The Loudest Cricket

With about two months to go, Snyder has a healthy 20% lead over Bernero with the number of undecideds shrinking to under 10%.  My only concern would be how the nerd handles the debates.  He eschewed the Republican debates and spent his time at town-hall meetings.  Hopefully, he’s getting coached well enough so as to [...]

In her last year as governor, Jennifer Granholm is finally proposing cuts across the board – a whopping 3%.  Well, I guess it’ll plug the hole for this year, and we’ll have a new governor next year.
The governor proposed a $50 million cut for Corrections, Human Services and Community Health on top of the 3 [...]

As mayors, Virg Bernero of Lansing and Brenda Lawrence of Southfield have wrestled daily with the aftershocks of population loss, plummeting property values and revenue sharing cuts. Now, as the Democratic candidates for governor and lieutenant governor, it’s up to them to put those issues front and center in the gubernatorial campaign, forcing an overdue [...]

Here in Michigan, manufacturing added 20,000 jobs last month.  Hopefully this will turn into a positive trend.  We’ve got a long way to go, with unemployment sitting at about 13%, but it’s a start.  I expect the rate to go up, initially, as more people start looking for work.  As long as the government doesn’t [...]

Home prices may be leveling off, but that doesn’t mean cities and counties are out of the woods:
Metro Detroit lost nearly 10 percent of its taxable value — $16 billion — in the past year because of a real-estate crash that keeps claiming victims, according to a Monday report.
Local communities are going have to [...]

The governor’s proposed services tax, for instance, might be more palatable if it were made revenue-neutral in the first year and tied to a phase-out of the onerous Michigan Business Tax surcharge.
Wishful thinking.  The service tax will just be another temporary measure that becomes permanent, like the gasoline tax.  State legislators will see it [...]

You couldn’t script this any better.  The woman who cost the previous police chief his job also had an affair with the new chief.  And the old chief brought the affair, and possible sexual harassment, to the attention of those who fired him, apparently hoping to get a better severance deal.  His evidence?  Text messages.  [...]

What’s the usual turnout for primaries, 10-15%?  So, no, 70% of the 15% of the eligible voters is not “an unambiguous vote of confidence for public transit” in southeast Michigan.  In fact, it’s very ambiguous.  Most, if not all, the tax renewals passed, as did this one.  This wasn’t a mandate on public transportation, it [...]

Wayne County retirees have been getting a Christmas bonus for the last 25 years.  I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.  How can they rationalize giving out bonuses to people who no longer work?
County retirees will miss the checks, no doubt, and we understand that losing them will be painful. The county should never [...]

Well, that’s three police chiefs in three years.  Not a good sign for Bing’s leadership ability in picking the right person for the job.  At least he knows enough to get rid of a guy instead of being overly loyal.  Evans seemed to have his priorities mixed up:
During a press conference Wednesday, Bing wouldn’t address [...]