26 July 2010

 

Frank Versagi
Inform, Educate, Entertain

On this page
Six good men running for 26th District State Rep . . . City Hall is busy . . . CITCOM meeting, part 2 . . . Mandated health care insurance is a tax . . . China now world's biggest user of energy . . . Syria bans veil, moves to remain secular society . . . Michigan is like Greece? . . . Veterans Administration to allow medical marijuana

Inside
2010 Tax Dialogue . . .  2010-2012 Finances . . . Royal Oak talks Millage . . . Medical Marijuana dialogue. . . 2010 Primary Page . . . To Tax or Not To Tax, That is the Question . . . The Sound of Downtown Music (noise ordinances)

Why this website?
 

 

City Hall is busy
The day I dropped off my wife's and my Absentee Ballots, I stayed around for about an hour just to see what went on.

Well, in that hour some 50 people came or left or came and left. Seniors, mothers towing kids, middle aged men and women. A handful dropped off their Absentee Ballots. Most went to the City Clerk's counter. Some went there first then went down the hall to the Treasurer's counter or the Assessor's counter. Two or three times, it was busy enough that short lines formed at each end of the hall.

I made it a point to watch the behavior of the city employees. Except for a handful of exasperated looks (never an exasperated sigh), the workers were cordial to friendly. None of the residents left exasperated or in a huff. Most departed offering a pleased "Thank you."

Three department heads separately stopped to chat with me for a few minutes. I asked each for a head-count status. Each has lost  workers. I sensed a little weariness accompanied by a determination to get done what has to be done -- on time.

I was unable to spot one of those lousy, lazy employees that city hall haters complain about.

Beyond the gunslingers
19 July CITCOM meeting, Part 2

Once the gunslingers finished their circus act during Public Comment last week, CITCOM got to work and accomplished routine business.

  • Reluctantly but unanimously approved the agreement for paying the Oakland County Sheriff's Office for its coming help in policing the Arts, Beats & Eats festival. There was some grumbling that Royal Oak taxpayers already pays those guys and surprise that the city has to pay overtime rates ("not  even a discount?"). In a later news report a Sheriff's Office spokesman commented that the department doesn't offer free service to a for-profit event, suggesting that any comparison with their work on the Woodward Dream Cruise is misguided.
  • On a 4-3 vote, thought they had approved a proposed Charter Amendment which had been revised at CITCOM's request. A correction to the Synopsis-Minutes pointed out that a change to the charter requires a super majority, so it failed. Voting against the amendment were Drinkwine, Poulton, and Rasor. The amendment would call for the next best vote-getter in the latest election to be appointed to fill a commissioner-vacancy which occurs within the first year after the election.
  • Unanimously authorized City Manager Don Johnson to proceed with adjusting AFSCME hours to 32 per week and to close City Hall and Department of Public Services office any one day per week as he deems necessary. The details are a bit confusing, since some employees will be working in city hall, even though the facility will be closed to the public, and there may be changes as collective bargaining continues. Friday is the day city hall will be closed.
  • Voted 6-1 to approve the Liquor Control Committee's recommendation to grant the transfer of liquor license from Memphis Smoke to Cantina Diablo. Because Diablo had agreed not to have not even piped-in music on its rooftop, there was a bit of confusion over whether the extensive sound-proofing installation still needed to be installed. Especially since the petitioner has made it clear that he will be back seeking permission to have music, that sound-attenuating installation is part of the approval. Capello voted No, saying, "This isn't just a transfer; it's an expansion."
  • Very clear, yet detailed, budget amendments were unanimously approved. Go to the CITCOM meeting's agenda on the City's Website for those details.
  • Although Rasor suggested there is no need to rush, he joined in making unanimous the decision to request City Attorney Dave Gillam to draft an ordinance intended to "protect" for recreational purposes several parcels of land near Thirteen Mile and Coolidge. The ordinance will be placed on the November ballot. If approved, only another vote by the residents could reverse the decision.
  • As part of visualizing Royal Oak "ten years from now," Rasor introduced the concept of a "Central Park" replacing the parking lot outside city hall. No action was required but he has planted the idea -- which local architect Frank Arvan has dreamed of for years and which he supported during Public Comment.

Six good men running for 26th District State Rep
Madison Heights and Royal Oak voters can't go wrong choosing any one of the six candidates hoping to be their State Representative.

Speaking style aside, the four Democrats and two Republicans who participated in Thursday's League of Women Voters Candidates Forum at the Royal Oak Library are (a) equally impressive in terms of familiarity with state issues and (b) not far apart in philosophical approach to most of those issues. The Democrats are Frank Houston, Bob Klotz, Kevin McLogan, Jim Townsend. The Republicans are Ken Rosen and Bill Shaw. The auditorium was filled, probably more than a hundred in attendance. Here is a flow-of-conversation summary of that 90-minute forum.

  • Five of the six maintain this is not the right time to hold a state constitutional convention. Houston said necessary amendments can be presented to the electorate without spending the $20-30 million needed to go through the convention process, and "Will the voters ratify?"  Shaw voted Yes, his thought being that substantive changes are needed to get the state out of its bureaucratic "quagmire." Townsend said regional collaboration can accomplish much of any reform needed. Rosen stressed that "we can reform government with our votes," pointing our that there are many open seats in the legislature and other elective posts.
  • Five of the six said, "yes, yes, yes" about supporting the three millage proposals on the August 3 ballot. Rosen: "But no new taxes. Is the money being well spent? Shaw said that unfortunately, the problem "won't be solved in Lansing," apparently agreeing that regional collaboration may be t he way to address such matters.
  • Maintain Public Benefits for that "one-quarter of Michigan's population that currently requires them? Klotz and McLogan, both emphasizing mental health as well as Medicare and Medicaid, agree the safety net must be maintained. Townsend says maintain it, but reprioritize the spending. Rosen thinks a safety net is essential but should not be a "butterfly net," from which there is no escape. He offers that non-profit groups are more effect than government in rendering such services. Shaw: "This is a conundrum." If the choice is between using government's "limited resources" to help create jobs or to provide these services . . . [More]

Conversation with Fire Chief Nancarrow
Retired Fire Chief Ronald Jerome Nancarrow (1977-83) stopped by the Historical Society Museum for two reasons: (a) To see what had been done in and to his fire station and (b) To ask whether the museum had any interest in a couple of artifacts he had in his personal collection. On his second visit to the museum, for which I serve as Registrar, we sat down for what turned from a chat about matters historical to a full conversation, because so many of his memories apply to current civic/political concerns. [More]

COUNTY/STATE

Kevin McLogan, candidate for 26th District State Rep, has been endorsed by the Greater Detroit Building & Construction Trades Council. McLogan was one of the six participants in the recent League of Women Voters candidates forum.

Michigan is Greece?
Greek fiscal crisis is going to come to the United States next year via the vulnerable state governments of (at least) California, Michigan and New York. Look for these states to descend once more on Washington DC with their tin cups seeking additional federal subsidies, disguised as stimulus payments. But…with Republicans in control of both Houses (bet on it) they will meet a frosty reception on Capitol Hill. While Obama will try to pass the subsidies, the GOP will turn them down. The American people – from the other 47 states – will ask why they should reward state irresponsibility with federal dollars.

Faced with a cutoff of additional federal aid, these state legislatures will be unable to balance their budgets and bond buyers will back off their paper. Ratings agencies will downgrade their bonds to junk status and bankruptcy will ensue. -- Dick Morris

NATION/WORLD

Mandated Health Care is a tax! No, it's not!
WASHINGTON — When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”

And that power, they say, is even more sweeping than the federal power to regulate interstate commerce.

Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations. Under the legislation signed by President Obama in March, most Americans will have to maintain “minimum essential coverage” starting in 2014. Many people will be eligible for federal subsidies to help them pay premiums.

In a brief defending the law, the Justice Department says the requirement for people to carry insurance or pay the penalty is “a valid exercise” of Congress’s power to impose taxes.

Congress can use its taxing power “even for purposes that would exceed its powers under other provisions” of the Constitution, the department said. For more than a century, it added, the Supreme Court has held that Congress can tax activities that it could not reach by using its power to regulate commerce.

While Congress was working on the health care legislation, Mr. Obama refused to accept the argument that a mandate to buy insurance, enforced by financial penalties, was equivalent to a tax. “For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase,” the president said last September, in a spirited exchange with George Stephanopoulos on the ABC News program “This Week.”

When Mr. Stephanopoulos said the penalty appeared to fit the dictionary definition of a tax, Mr. Obama replied, “I absolutely reject that notion.” -- New York Times/International Herald Tribune

Syria has forbidden the country's students and teachers from wearing the niqab – the full Islamic veil that reveals only a woman's eyes – taking aim at a garment many see as political. The ban shows a rare point of agreement between Syria's secular, authoritarian government and the democracies of Europe: Both view the niqab as a potentially destabilizing threat.

"We have given directives to all universities to ban niqab-wearing women from registering," a government official in Damascus told The Associated Press on Monday.

The order affects both public and private universities and aims to protect Syria's secular identity, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue. Hundreds of primary school teachers who were wearing the niqab at government-run schools were transferred last month to administrative jobs, he added.-- Huffington Post

China now the world's biggest user of energy
Thank the Lord. Now environmentalists can blame the Chinese instead of Americans for pollution, global warming, greedy lifestyles, and all the other world's problems which the United States has foisted on the world. Then there's the environmentalists' complaint about China trying to become Hawaii by building a pile of lush golf courses.

Around The World in about an hour-and-a-half.

SCIENCE, ENVIRONMENT/TECHNOLOGY

 
LIFE
 
VA to allow medical marijuana
DENVER — The Department of Veterans Affairs will formally allow patients treated at its hospitals and clinics to use medical marijuana in states where it is legal, a policy clarification that veterans have sought for several years. A department directive, expected to take effect next week, resolves the conflict in veterans facilities between federal law, which outlaws marijuana, and the 14 states that allow medicinal use of the drug, effectively deferring to the states.

The policy will not permit department doctors to prescribe marijuana. But it will address the concern of many patients who use the drug that they could lose access to their prescription pain medication if caught.

Under department rules, veterans can be denied pain medications if they are found to be using illegal drugs. Until now, the department had no written exception for medical marijuana. This has led many patients to distrust their doctors, veterans say. With doctors and patients pressing the veterans department for formal guidance, agency officials began drafting a policy last fall.

“When states start legalizing marijuana we are put in a bit of a unique position because as a federal agency, we are beholden to federal law,” said Dr. Robert Jesse, the principal deputy under secretary for health in the veterans department. At the same time, Dr. Jesse said, “We didn’t want patients who were legally using marijuana to be administratively denied access to pain management programs.” -- New York Times: Jul 2010 [See Legalize Drugs]

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