city fail to recognize the truth: It already is happening. In fact, it’s occurring all over Michigan and the Midwest, as Kildee, now president of the national nonprofit Center for Community Progress, points out.
North of Flint, the city of Saginaw has mapped a Green Zone that already is almost empty. To the south, Detroit counts a third of its property as abandoned or otherwise empty by some accounts. There, the talk is of green spaces and urban agriculture in a less-populated city. Cleveland, Ohio’s poster child for building abandonment and population loss, is undergoing the same metamorphosis.
Flint is not alone. In many ways, it is in fact leading the way. The urban agriculture movement that is spreading its seeds across these cities got some of its first harvests in the vacant lots of Flint. City Hall this summer embraced that new land use when it partnered with Michigan State University to develop a strategic plan for urban agriculture.
Here is where the debate over the now abhorrent term of “shrinking” a city began.
Other cities picked up ideas that were born here and are running with them, because they make sense, and they work.
Flint officials finally are beyond their early denial that the city is smaller. It’s something to celebrate when they talk, as Mayor Dayne Walling recently had, of writing new land uses, new ideas, into the city’s new master plan.
It’s a recognition that the city isn’t what it was, and never will return to those days. It will be something else — with a lot more open space, a lot fewer people and, with the right planning and some luck, just as prosperous as the good old days.
The new map of Flint should reflect that landscape and accommodate future shifts in the urban topographies of people and place.
That’s what good maps do. They show the lay of the land and help navigate the way ahead.
Our Voice: Flint officials, employees must agree to work together on financial solutions that state review likely will require
Published: Sunday, September 04, 2011, 5:40 AM
By Editorial Board | The Flint Journal The Flint Journal
On Monday, Flint began wearing the thorny distinction as the first city in the state to undergo a state review of its finances under the new version of Michigan’s Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act.
That 30-day review could result in another state takeover of the city with an emergency manager.
Flint city officials, however, should work together to ensure that the review ends short of that drastic act.
If reviewers ordered in by state Treasurer Andy Dillon find that the city is in financial distress, the best possible scenario would have Mayor Dayne Walling and the Flint City Council enter into a consent agreement with the state. Under the new law, that would leave one local official in charge of turning around the city’s financial picture, rather than some outside appointee of the governor’s.
Walling last May argued that he’d be the best local official for that consent agreement role. We agreed then and still do.
But it’s far from certain that the entire City Council also would agree to Walling alone shouldering the power to rearrange city finances and dictate the terms of long-unfinished labor pacts among four public safety unions.
In fact, Walling in May was planning to ask City Council for a joint request to the state treasurer for a financial review. He yanked that proposal from consideration without explanation before the council met.
Now, it’s the state demanding the review. Walling said he was told it’s mainly triggered under the law by Flint’s chronic pattern of past, present and projected future budget deficits.
Looking at the numbers, it’s unlikely that state reviewers will come away declaring everything A-OK with Flint’s finances.
Property tax revenue has plummeted. State revenue sharing payments have been cut for Flint and all municipalities. Four city employee unions still had not agreed to 15 percent compensation cuts that Walling has said are needed to balance the city’s budget.
Last winter, city officials asked the state for permission to issue $20 million in emergency finance bonds to cover present and expected deficits. State officials OK’d only $8 million for this year; City Council has discussed asking for permission to issue another $12 million.
Without more money, or without all employee unions agreeing to concessions, Flint is in desperate financial straits.
Further layoffs in the largest employee groups of fire and police are off the table, Walling said this spring.
The city simply can’t stand to lose any more police officers or firefighters when it’s under siege by high crime and arsonists.
We urge those unions that have not agreed to the needed concessions to do so.
It’s either that or wait until a local financial manager named by the state orders the concessions, or worse, an outside state appointee eliminates collective bargaining altogether.
Clearly, it’s time for the mayor and the City Council to find common ground and work together toward a consent agreement with the state. And for city employees and Flint residents to get behind them.
The collapse of our once-roaring automating economy caused this crisis. The spending habits and combative legal strategies of past city councils and administrations compounded the bankbook imbalance.
The city employees who are left after waves of layoffs and the city leaders now in place did not precipitate this rainy day for the city of Flint. But it is up to them to part the clouds and end the yearslong storm of deficits and bad news.
All of them — employees, union leaders, City Council members, the mayor and his administration — must work together in what in all likelihood will become the first test for a municipality under the new Fiscal Accountability Act.
If they do, Flint is going to come out of this all right.
If not, that law has further steps for uncooperative local governments, up to and including state receivership, an emergency manager who may terminate collective bargaining agreements and eliminate local government, even bankruptcy.
That worst-case scenario cannot be allowed to happen.
And it won’t, if everyone at City Hall or working for City Hall agrees to save the city of Flint.
Last edited by untanglingwebs on Sat Sep 10, 2011 8:58 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Thu Sep 08, 2011 6:42 am |
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twotap
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Not just the Flint media but liberal lamestream media everywhere cant be trusted. When I want to see whats actualy going on in the world I check the Drudge report. The liberals hate him so you know hes doing something right kinda like Fox News.  |
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Thu Sep 08, 2011 7:40 am |
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Flinn's Journal
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| I prefer the Huffington Post online. Drudge is propaganda as is what I call Fox Propaganda. |
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I HAVE SEVERED MY TIES WITH FLINTTALK.COM BECAUSE TROLLS CANNOT BE CONTROLLED ON THIS BOARD. |
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Thu Sep 08, 2011 8:36 am |
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Dave Starr
F L I N T O I D
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| You get your "news" from a huffer? |
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I used to care, but I take a pill for that now.
Pushing buttons sure can be fun.
When a lion wants to go somewhere, he doesn’t worry about how many hyenas are in the way.
Paddle faster, I hear banjos. |
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Thu Sep 08, 2011 9:29 am |
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Flinn's Journal
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| Biased "news" services such as Fox and Drudge have a history of altering their stories to suit their biases. The latest example was their editing of James Hoffa's Labor Day speech in Detroit which they made to look like a call for violence instead of a call for votes to take out the SOBs. The real story can be found at http://www.973kiro.com/813/541140/Dave-Ross-Brevity-or-deception |
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I HAVE SEVERED MY TIES WITH FLINTTALK.COM BECAUSE TROLLS CANNOT BE CONTROLLED ON THIS BOARD. |
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Thu Sep 08, 2011 11:09 am |
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Dave Starr
F L I N T O I D
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And you think Huffington Post is unbiased? How about the Daily Kos & Media Matters?
Interesting that the Detroit Free Press didn't bother to report what Hoffa said the day after the rally.
Reelect Obama and the whole country can enjoy the same prosperity as Detroit and Flint. |
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I used to care, but I take a pill for that now.
Pushing buttons sure can be fun.
When a lion wants to go somewhere, he doesn’t worry about how many hyenas are in the way.
Paddle faster, I hear banjos. |
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Thu Sep 08, 2011 12:32 pm |
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Flinn's Journal
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| The Freep did not think the Hoffa speech was worth reporting about. Media Matters is a media watchdog which monitors media abuses. Huffington Post is very balanced, unlike Fox Propaganda. Daily Kos is liberal, I admit. The Republican candidates for President make it look easy for Obama's re-election. Romney is a flip-flopper so we do not what what he stands for and the other GOP candidates are members of the Christian Taliban who want to impose their religious dogma on the rest of us. |
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I HAVE SEVERED MY TIES WITH FLINTTALK.COM BECAUSE TROLLS CANNOT BE CONTROLLED ON THIS BOARD. |
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Thu Sep 08, 2011 1:39 pm |
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1pissedoffguy
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| God, this is getting stale! Fox is a mouthpiece for the Republicans, Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert are just comedians as is Bil Maher. Sometimes Jon Stewart is funny, can't say the same thing for Maher. Huffington Post is nothing more than a bunch of articles written with the same bias one sees on PBS/NPR . All sources are biased folks. Here's what to to. What are your concerns? What is your station in life? What's your area of employment/educational levels? Got that in hand? Good , then stretch beyond your current educational levels. Use the library, listen to lectures from colleges on Youtube ( yes ,along with videos of people doing stupid stunts there are lectures on all sorts of subjects ) . And for this part hold on to your hats folks,, what I am going to suggest is going to shock you all,, ready? READ SOME BOOKS!! I know, that may sound extreme but give it a try. And Flinn's input is no different from those lefties on NPR/PBS but he is local so read some of his stuff. Just don't follow everything he says, he a tad arrogant. And he also is all bummed out his best buddy Leyton isn't the state's AG. We prevented that from happening , thank god. |
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Thu Sep 08, 2011 8:49 pm |
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Flinn's Journal
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@1pissedoffguy. I have news for you. A recall campaign has just begun against MI AG Bill Schuette as the recall language has been approved.
http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2011/09/medical_marijuana_advocate_win.html
I will sign the recall petition when I first come across one. Schette is also acting like a Christian Taliban member trying to make the law instead of following the law. |
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I HAVE SEVERED MY TIES WITH FLINTTALK.COM BECAUSE TROLLS CANNOT BE CONTROLLED ON THIS BOARD. |
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Thu Sep 08, 2011 9:33 pm |
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1pissedoffguy
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@1pissedoffguy. I have news for you. A recall campaign has just begun against MI AG Bill Schuette as the recall language has been approved.
http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2011/09/medical_marijuana_advocate_win.html
I will sign the recall petition when I first come across one. Schette is also acting like a Christian Taliban member trying to make the law instead of following the law.
And David Leyton is nothing more than a pissant plea dealer who is a soft on crime . I know he is a friend of yours but he is pathetic prosecutor. He fudges his "wins" to appear that he does something, he doesn't. I don't like Schuette screwing with the Medical Marijuana law, it was voted in overwhelmingly . But I warn you of introducing religious slurs Mr Flinn, you are inviting some serious issues by doing that. But then I know you libs operate under double standards so I know they won't call you on that, I will . Do what you please. I would love to see your buddy Leyton removed from his office in Genesee County. He is more interested in making speeches where he praises his own ( phoney) record. His self-praise merely shows the depths of his his self aggrandizement and that is scary as hell in a public official . |
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Fri Sep 09, 2011 2:20 am |
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Flinn's Journal
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A county prosecutor has to deal with the evidence the police provides. Don't you understand this?????????????????????????????????????????????????
Or do you want a high acquittal rate????????????????
Besides, the job of Michigan Attorney General is much different from that of a county prosecutor. Leyton would be a much, much better AG than Schuette.
BTW. if you did vote for Schuette, you have only yourself to blame--you are part of the problem. |
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I HAVE SEVERED MY TIES WITH FLINTTALK.COM BECAUSE TROLLS CANNOT BE CONTROLLED ON THIS BOARD. |
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Fri Sep 09, 2011 5:52 am |
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terrybankert
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| Keep it up untangled, you are the only researched independent view the citizens have. Thank You- Terry Bankert. |
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Join in the discussion here at Flint Talk , Face Book, Google Blogger " Good Morning Flint" , Twitter, Blogging For Michgian" and MLIVE.
If you want to be seen ,show up.If you want to be heard, stand up and speak.Do not wait to follow, just lead. |
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Fri Sep 09, 2011 6:58 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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| The Flint Journal receives copies of lawsuits filed and yet they never told the public about the serious allegations in the lawsuit regarding Smith Village. This lawsuit may cost us more money than allowing Smith Village to fail. Plaintiffs are asking for over a million in damages and there may be HUD repayments. |
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Fri Sep 09, 2011 7:27 am |
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1pissedoffguy
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quote:
Flinn's Journal schreef:
A county prosecutor has to deal with the evidence the police provides. Don't you understand this?????????????????????????????????????????????????
Or do you want a high acquittal rate????????????????
Besides, the job of Michigan Attorney General is much different from that of a county prosecutor. Leyton would be a much, much better AG than Schuette.
BTW. if you did vote for Schuette, you have only yourself to blame--you are part of the problem.
I don't know what I would do without you "educating " me Gary. Leyton washes his hands as soon as he can of he can of any case because he is candy ass prosecutor who doesn't put any real effort into any case. He's too busy looking for a better paying job elsewhere. Your arrogance is hilarious Gary. You are snotty to everyone, you think you know everything. Why did Schutte gain convictions in cases where your buddy Leyton gave up? Answer: Leyton is whinney piece of crap who doesn't want to do his job. Yes, I am part of the problem I guess. I actually would want an Attorney General of a state to vigorously and tirelessly work on the behalf of the people of the state who elects them. Leyton would be too busy pinning away for Happy Hour to come around . I do hope, next time we are given the chance. we can release Leyton from the burden of the having to put up with all the unwashed masses you and he find so distasteful . Yes, let him go the realm of legal malpractice he enjoyed before being saddled with the duties he wishes to shrug off now. If you are as close to him as you sort of insinuate that you are perhaps you convince him to just resign so we can get someone more aggressive in his office. But please stick around Gary, we need someone like you around to "educate" all of the rest of us. Oh, and how long have you practiced law? What are your academic credentials ? How many cases have you tried? How many cases have you been involved in? And what capacity were you involved in these cases? As a defendant ? If you were a Defendant I would understand your loyalty to Leyton. With him as a Prosecutor you probably would have a chance of not getting prosecuted ! Leyton is ineffectual, he is arrogant and I , hope, soon
will be out of a job! |
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Sat Sep 10, 2011 8:57 pm |
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Flinn's Journal
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YOU NEED EDUCATING, 1PISSED OFF GUY!!! Bill Schette was NEVER a prosecutor. But he has a political career a mile long. He was a congressman from 1984 to 1990 when he ran for the US Senate and lost to Carl Levin. Gov. John Engler then appointed Schutte to be MI Dept. of Agriculture director in 1991. In 1994, Schuette was elected to the state senate and served until he was term limited. He was elected as a judge in the Michgian Court of Appeals from 2002 to 2009.
Leyton? He served in private practice before he was elected Genesee County Prosecutor, his ONLY political job. I do see a dormant Recall Leyton page on Facebook so an attempt at a Recall Leyton campaign has fizzled. |
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I HAVE SEVERED MY TIES WITH FLINTTALK.COM BECAUSE TROLLS CANNOT BE CONTROLLED ON THIS BOARD. |
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Sun Sep 11, 2011 5:00 am |
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