News and politics
Read next page
Majority white communities avoid Emergency Financial managers with help from Republicans Denby and Rogers
Ah. So THAT’S how it works.
As majority African American communities in Michigan are forced to live under the rule of unelected dictators, formerly called Emergency Managers and, now, once again called Emergency Financial Managers, efforts by two Republicans in the heart of Republican Livingston County are hoping to avoid the same fate for their own, mostly white, communities. Fiscal troubles that can be laid largely at the door of state legislators Cindy Denby and Bill Rogers would be conveniently remedied by a new law that Rogers and Denby co-sponsored. Even though these communities are in trouble due to fiscal mismanagement on the part of their government leaders, they, unlike Benton Harbor, Flint, Pontiac and other Michigan communities, would receive a state bailout, not a takeover of their town by a state-appointed dictator.
The story begins about a decade ago when Denby was the supervisor of Handy Township in Livingston County and Bill Rogers was the Livingston County Commission chair. Municipalities in Livingston County, which was, at the time, Michigan’s fastest-growing county, were borrowing scads of money to pay for water and sewer projects for new, private developments springing up all over the area. They created Special Assessment Districts (SADs) for each development. As folks moved into the new homes, they would be charged a special assessment on their property taxes to pay back the bonds. Many of the bonds enjoyed backing by the County that allowed them to get lower bond interest rates.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t always how it’s done. Many counties expect the developers themselves to shoulder the risk, putting in the water and sewer infrastructure that they would recoup when they sold the homes in the development. Not so in most of Livingston County.
Under then-Supervisor Cindy Denby, Handy Township approved a variety of SADs, often approving new ones before previous developments had been completed. And Livingston County itself, under the “leadership” of then-Commission Chair Bill Rogers, went along, allowing the County to back the bonds which resulted putting the County on the hook if the bond payments were not made.
Then came the recession and the collapse of the housing industry in 2008-2009. Many of the developers in Livingston County walked away from their developments. It was easy for them to do: they had much less money tied up than they would have had they been forced to pay for water and sewer infrastructure. The developments sat, mostly empty; vacant lots with unused water and sewer services.
And a large pile of debt.
The extent of the problem went largely under the radar of most Livingston County residents. Although they had upwards of $100 million in debt that the County was now responsible for, Bill Rogers and the County Commission kept it very quiet.
Then, in 2010, Bloomberg News published an article that drew national attention to the ticking time bomb in this Republican stronghold:
Michigan’s auto-industry collapse, which led to the worst home-price drop among U.S. states, has forced some of its wealthiest and fastest-growing communities to seek state aid to prevent municipal bond defaults. {…}
“We’re trying to stem the bleeding,” said Representative Bill Rogers, a Livingston County Republican and cosponsor of some of the legislation. “There’s no way they could pay these [bond payments] with no income coming in.” {…}
“As soon as they would fill one development they’d start another, and then one day it just stopped,” [County Treasurer Dianne] Hardy said. “Now the ground is not worth what it cost to put the infrastructure in.” {…}
“The township’s very weak sewer system operations could have a negative effect on general fund operations if it does not collect a large portion of special assessment delinquencies,” S&P said in its report.
The “state aid” that is mentioned in the Bloomberg article was House Bill 6181 (pdf), legislation co-sponsored by Denby and her Livingston County partner in mismanagement, Bill Rogers, both now state legislators. When that didn’t pass, they tried again in 2011 with Denby sponsoring House Bill 4148 (pdf). Not surprisingly, Rogers was once again a co-sponsor.
Denby and Rogers were unsuccessful in getting their second bill passed, as well, legislation that would have created a state fund to bail out communities like Handy Township and other Livingston County municipalities struggling due to poor decisions made in the past. Poor decisions made, in fact, by the co-sponsors of the bill. Notably, this legislation included only debt resulting from SADs and so would have been unavailable to communities like Benton Harbor, Flint, Pontiac, and other cities under the thumb of an Emergency Manager.
Denby and Rogers, along with newly-elected Republican Mark Ouimet, took another bite at the apple this year, introducing a package of tie-barred legislation, House Bills 5566-5570. This time, they also included Benton Harbor Republican Al Pscholka as a co-sponsor. In order to make the legislation more palatable, they included school districts as well as government entities, not restricting it to debt from SADs. Third time was a charm as they say and this time they were successful. The bills became Public Acts 284-288 of 2012, signed into law on August 1st by Governor Rick Snyder.
What this all boils down to is this: Cindy Denby and Bill Rogers made major mistakes, in the form of bad financial decisions, when they were in charge of Handy County and Livingston County governments. In order to clean up their messes and avoid having their municipalities taken over by Emergency Managers, they came up with an idea for having the state bail them out. In their first two attempts, they restricted it only to debt from SADs, which made the bailout specific to more affluent communities. Like the ones they mismanaged into near-bankruptcy. Only when they couldn’t get their bills passed did they extend it to include other areas.
Essential News from The Associated Press
|
The Democrats will scream racism. Let them. Republicans are not going to pick up significant black support anyway. But here’s the thing: everyone but the Democrats will understand this is not racism. This isn’t even about race. This is about the judgment of an administration that would rather prosecute Arizona for doing what the feds won’t do than prosecuting violent thugs who would deny you and me the right to vote while killing our kids.
via Southern Strategist Sarah Palin Denies the Southern Strategy.