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Adam Ford
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This just made front page news of yahoo.com!!!
FLINT, United States (AFP) - As yet another auto plant prepares to shut is doors, the mayor of Flint, Michigan has come up with a radical - and possibly illegal - plan: a city-run assembly plant.
The aim is to bring much-needed jobs to a town that has sunken even further into despair in the 15 years since film maker Michael Moore documented the first round of plant closures by General Motors in his award-winning "Roger and Me".
Boarded-up houses and businesses darken the city's streets. Abandoned lots are choked with weeds and trash. Schools are crumbling. The bright lights of a downtown revitalization program serve merely to highlight the city's empty streets.
It is a scene that is playing out in industrial towns across the nation as manufacturing jobs are shipped to cheaper labor markets overseas. Next week, the despair will spread to more towns when Ford Motor Company announces a slew of plant closures.
But the Flint Mayor Donald Williamson is hopeful.
In his first two years in office he managed to wrest the city from state control by erasing a massive deficit. He's paved the roads and managed to get a fresh slate of city councilors elected who back his sometimes controversial plans.
"We are going to do something different in this city that nobody else has done," Williamson said as he leaned across his wide desk in city hall.
"We will (build) our own manufacturing plants that the city funds," he said. "We are going to specialize in nothing but truck accessories."
There is plenty of factory space available and people who are used to working on the assembly line. And once the city proves the plants can make a profit, buyers are certain to come knocking, Williamson said.
It's not clear if the city would be allowed to run a for-profit enterprise, and many have questioned the rationality of the plan.
"It seems like the private sector ought to be the one developing plants and not the municipality," said Paul Keep, editor of the Flint Journal. "Is this going to take millions and millions of dollars from the Flint treasury?"
When pressed, Williamson refused to offer more details or even say when he plans on submitting his proposal to the city council.
But the fact that he's considering it highlights the desperate times Flint has fallen upon.
"Reality doesn't have a lot to do with what gets promised in Flint," said Albert Price, a professor of political science at the University of Michigan, in Flint.
"Desperate people will believe anything."
Flint has hosted some spectacular failures over the years as the city tried to reverse the tide of job losses, Price said.
There was Autoworld, the failed theme park that closed within six months and cost the city 100 million dollars. Then there was a bid to revitalize the downtown with a festival market place. And an attempt to draw tourists by having the city buy and renovate a downtown hotel.
"Flint is in a desperate condition but it has little to do with Flint in particular," Price said. "Flint has lost more industrial jobs than most cities had."
Flint has always been a GM town and its fortunes have risen and fallen along with those of its main employer.
The northern Michigan town's population peaked in the 1950s at 200,000. But as GM's payroll shrank from 80,000 to its current level of less than 10,000 (including those employed at its former subsidiary, the now bankrupt parts supplier Delphi), so too did Flint.
The 2000 census pegged the population at less than 125,000 and it has declined even further since then as parents flee crumbling schools whose walls are lined with mould.
In November, GM said it would be closing another plant and there are rumors that Delphi will soon lay off thousands more employees. Unemployment in the town is already nearly three times the national average.
"There's a lot of people with a lot of plans and I hope they all work," said Keep of the Flint Journal. "Michigan's economy is broken with all this loss of manufacturing.
"It's a period of adjustment and I don't think we really have a clear idea as to what Michigan will be like. It's unsettling to people."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060120/ts_alt_afp/usautopoliticsflint
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Sat Jan 21, 2006 6:48 pm |
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Adam Ford
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| For the record I support bold ideas. If this plan is feasible I feel we should go for it! This is no Autoworld proposal. I beleive the mayor has done a similar proposal in the past. It kind of reminds me of the Green Bay Packers. The town bought out the Green Bay Packers. The NFL declared that can never be done again. |
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Sat Jan 21, 2006 6:55 pm |
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plato
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quote:
Adam Ford schreef:
For the record I support bold ideas. If this plan is feasible I feel we should go for it! This is no Autoworld proposal. I beleive the mayor has done a similar proposal in the past. It kind of reminds me of the Green Bay Packers. The town bought out the Green Bay Packers. The NFL declared that can never be done again.
What plan this is an announcement.
I remember this was talked during a state of the city.
Where will the investments come from? General fund, bond question, 10,000 questions. There is a great difference between great announcements and a great plan.
Where will citizens go if the city starts this process to stay informed, ensure that the rules are followed or the rules are changed in a public way?
A strong municipal ombudsman is one answer.
Terry Bankert 1/22/06 |
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Sun Jan 22, 2006 6:16 am |
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Wittgenstein's Poker
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| Once again the leadership in Flint has failed to understand the basic tenets of economics. This truly is a testament to the notion that anyone can start a business and be successful, because Williamson is assuredly economically incompetent. |
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Thu Jan 26, 2006 4:49 pm |
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Adam Ford
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| Does anyone have a better suggestion? The Don has had some success in the auto industry I believe. Isn't that where he made some of his money? Where did the city get the $100 million to build autoworld? I bet we could take over an auto plant for more like 1 million. If the jobs are there why not bring them in? Or should we just sit and wait and watch more jobs leave this city? I beleive we should consider all options. I think jobs are the #1 thing this city needs and yet is still loosing. |
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Thu Jan 26, 2006 8:32 pm |
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Ted Jankowski
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Adam, that is an interesting idea. By law, government isn't supposed to be able to own a business such as that. Yet, Government does run businesses. The government runs Parks, Rec centers, etc. Some make excellent profits. Take the RV parks. Since the State got into that business. They have raised permits and licensing fees on the private parks, and changed laws to make the privately owned parks raise their rates. So that the State parks are more appealing. While I don't believe it's governments Job to Provide Jobs. It is an interesting idea.
However, the correct methodology would be to make Flint a Business friendly environment. Attract big business to Flint. Which it doesn't. What does Flint really have to offer that businesses want? Why do you think that the only two businesses moving or relocating in Flint. Are only inside the city limits by about 500 feet. They are as close to the border as possible. |
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Thu Jan 26, 2006 10:28 pm |
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