Vote "No" on February 28 School Bond Proposal

[Note: This article originally appeared in the February 2012 edition of Ferndale Friends] 


Regardless the virtues proposed for school bond proposals, each must be critically examined to determine if the fanfare and marketing that precede them isn’t intended to distract voters from serious questions school districts would rather not discuss.

Such is the case with this February’s ballot question asking Ferndale School District voters for  $23 million and another 10 years’ property tax that won’t be paid off until 2033.

Some of the questions the district doesn’t want to discuss, and I have the emails from the Superintendent, Director of Public Relations, and Executive Director of Curriculum Instruction to prove it include:

• Why won’t they provide per-building expenses and revenue so residents may consider board policies, budget, maintenance, or even new construction?
• Why haven’t they appraised district buildings to verify if the $53 million in assets isn’t actually worth much less than that?
• What does it say for the district when 46% (nearly half) of its students don’t live in the district (1205 from Detroit) and nearly one-third of in-district students don’t attend Ferndale public schools?
• What would be the best strategy be going forward if the board and voters focused on the 2096 district students remaining?
• How will Ferndale Schools ever positively impact property values when the schools perform poorly on standardized tests, due in-part to its out-of-district students?
• Is borrowing $23 million for repairs to facilities not likely worth the $53 million the district has on the books the best use of taxpayer money for 2096 students?
• Why should the board obligate taxpayers to a $23 million bond when area property values barely cover $13 million?

By the numbers, the ballot question deserves a resounding no-vote from taxpayers.  But more important is what taxpayers deserved from the district.

For instance, taxpayers deserve to know which schools generate revenue and which do not, and as importantly, they need to know how much the district profits from schools-in-the-black vs how much it loses on schools-in-the-red.  Facts like this would help residents better weigh if the district’s commitment to University High and Taft are truly in the interest of education or in the interest of profits.  It would help residents better understand why the school district turns a deaf ear to residents complaining of vandalism, reckless driving, loitering, and drug use near Taft.

One of the arguments in-favor of the passing the bond is that an investment in schools is sure to increase property values.  If there was indeed a direct relationship between spending on buildings and property values residents should ask why stop at $23 million?

The more direct relationship is between academic performance and property values.  Fair or not, most potential home buyers purchase school districts, not houses.  Long before they drive-by Ferndale’s tree-lined streets they’ll look at MEAP and ACT scores to see if its worth $3.50/gallon to make the trip.  

Lastly (not really, but there’s a word limit in these articles), as the bond obligates taxpayers until 2033 the district ought to provide a plan with enrollment and maintenance expenses projected at least 10-years into the future.  And as Ferndale’s population loss has been primarily in the under-18 age group since the 1970 census and with increasing numbers of parents choosing to send their children to other districts, the district had better devise a plan with more realistic expectations than they used for 1995’s $47 million bond, some of which was spent on buildings that were closed in 2002’s consolidation.

District taxpayers, residents, and parents deserve a 10-year plan, and a superintendent making over $200,000/year for a less-than-six-square-mile district should be capable of delivering it.

So until these questions can be answered in writing, with an appraisal of the district’s assets, a budget showing per-school revenues and expenses, and a plan to address our schools’ academic performance, taxpayers should vote no and not give the benefit of the doubt to either the board or an administration that doesn’t give the benefit of transparency to its taxpayers.

Sources:
https://www.mischooldata.org/DistrictSchoolProfiles/StudentInformation/Headcount/Snapshot.aspx
http://www.city-data.com/city/Ferndale-Michigan.html
http://www.ferndaleschools.org/administration/links/2004Bond_webArchives.pdf
http://www.ferndaleschools.org/administration/bond_faq.html
http://www.ferndaleschools.org/administration/links/bond/Bond_BoardApproved_PressReleaseAug2011_.pdf
2010 MEAP, ACT, and MME data from the State Department of Education

There you go again

[Note: This article originally appeared in the August 2011 edition of Ferndale Friends] 

Before becoming too big an advocate for everything the DDA does, some might reconsider their thoughts about trickle-down economics.

Whatever else President Ronald Reagan may be famous for, no other president has inspired as many synonyms for horse-feed economics as The Gipper.

Also known as horse-and-sparrow theory, the idea is that if you feed enough oats to the horse there will surely be something left (behind) for the birds to eat.

It gained national attention recently in 1980 (well, that’s recent for some of us) when Ronald Reagan’s primary opponent, George (the elder) Bush, described Reagan’s supply-side theory as voodoo economics. Voodoo economics became Reaganomics, also known as trickle-down economics.

Traditional trickle-down polices favor tax breaks and subsidies for banks, manufacturers, big oil companies, and the nebulously-defined but much reviled “rich,” with the expectation that those tax dollars will seep through jobs and yacht club memberships to the rest of us so we may afford Netflix’s price increases.

The idea is regularly pummeled wherever Liberals gather in large numbers. But here in Ferndale, and in many cities across the state, that is precisely what Downtown Development Authorities are, if only on a smaller scale.

The Ferndale DDA doesn’t provide tax breaks for downtown businesses (that I know of), but it does subsidize and promote them at taxpayer expense, relieving business owners of having to pay for, or pick out colors, themselves. The intention being, that government can improve the economy for all of us by focusing much of its attention businesses.

Ferndale DDA Director, Cristina Sheppard-Decius was wearing her best Reagan swag when she told the Ferndale Patch,

“This isn't just about businesses and downtown,” she said. “Downtown is the heart of the community, and if the heart stops … You know what happens when the heart stops."

The DDA director knows what her job is and what’s at stake. Our community reflects the health of its downtown.

This actually explains a lot. That noise keeping residents up at night on Troy wasn’t revelers and loud music—it was prosperity leaking into their bedrooms.

So to be consistent with our derision of government subsidies for dairy producers and chicken farmers, or tax breaks for manufacturers and green companies, we risk becoming hypocrites if we don’t also scrutinize our DDA, its revenue, expenses, and its impact on the city’s revenue and expenses.

And conversely, if you think the DDA’s work is important and your life or property values improved by their efforts, then you might consider that similar programs at the state and national level have merit as well.

Whichever path of reason you take, all uses of tax-payer money should be critically examined.

The Business of Government

Another threat to the city’s budget is our own school board.

Until very recently, the district planned to extract $50,000 annually from the city, and still hopes for more from district residents through a possible February millage increase (FF, June 2011).

It is said by many that government should be run like a business. Though many people say that, most aren’t clear what that would mean.

Few have as good a grasp of running government like a business as do Michigan’s Governor, Rick Snyder, and Ferndale School’s Superintendent Gary Meier.

While other school districts have teetering budgets, Gary Meier is running the school district like a business—looking to increase income and not just reduce expenses, and is safely in the black.

But Gary’s business is a hybrid. He can collect tuition from out-of-district students AND ask for a 7-mill tax increase from in-district residents.

It’s good business if you can get it.

The Ferndale Patch (my next favorite read after FF) quoted Mr. Meier saying,

"In order to move forward with a stable district as a whole, we have to look at revenue. We have to look at the revenue side of the ledger, not just the expenses.

"Every year, a percentage of the surpluses is saved for this project, for this work. Sometimes you have to invest a few dollars to make a few dollars."

Meier and the school board are broadening the district’s revenue by providing services to out-of-district and non-traditional students—which is another way of saying school-age kids and non-school-age adults that don’t live in Ferndale. The district may abandon their plan to purchase the Hayes Lemmerz site, but their desire to consolidate adult education, alternative education, and a possible charter school onto a single campus to make them easier for non-district residents to attend and our district to collect tuition makes too much business sense.

The residents living near the existing adult education center at Taft won’t be sorry to see it go—if it goes.

While campaigning around the school a couple years back, residents were ready with multiple stories about vandalism and drug abuse—anxious to tell them to anyone that would listen. But such sacrifices, perhaps, are necessary when government is run like a business and increasing revenue is as important as increasing test scores.

Except that according to the state’s 2005-2010 progress report, our district’s students aren’t performing as well as our district’s balance sheet.

There isn’t anything necessarily wrong with running a school district like a business as long as the quality of its product remains high and the impact on the environment is low.

Is the purpose of public schools to educate or turn a profit? As shareholders in the Ferndale School district, are residents more interested in its alternative revenue sources or the quality of its product?

Rain Barrel Math

There are 231 cubic inches in a gallon. Ferndale is 3.9 square miles, but if we annex a little bit of Pleasant Ridge we can make it four square miles to make math easier and the TIF district larger.

Four square miles is over 111 million square feet, and over 16 billion square inches.

When one inch of rain falls on Ferndale (and a little bit of Pleasant Ridge) it drops 69.5 million gallons of water, or 1.26 million barrels on our lawns, gardens, rooftops, roads, and parking lots.

One inch of water over 1000 square feet of roof will fill over 11 barrels with water. I’m catching only one of them.

A tax increase by any other name is still a tax increase

[Note: This article originally appeared in the June 2011 edition of Ferndale Friends] 

I was just getting ready to write, “Boy, I’m glad THAT’S over,” when I realized the 21-38% city property tax increase won’t really be over until Dec 31, 2015.  That’s when the extra mills (up to 5.4552) will expire.

I wonder if that’s what voters expected would happen in 1994 when they approved 7-mills for a school bond for facility improvements.  Or if they thought the 7-mills renewed in 2004 would expire in 2012, or if they’ll think the 7-mills they’ll likely be asked to pass next February will expire.

Perhaps they’ll never expire.  Of course, to politicians, renewals aren’t tax increases.  Once you get taxpayers into the habit of paying taxes there’s little sense in breaking them from it, or even worse, let them expire and have to start from scratch.

But don’t take my word for it.  On May 11, Ferndale School’s superintendent Gary Meier told The Ferndale Patch, “We have a window of opportunity here to maximize our bond capacity and do so without a tax increase.  If we move beyond this window, we lost both capacity and the ability to have it be a no new taxes issue. [sic]”

It’s like a banker extending your mortgage a few years, but telling you it’s a good thing because you won’t notice any difference in your expenses.

But the question isn’t whether or not these are tax increases.  Instead it’s what is the seven-year plan for the district?  Will it have more or fewer students?  How many more or fewer and what is that estimate based on?  Will the district require the same number of buildings?  Or even, will the Ferndale School District still exist in seven years as it does today or will it consolidate with one or more of its neighbors to become a larger, more efficient, lower-administrative-overhead-per-student district offering even more educational opportunities than it does today?

Taxpayers will also be interested to find out what happened to the high school asbestos abatement the 2004 bond was supposed to pay for, and why is the board asking for another $14 million, for which the “biggest improvement” is asbestos abatement in the high school.

Most residents favor safe schools.  But many residents are also likely to favor knowing why the 2004 abatement wasn’t completed, or if it was, did the contractor not lift a ceiling tile? If they did, why was asbestos allowed to remain in the high school another seven years?

It’s hard to be certain in Ferndale, but there is something at least 47 other Michigan school districts are doing to help their taxpayers be certain—they’re putting their checkbooks online.

One-in-six Michigan school children attend classes in districts, including Berkley and Royal Oak, where anyone can visit the district’s websites and see who the checks are being written to.  Even better, at some districts you can see exactly where they money is coming from.

In Ferndale, it would be especially interesting to know where the district gets its money and where it spends it.  Especially especially (two especially-s are more especial than one especially) because the district is studying the purchase of the 34-acre Hayes-Lemmerz site immediately south of the high school for just under $1 million, and is prepared to spend another $7.5 million to renovate the buildings. 

Taxpayers should wonder to themselves, “If it takes 7-mills perennially renewed to maintain the buildings the district has now, how much more will be required to maintain whichever buildings remain on the site after the renovation?” or “If the student population is falling (as it has for 20+ years), who are the new buildings for?” or maybe, “Are the new buildings needed to generate revenue by diverting even more adult-ed income?”

Whatever the new cost will be (and ignoring where the $8.5 million came from and why it hasn’t already been being spent on students) we can be confident it’ll only be a tax increase the first time.  After that it’ll just be a renewal.

Going back to May 3 (remember May 3?  It’s a song about May 3), I was contacted by a reporter asking if I attended the victory party with the other pro-millage folks or if I had celebrated elsewhere.

“Celebrated?”  I asked.  “I don’t think increasing my neighbors’ taxes or needing to in the first place is anything worth celebrating.”

That quote didn’t make the article.

I still feel that way, and I don’t remember ever casting so distasteful a vote as I did on May 3.

And that was the easy part.

The hard part will be making sure city council spends the money in a manner commensurate with the narrow 198… er… I mean… 197-vote margin—which is to say frugally.

To make that job easier it would be helpful if the city had its checkbook online so residents and press could see where they money is going.  For instance, how quickly do you think you could find out how much money the city spent on the Withington lot screening wall, or software, or Plante Moran consultants, or furniture, or its labor attorney?

You could file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and the clerk’s or city manager’s office would hunt down and organize the information for you, or you could try searching and reading minutes from previous council meetings online, or even watch video of meetings over the internet.

But wouldn’t it just be easier to download a spreadsheet?  Certainly it would if each disbursement included the item it was for, which fund it came from, and the date the expenditure was approved by council.

I think this would be a great campaign issue for a council or mayoral candidate to take up—and to deliver—after they’re elected.

Oh, and I almost forgot, the ability to do math is always a good qualification as well.

If you have questions about transparency, the sources for this article, or have comments about it, you may write Tom at tggagne@gmail.com.

What immigration giveth, emigration can taketh away

[Note: This article originally appeared in the April 2011 edition of Ferndale Friends] 

I promised Ferndale Friends’ interim managing editor I wouldn’t write anything about a specific ballot issue on May’s ballot for which the publish-date of this edition of Ferndale Friends presents an opportune time to promote my position on the subject.

Geography is against me here. The place to discuss the issue I’m not allowed to discuss is elsewhere discussed in this magazine. For this issue, at least, this column’s space has become a don’t-discuss-the-thing-you’re-not-supposed-to-else-you’re-sleeping-in-the-garage zone.

If that wasn’t hint enough, the interim managing editor is my wife, Tiffani (Hi, babe!). So for a while I can get away with admitting I think my boss is hot.

It is Lent, which means that for the 40 days leading up to Easter many Christians will either give something up or try to do something positive so they may become better Christians, or better spouses, students, or maybe just thinner. Many people will take a Mulligan on their New Year’s resolutions.

This Lent, I thought I’d try something similar and not criticize city council or even try writing something nice about each of them. But criticizing government isn’t really a vice and writing nice things about council wouldn’t fool anyone for a minute, so we’ll just see how it goes. I’ll definitely stick with my promise to Tiffani and not discuss the burning question on everybody’s mind as they head out to vote on May 3, “Do I need to bring a #2 pencil?”

The new Jamestown?

The latest census numbers show Detroit lost a quarter of its residents and Ferndale a tenth of its population.

Mayor Bing will likely both challenge Detroit’s numbers in court and go looking for uncounted Detroiters throughout the city’s 139 square miles.

It’s been said the two largest school districts in Michigan are Detroit Public Schools, and Detroit Public School students attending non-DPS school districts.

If estimations of Michigan’s second largest school district are accurate don’t be surprised to find Mayor Bing and DPS Emergency Financial Manger Robert Bobb driving through Centerline, Hazel Park, Ferndale, Oak Park, and other Detroit-bordering school districts looking for Detroiters that have falsified their addresses.

My favorite quote concerning Ferndale’s loss of 10% of its population (2205 people since 2000) came from Ferndale Mayor Dave Coulter in the Ferndale Patch, “"My job is to make the city the best place I can for the people here now.”

(I’m counting that as a nice thing said about council.)

What I like about Mayor Coulter’s comment is its pragmatism. Neither nostalgia nor spin color his perspective. He doesn’t hearken back to images of Ferndale’s past when Irish Catholics bunked children one atop the other in bedrooms and closets.

Pundits, politicians, and cheer-leaders are tripping over themselves in the press, online forums, and Facebook trying to convince the remaining population that losing 10-20% of the population was expected, and that plans are being made to tie meat around south-east Michigan’s neck so Millenials will play with us.

Exactly how many Millenials does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent light bulb, replace the economic activity of 2205 residents with beer and Buffalo-wings, or repopulate our school system?
In case you’re unfamiliar with the definition of Millenials, they’re typically described as 20-somethings. But they’re not just in their 20s. Millenials are also in their teens, tweens, and many still have their baby teeth—and Ferndale lost over 1200 Millenials under the age of 18. Statistically, I’m not as confident as Craig Covey that folks in the narrow age range of 18-to-30 exist in sufficient numbers to make up the difference.

(Craig isn’t on council anymore so I don’t count that as a criticism.)

According to a focus group on the Craig Fahle show (March 28) 20-somethings are just as likely to uproot themselves from cool cities after they start families and go on the hunt for high-performing school districts as their parents’ generation did.

For a different perspective on our region’s population loss we need to back up 130 years-or-so to the late 1800s when waves of Italians arrived looking for opportunity, or the Irish before them.

If that’s too far back we can look at what put Detroit on the population map and gave it the one of the nation’s highest median incomes—the auto industry.

Between 1900 and 1930, Detroit’s population ballooned from 265,000 to 1.5 million with immigrants from other states and countries. 100 years later, people are now emigrating to opportunities elsewhere.

Can we blame them? Should we hold them back? Should we discourage our loved ones from seeking their fortunes in the southeast or southwest or anywhere else they’re lured by the century-later equivalent of $5/day?

Not if we want them paying our Social Security and other government health and retirement benefits.

We should be proud of anyone that leaves to seek their fortunes elsewhere. They’ve more in common with the people that came to Detroit 100 years ago and built the Paris of the West than they do the tour guides at The Coliseum.

Well, we’ve made it this far and I’ve kept my promises.

If you have comments or criticisms for me don’t wait for a religious holiday. Write me at tggagne@gmail.com.

Municipal Math

[Note: This article originally appeared in the February 2011 edition of Ferndale Friends] 

In June 2007 council approved approximately $39,500 to repair a section of the screening wall around the Winthington parking lot.  Five months later, DPW director Byron Photiades was back asking for another $30,755.

When council asked why it was so expensive he said something about deteriorating caps, expanding rods and a park bench, but wrapped up by saying, “It may sound expensive, but it’s a really nice wall.”

It’s a really nice wall?

Just last June city council spent over $438,411 on new hardware and software to improve efficiencies. The very next month they spent another $447,930 on office furniture and carpeting one council woman (I won’t say which) thought was necessary to make city hall ADA-compliant (that cost was a relatively modest $21,500 – just 5% of the total).

But it’s really nice furniture.

According to (then) city manager Bob Bruner, the investment would save over $150,000/year in efficiencies and pay for itself in three years.

Of course, those savings didn’t show-up in the budget as expense reductions for the Financial Planning Committee to consider.  Why not?  Because the money was already “saved” when council laid-off staff earlier in the year. You can’t save the same money twice—except perhaps at Enron and Ferndale.

Well, not at Enron anymore.

Somehow, this little double-counting slipped past the Financial Planning Committee when their report commended city council for its efforts and encouraged them to keep it up.

And what, triple-count it?

Two council seats are up in November.  Anyone challenging the incumbents should publicize their ability to do math along-side their endorsements and favorite cities other than Ferndale (one of the tougher questions asked candidates for mayor last month).

If candidates avoid discussing their math skills, maybe someone in the audience at a League of Women Voters-sponsored forum can pass a simple multiplication or division problem on a 3x5 card to the candidates.

Here’s a multiple choice math problem you can write down and save for October.

“Ferndale’s proposed 5.45 millage increase was closer to a) 33% increase in city taxes, b) 10% increase in homestead property taxes,  or c) a drop in the bucket.“


Answers: a and b.  C is a quote from Galloway when he favored passing a Principle Shopping District tax in 2008, perhaps to help pay for the screening wall.

DDA Math

How about a story problem?

“If Ferndale’s DDA gets a National Park Service grant for $120,000 to help pay for 36 way-finding signs and kiosks downtown, how many previously unknown bars, salons, and stores might be discovered?”

Actually, that’s not a math question.  Some business owners suspect DDA staff are the only visitors to Ferndale that need a map, as they’ve never visited their stores.

Let’s try another.

“If Ferndale’s DDA gets a National Park Service grant for $120,000 to help pay for 36 way-finding signs and kiosks downtown, how much money did taxpayer’s save?”

With apologies to Adam Sandler’s Water Boy (1998):

“Mama say [sic] that grant money is from magic rays of sunshine that come down when you feelin' blue.”

The correct answer is it didn’t save them anything.  In fact, those way-finding signs will cost taxpayers more than $120,000 because we (the US government) borrowed $48,000 (40%) to pay for them.  And since we’re barely making interest payments on our debt, your children, grand children, and great grand children will be able to enjoy those signs, kiosks, and historical markers AND still be paying for them long after the DDA director and city council have retired.

Remember that when you pass the signs, kiosks, historical markers, and DDA members.

But the real magic is yet to come.

According to the DDA, the city of Ferndale’s $20,000 contribution toward the $262,254 spent on the signs represents an 1150% return on investment.  (Applause--really!  Don’t take my word for it.  Watch the video yourself from the January 24th council meeting.)

With all the laptop computers on city council’s table it remains a mystery why no one on city council laughed out loud or demanded an immediate audit of the DDA’s books.  Or maybe it’s not a mystery if math isn’t a core requirement for urban planning or law degrees.

Independent calculations aren’t able to duplicate the DDA’s numbers exactly, but using DDA math (not taught in Ferndale Public Schools)  if the city’s $20,000 “investment” earned an 1150% return, then the Woodward Avenue Action Association’s (WA3) $10,000 contribution earned 2300%.

If Cristina Sheppard-Decius, the DDA’s director, had pitched-in $100 of her own money hers would have been a 23,000% return.

(More applause.)

Only Bernie Madoff got those returns for his investors.  Well, not anymore.

The only return the city, WA3, and National Park Service got for their money is 36 signs and kiosks that can’t be exchanged for dollars to help balance the city budget.  The only return they got is that way-finding signs will outnumber sidewalk sandwich boards 2-1, and the DDA didn’t need to apply for a variance to the sign ordinance or pay an annual permit like downtown businesses are required to pay.

But they’re really nice signs.

It's a modified world after all

[Note: This article originally appeared in the December 2010 edition of Ferndale Friends] 

It’s a modified world after all

In mid-November our family visited the new Harry Potter Park at Universal Studios in Orlando.  While waiting in line for one of the rides I noticed a sign that read, “Modified seating, row 3.”

Modified seating?

I searched the internet with my new Droid X (great device) for an explanation.  As expected, we weren’t the first people to notice the sign.  The Orlando Examiner’s Seth Kubersky noticed it, too.  

“Author J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter fiction franchise is the biggest cultural phenomenon to hit the literary world in a decade.  But Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, the groundbreaking headliner ride at (the park) ran headlong into another major cultural development: the rapid expansion of America’s waistlines.”

For safety reasons, seats that might accommodate “modified” persons are unsafe for “unmodified?” persons as the latter may slip out.  

At 6’4”, I might be considered “non-standard.”  Though the restraints at the rides easily secured me safely in my seat, I noticed none of the head-rests on the rides were high-enough to guard against whip-lash, and my knees frequently knocked the sides of whatever vehicle I was riding in.  But tall people rarely, if ever, invite sympathy.  Tall people can’t blame their height on McDonalds, soft drinks, saturated fats, low metabolisms, or thyroid conditions.  

I was reminded of Universal’s “modified” seating—and the reason for it, when our family hopped on Disney World’s “It’s a small world” ride.  As our boat floated past the 289 animated dolls, 147 toys, and 36 animated props, I made another observation: none of the dolls is fat, or short, or tall. They’re all a uniform height.  In fact, due I’m sure to Disney’s meticulous attention to detail, none of the dolls were handicapped or otherwise not operating according to design.  They’re probably all equally educated and from similar socio-economic backgrounds as well.  Sure, they had different color skin, different clothes, different hairstyles, and the British dolls were easily identified by their bad teeth, but those are superficial differences.  That’s lip-stick diversity.  But it is the kind of diversity that’s easier to promote, accept, and include on questionnaires than diversity of opinion.

But it is a children’s ride after all, and children shorter than 42” can’t be expected to appreciate how superficial the diversity we see is compared to the diversity we hear, read, speak, or write.

But we’re adults.  We shouldn’t think we’ve conquered Everest when the only mole hill we’ve climbed is how people look.  We’ll have arrived at a much better place when we’ve overcome the xenophobia of opinion.

Overcoming that fear doesn’t mean we patronize those we disagree with.  In fact, it means quite the opposite.  It means we engage them in discussions, debates, and yes, even (civil) arguments.

But don’t expect that achievement to be celebrated by others, reported on the news, included in school advertisements, or recognized by advocacy groups.  It is truly its own reward.

Happy Anniversary!

This article marks the anniversary of my first “consolation” column published after Scott Galloway shellacked me in the 2009 election by 78 votes, or 3%.  Not as bad as the pounding Covey gave me two years earlier when a 318-vote margin separated us by 9%.  The good news is, if anyone believes the charter amendment’s success was a reflection of my political sway, it only passed by 2%.  

I’m not a mathematician, but I think this phenomenon (9%, 3%, 2%) is similar to exponential decay: an equation that may approach zero but is forbidden by the laws of mathematics, habit, or handicap from ever crossing the finish line.  If you’re not convinced, grab a calculator and see how many times you can divide any positive number by 3 until it actually reaches zero.  If you’re not sure, keep dividing it until it reaches zero or goes negative.  Write me when you get there.

I bring that up not only because of the anniversary, but because Ferndale was a stand-out when compared to the state election results.

Republican Ruth Johnson beat Democrat Jocelyn Benson for Secretary of State by 5.5%, but lost in Ferndale by 35%.

Republican Bill Schuette beat Democrat David Leyton for Attorney General by 9%, but lost in Ferndale by nearly 34%.

Finally, Republican Rick Snyder beat Democrat Virg Bernero for Governor by 18%, but lost in Ferndale by 19.5%.

Now, Michigan is pretty much a “blue” state, meaning it normally leans toward Democrats.  Though the state as a whole went in the opposite direction, Ferndale stuck to its guns and is so far out of the mean to be bordering on becoming not just a statistical outlier as much as a statistical outcast.  This lopsidedness is reflected in our city council as well.  While many voters may interpret the council’s many 5-0 and 4-1 votes as evidence of what council person Kate Baker describes as collaborative, others see it as uniformity, homogeny, or monotony of thinking.
  

Essentially, Ferndale’s council may have straights, gays, males, and females, but is otherwise absent of diversity of opinion.  Which is to say, it reflects the hegemony of its voters.

We’ll see in January if city council appoints a council person to replace the resigning Mayor Covey that will give it the “new dynamic” it claims to want.  That would be an act of leadership, and that, too, is its own reward.   

Pump up the volume. Dance! Dance!

[Note: This article originally appeared in the October 2010 edition of Ferndale Friends]

NIMBY is an acronym for Not In My Back Yard.  It’s a term thrown around whenever a bunch of folks are in favor of a refinery, an incinerator, a jail, a half-way house, adult book store, or anything else many think is Good For The Community (GFTC – not an acronym) but they don’t want it near them.  It’s ok to be by someone else’s home, to increase someone else’s health risks, or increase traffic on someone else’s streets as long as it’s not our health, our safety, or our streets.

The current issue that has all the NIMBYs out in force is Ferndale’s noise ordinance.  A petition circulated this summer proposes to lower the nighttime volume from 65 to 60 decibels.  Not surprisingly, there are many that feel those five decibels would kill the downtown, drive away night-time revelers, shutter the bars, and return tumbleweeds to Nine Mile.

As much as Ferndale likes being like everyone else, I wonder how Ann Arbor manages to survive with its residential nighttime limits at 55 decibels.  Birmingham, East Lansing, and Kalamazoo are 60, 55, and 45 decibels respectively.

According to Ferndale reactionaries, these cities must be ghost towns.

At a city council meeting earlier this summer, council-woman Melanie Piana (or was it Kate Baker?) suggested Ferndale consider New Jersey’s “model” sound ordinance.  I doubt either of them actually read it as it recommends a residential night-time limit of 50 decibels.

In Detroit, amplifiers aren’t even allowed to be used if they’re within 250 feet of a residential area.  I don’t think anyone enforces that, but this summer Mt. Clemens’ new noise ordinance ordains that any downtown sound that can be heard 500 feet away is too loud.

Heck, according to other cities’ standards, at 60 decibels petition organizer Sherry Wells is a partying sorority chick gone wild.  Reserve your “The Girls of Troy St.” calendar at a Ferndale retailer near you!

So, before everyone shouts-down the residents on Troy asking for a little consideration, remember they aren’t nearly is prudish as the folks in Ann Arbor, East Lansing, Kalamazoo, or San Francisco (45 dBA measured inside the house).

At their September 27^th meeting, city council directed the DDA director and city manager to retain a sound engineer (spend money) to develop guidelines (spend time) for a non-sound-pressure-based measurement (spend credibility).  I humbly submit the research provided above for free, printed in a free magazine, dropped on your porch every-other-month for free.

It’s just my little contribution to help Ferndale balance its budget.

It’s always darkest just before it goes pitch-black

Speaking of balancing the budget, if you haven’t visited www.despair.com, you should check it out.  If you’re sick of reading all those motivation posters hanging in the hallways at the office, this is the website for you.  My favorite is named, Mistakes.  It’s a picture of a sinking ship in the middle of a tranquil sea.  You’ll have to read the caption for yourself when you visit the website.

Anyway, on September 13^th, council appointed 12 residents to accomplish in 55 days what council couldn’t accomplish in 163 days—fill a three-year budget deficit of approximately $12 million with expense reductions and tax increases.  Believe it or not, the 12 people selected were among 29 that volunteered for the job (including yours truly).

One of my favorites was Melanie Piana’s nomination of a guy she admitted she didn’t know, hadn’t met, but heard was “a nice guy.”  With keen and penetrating rationale like that I wouldn’t trust her recommending a hair dresser much less someone with influence to cut city services and raise property taxes.

Heck, with those qualifications she may as well have nominated Ashton Kutcher.  I suspect they haven’t met either and he seemed a nice-enough-guy on That 70’s Show and the Nikon camera commercials (at least until rumors of his pulling a Tiger-Woods on Demi More).

To bring everyone up-to-date, the Financial Planning Committee has met three times.  The first was a get-to-know-you meeting with a few people declaring the DDA and Kulick Center off-limits (out-of-the-box-thinking).  The second was elections of a chair, vice-chair, and secretary (Bob Porter, Joel Petrie, and Bob Bruner respectively), followed by 100-level Municipal Accounting primer given by the city manager to catch everyone up on the definitions of fund, expense, income, and statutory.  I don’t remember if he covered the words discretionary, frivolous, indulgent, and reckless, or if he’ll just show video of the July 26 council meeting when they approved spending $447,930 for a $21,500 chair lift while staring down a $3 million deficit in next year’s budget.

Conformity is its own reward

On this November’s ballot Ferndale citizens will vote on whether our police and fire chiefs should report to the city council as they have since the city’s beginning, or report to the city manager.  After council attempted to make this change without residents’ input a petition forced the issue to the ballot, hoping that by election-day city council will have provided some justification for why both chiefs’ visibility and independence should be eliminated.

Residents have been waiting since mid-summer for council to explain themselves.  If the new arrangement is as efficient as they claim it should be easy to back up with numbers rather than anecdotes (“other cities do it”), whining (“they’re making fun of me”), or hissy fits (Galloway’s wanting police and fire personnel to account for their time in 15-minute increments).

If city council can’t explain their actions other than to say others are doing it, then we don’t need our city council.  Instead, Ferndale can just imitate Madison Heights’ charter and ordinances, or Royal Oak’s, or maybe Ann Arbors—then we can resolve the who-reports-to-the-city-manager, medical marijuana, and implement a 55 decibel residential noise limit from 10PM-7AM and free-up two Monday evenings a month.

So until that time comes, residents should vote NO.

Still waiting...

[Note: This article originally appeared in the August 2010 edition of Ferndale Friends]

 

Among other provisions The First Amendment guarantees is the right to, “… petition the government for a redress of grievances.”  July was a busy month for redressing Ferndale’s city council as two petitions were being circulated; one to repeal an ordinance and another to amend one.

The latest word on the petition to amend Ferndale’s sound ordinance initiated by Troy Street residents is that it has been suspended (or slowed) while petition organizers arrange to meet with councilwoman Melanie Piana and Mayor Craig Covey.  Troy resident Sherry Wells has appeared multiple times before council complaining about the sound level of music from Rosie O’Grady’s and other downtown hot-spots interrupting her and her daughter’s sleep.  The copy of the petition I read didn’t include any recommendations on dealing with the parking, discarded prophylactics, drug paraphernalia, and other Animal House debris that accompanies the DDA’s master plan. 

Wells’ most recent visit to city hall brought an interesting comment from Mayor Craig Covey.  After congratulating Rosie’s late-night patrons for practicing safe sex, the mayor suggested Ms. Wells use an electric fan to drown-out the noise--just like he does.

Apparently, the mayor uses a really BIG fan that drowns-out a LOT of noise.  So much noise, in fact, someone broke-in to his house, stole items from his bedroom, and made their getaway in His Honor’s own hybrid SUV.  Even criminals, it seems, are as interested in free-parking downtown as they are free plasma televisions and jewelry.

The other petition repealed ordinance 1094, passed by council at their June 12^th meeting, over the objections of a very animated councilman Mike Lennon.  That suspended ordinance read in-part, “The Division of Law and Records [Clerk] and Division of Safety [Police and Fire] … shall be under the supervision, direction and control of the City Manager.”

Councilwomen Melanie Piana and Kate Baker both said it was a good idea because “modern” cities like Madison Heights, Hazel Park, and Oak Park do it, so Ferndale should, too.  Modeling Ferndale after any city other than San Francisco caught a lot of residents off-guard.  In just 22 days, petition circulators gathered 400 signatures from shocked voters which were turned-in four-days early by petition organizer Tiffani Gagné (Hi, honey!  If your name is misspelled it’s Steffie’s fault).  Only 266 signatures were required, but Mrs. Gagné believes anything worth doing is worth over-doing (Who loves ‘ya, babe?).

By the time you read this city council will have likely insisted to wear their “pants on the ground” and be like other cities—when it suits them—and the question about 1094’s adoption will become a matter for voters to decide in November.  Perhaps by then, city council persons will have come up with better reasons for the ordinance than, “all the other kids are doing it” and “the other kids are making fun of me.”  If responsible moms won’t accept that argument for getting a tattoo or body-piercing I don’t see why voters should accept it for revising the charter.

A (not-so) quick story

I’ve barely used-up half of my 900-word column and so have extra room for the “quick story” section.

On coming home one evening I spotted a well-known Democratic candidate going door-to-door on our street.  I noticed them leave one neighbor’s porch, skip our house, and head to another neighbor’s porch.  As I pulled-in to my driveway I yelled out the window to the candidate and encouraged them to stop by the house as soon as they finished the house whose porch they were stepping-on to.  After exchanging a few welcoming words that were responded to with a quizzical look I was confident they understood the invitation.

Excited they would be coming over I ran inside the house.  Having done the door-to-door thing in hot weather I knew they’d be thirsty.  I filled a big bowl with ice, water bottles, and Diet Pepsi™ (a favorite of mine), threw a cloth napkin over a small table on our front-porch, pulled up two chairs, and waited.

And waited.

After several minutes passed I saw them cross the street to visit Nancy Goedert’s house (former Mayor Goedert’s mom).  I thought to myself, “Well, of course they’d visit Nancy!  Why would a Democrat come this far up West Woodland and not check to see if Nancy’s home?”

They entered Nancy’s house and I waited.

And waited.

I ended-up drinking both Pepsis™.  Eventually I gave-up my vigil on the porch and moved inside hoping for the door-bell.

That was weeks ago.  I’ve sent two emails since.  No response.  But I'm not waiting.

I share this story to remind people that voters are responsible for partisan gridlock.  They’re responsible for electing politicians that define themselves as partisans first and will deliberately turn aside an invitation to reach out and share their views or listen to ideas dissimilar to their own.  This is the last frontier of diversity Ferndale needs to conquer.  Americans can’t change the partisan divide in one election, but they can start by electing better council persons and county commissioners.  Local politicians become county, state, and even federal representatives.

In this city, you know who you’re voting for.  If they’re not the kind of politician you’d respect if they were on the other side, then you shouldn’t elect them to represent yours.

Depending on the outcome of the August Democratic primary, I may reveal that candidate’s name.

If you want to take a guess at who that candidate is or have a short story you think would make a great tag-ending to this column, write me at tggagne@gmail.com.

Blind to the obvious

[Note: This article originally appeared in the June 2010 edition of Ferndale Friends]

It’s a good thing the DDA spent $40,000 on the Crow’s Nest sculpture.  With Ferndale’s public safety departments slashed 20%, the constable inside the tree-house on Woodward at Nine Mile may be the only officer with job security.

Ferndale city council has finalized its budget.  The Kulick Center survived the cuts, but eight police officers and four firemen did not.  We have churches with spaces our community may utilize.  Affirmations does as well, as will our new library.  We have health clubs both in and very-near the city’s center for working out on state-of-the-art equipment and aerobics.  What Ferndale doesn’t have, charitable or not, is an organization that responds to 911 calls, keeps little fires from becoming big fires, will enter  big ones to save lives, and respond to the 1700+ medical calls-per-year (nearly five a day!).

Ferndale doesn’t have a fashionable special interest or advocacy group that’s prepared to police our southern border, our parks, or assist neighboring communities respond to their emergencies or manage traffic for parades and festivals.

Our city government, and by extension its public safety department, are uniquely qualified and authorized to do things no other organization, public or private, is able to do; apprehend, arrest, and detain suspected criminals.

The staff and volunteers of Affirmations, as great as they are, wouldn’t have been much good at the VFW hall after the December 19 birthday party shooting.  The members of the First Baptist Church or their new tenants, SOS, haven’t the equipment to respond to fires, strokes, heart attacks, domestic violence, reckless driving, drunk driving, or chemical spills.  Kulick-center patrons aren’t going to raid a drug-house, keep our streets safe for children on Halloween, or bring their emergency vehicles to our block parties, picnics and fairs to thrill children and introduce them to the brave men and women that protect and serve.

A lot of people want to lay all the blame on city council for the cuts.  I’m not one of them.  Ferndale’s voters hired our current city council in 2005, 2007, and 2009.  I include 2005 because there were already warnings the housing bubble artificially inflated city budgets in the mid-decade as much as it did property values.

Having learned nothing from the Savings and Loan scandal in the early 90s or the internet bubble burst in 2000, there was little sense of caution or restraint as council continued hiring and spending as though hiring, spending, and arts & crafts was the purpose of government.

OK.  Maybe for some it is.

Regardless, all our city council persons were elected by voters.  It’s up to voters to tell city council whether they agree the city should be managed by $6,000-surveys, USA Today’s at-a-glance charts, or by pop-urbanists.

In the same week Ferndale’s downtown was patting itself on the back for Mainstreet’s National  “Best In Show” award, residents on Camden (third block north of Eight Mile, west of Woodward ) alerted police to two people sawing catalytic converters off parked cars and a drug house that was subsequently raided by Ferndale Police and the Oakland County Narcotics Squad.

I applaud Camden residents’ devotion to their neighborhood and hope city council is as vigilant of all our streets as they are opportunities to promote downtown or their political careers.

But until property values return to rational levels there are no easy budget remedies.   And perhaps that’s exactly as it should be.

According to our city manager, Bob Bruner, our four-square-mile corporation would have already declared bankruptcy had it not been a government.   But like a company, tough economic times present as many opportunities as challenges.

Falling revenues provide us an opportunity to prioritize our spending--an opportunity for our city to discriminate between core and discretionary services.  A core service is one that only our government is given the authority to do, or one that if our city didn’t provide it there’s little reason to have a city at all.  Like public safety, zoning, and community development.

 A discretionary item is a service or facility that can be easily provided by another entity—either public or private.  Think meeting rooms and halls, kitchens, exercise equipment, garbage collection, leaf pick-up, and ballroom dance lessons.

Between the extremes public safety and ballroom dancing (and I rank Plante Moran Cresa’s nurturing council’s desire for a new city hall about as important as publicly-funded ballroom dancing), it is council’s job to prioritize how tax dollars are spent.

The easiest way for government to avoid prioritizing or risk upsetting the beneficiaries of discretionary spending (and their votes) is to raise taxes.

Council has already asked the city manager to prepare a buffet of tax increases they might consider for the fall ballot.  Two of them will certainly be a dedicated public safety millage (an extra tax for something the city should fully fund in the first-place) and a Headlee Override, which would allow the city to increase its millage rate to 20.0000 from 2010’s 14.5448.

According to early estimates, Mr. Bruner has indicated a Headlee Override could bring-in $3.4 million for the 2012-2013 budget.

Given the dilemma of further cuts or tax increases, and the surviving discretionary items in the 2010-2011 budget, I’m disposed to more cuts before raising taxes.

We’ll know when city budgets become critical when discretionary expenses are almost non-existent and the other local cities’ resistance and excuses for not integrating more services finally disappears.

Newsflash:  Just before going to press, I heard a rumor that city council has a plan to augment our diminished police force.  They’ve asked Bob Bruner to investigate erecting eight constable-occupied tree-house sculptures, like the one downtown, along our Eight Mile border to discourage crime.  They want to call them Scare-Crows Nests.

If you have a short story you think would make a great tag-ending to this column, write me at tggagne@gmail.com.

Thoughts on Headlee, taxes, and Geoffrey Dollars

[Note: This article originally appeared in the April 2010 edition of Ferndale Friends]

For the third year in a row, Ace Hardware has been recognized by J. D. Power and Associates as having the highest customer satisfaction of home improvement stores. Scheer’s Ace Hardware in Oak Park on Nine Mile at Republic is certainly deserving of that award. The folks there have been doing their damnedest to help me through my home improvement ineptitude for 12-years in a row.

I also want to congratulate Wyll Lewis on a successful fundraiser to return Thunder, the mechanical horse, back to the front of American Pop! Thunder has become a better-known and loved Ferndale landmark in five years than the solar-powered 100-foot tall Viagra® advertisement erected at Woodward and Cambourne will ever become. Unlike city council, Wyll doesn’t need to compensate for anything.

If you’re like Covey, Lennon, and Galloway, you missed the first Wednesday night budget meeting in March (canceled due to lack of quorum). If you missed the second meeting (both of us showed up) you also missed what I thought was an amusing moment.

City Manager Robert Bruner had just finished telling council that the service-counter at city hall will require some remodeling so the remaining public-facing staff can move upstairs. Bruner didn’t have a cost estimate, but indicated the remodeling wouldn’t be cheap.

Galloway started (and I’m paraphrasing) “If the cost difference between remodeling the counter and renovating city hall isn’t that big, maybe we can save money by renovating city hall once instead of the counter now and the building later.”

Boy, that guy doesn’t give up, does he? In the face of a $3.5 million budget deficit this year Galloway still holds a candle in hopes we can buy a $4 million service counter (a really nice counter) and get city hall renovations thrown-in.
Not even the helpful hardware folks at Ace could pull that off.

It’s a good thing Councilwoman Kate Baker was there to suggest a new counter would likely only have three or four zeroes after the first digit, and not six.

While we are on the topic of the budget, I recommend the 14% of registered voters interested in Ferndale’s budget emergency visit the city’s website and check-out Bob Bruner’s slide show. While reading it, contemplate Bob’s graph showing how Proposal A and the Headlee Amendment will likely prohibit property tax revenues returning to last year’s record $9.2 million until 2023 or 2043.

Heck, even I could be elected to council before 2043. Or not…

Anyway, rather than holding on to the pipe-dream of a renovated city hall, or blaming senate Republicans for Ferndale’s financial woes and not repairing the garage on his vacant property, I’d rather Galloway talk more about the remedy he suggested to The Daily Tribune—a Headlee Override.

The two most interesting numbers on your assessment are your home’s State Equalized Value (SEV—roughly half your home’s estimated street value in Goeffrey Dollars) and its Taxable Value (TV—calculated by laid-off NASA scientists).

Whenever a home is sold and its taxable value adjusted up to the higher SEV (uncapping) the city gains NO EXTRA TAX REVENUE. Instead, all the nearby homes have their taxes lowered. The longer you’ve owned your home the lower your taxes will be thanks to your new neighbors paying your freight. The net result is the burden of property taxes falls on new home-buyers. The older a city’s neighborhoods, the more disproportionately its property taxes are likely to be distributed.

In older cities like Ferndale, one homeowner may be paying $9000/year in property taxes while their neighbor with a nearly identical house (as far as SEV is concerned) only pays $1200/year. The difference being the first home was purchased in 2007 and the second in 1997.

If we raised property taxes the reality may be the biggest burden is born by our newest residents, and our homes become even less attractive no matter how often the Woodward Avenue tent pole is polished.

Let’s not rush into millage increases until we examine the alternatives.

A quick story

While campaigning last year in “The Dales” I met a woman that moved to Ferndale from Detroit and for many years enjoyed her beautiful neighborhood. In the last couple years, however, more junky cars, trucks, and vans have been accumulating on the street creating an eyesore.

“All my neighbors hate it. We complain all the time. If I wanted my street to look like this I could have stayed in Detroit.”

“Have you called the city?” I asked. “I know someone that called the police for a long-parked truck near our street and it was towed a few hours later.”

“No, we haven’t called anyone,” she told me. “We just complain to each other.”

If you don’t have your own tow-truck, badge or other credentials, call the police non-emergency hotline at 248-541-3650.

What is government for?

[Note: This article originally appeared in the February 2010 edition of Ferndale Friends]

What’s government for if not public safety?

On January 25th, hundreds of villagers armed with torches and pitchforks stormed council chambers to demand council stop their evil plans to layoff police officers and pull the plug on an $8 million city-hall- monster.

I tried doing that last November but fell 79 villagers short.

Sorry. I couldn’t resist.

The truth is, there was nothing on the agenda regarding layoffs, police or otherwise. But eventually $3 million will need to come from somewhere and according to city manager Bob Bruner, public safety is half of the city’s budget.

In the heat of the moment someone suggested, and was applauded no less, a special public safety millage they would gladly pay to protect our police and fire departments from budget cuts. Not being the excitable chap I was in my youth, I was dumbfounded. If public safety isn’t one of the essential responsibilities of government what is? Why shouldn’t government attend to its primary responsibilities first then the discretionary? Maybe an essential government responsibility should consume half the budget. Maybe the public safety budget should be thought of as less a percentage of the budget and more as an expense proportional to the size and demographics of the city.

If cutting public safety 20% is reasonable, then so should shortening our streets 20%, or turning away one of five cars coming into the city, or responding to only four-of-five 911 calls for medical or fire emergencies.

Rather than propose a special millage for public safety I would rather (though reluctantly) consider a temporary millage for non-essential services. When I write temporary, I mean the millage for discretionary (though popular) services like leaf pick-up must be renewed every year or two. This would give citizens a direct vote to fund (or not) projects and services similar to how they were given an opportunity to vote for a new library.

If city council wants to protect discretionary items then they need to find a way to pay for them until the general fund can afford them.

How about an out-of-the-box idea? And I mean REALLY out-of-the-box idea.

Little cities need to stop thinking big and start acting big. The 38 square miles made up by Berkley, Clawson, Ferndale, Hazel Park, Huntington Woods, Madison Heights, Oak Park , Pleasant Ridge, Royal Oak, and Royal Oak Township pack ten governments and nine police and fire departments into an area the size of Livonia.

According to a July 2007 article in The Detroit Free Press, Zachary Gorchow and John Wisely wrote:

These 10 municipalities spend more than $9 million combined on salaries and benefits so that most can have their own city manager or township supervisor, clerk, treasurer, fire chief, police chief and other department directors, according to records obtained by the Free Press.

It is theoretical only -- no one has proposed the idea -- but if the 10 municipalities were to become one, it would create Michigan's third-largest city at about 192,000 people, behind only Detroit and Grand Rapids.

Mixed inside those hard facts are some real possibilities. How much of those cities’ budgets could be saved by sharing not just services, but department personnel and motor pools as well? How green could that community be? How much political capital might it have in Pontiac and Lansing?

Imagine the resources our schools might have if they weren’t half-full—but that’s another article.

Of all those cities, Ferndale may be financially better off than some, but is our nose so big we’re willing to cut-off 20% of our police and fire to spite our safety?

I think not. I’d prefer our city council and manager start camping at other city’s council meetings, calling them out, in public, on cable, and even in print, to pressure them to agree to more regionalized services.

Lots of regionalized services.

We don’t need to erase our borders, but it may be time to blur them. How bad are the 10 governments willing to let it get? Maybe it’s just not as bad as they tell us.

A quick story.

Crystal Proxmire, writer and editor of Ferndale115.com, moved in across the street from me so I gave her a ride home from the council meeting. She told me she’d heard a rumor that I was responsible for the anonymous flyers about the police layoffs that caused the raucous.

“I wouldn’t have left my name off,” I told her. “Writing lacks credibility without a signature.”

“I knew it wasn’t you,” she said. “It wasn’t wordy enough.”

Ah, thanks?

My Consolation Column

[Note: This article originally appeared in the December 2009 edition of Ferndale Friends]

Welcome to my consolation column! Were I a presidential candidate I may have gotten a million dollar book deal and speaking engagements crisscrossing the country. All things being relative, after losing the Ferndale council race to incumbent T. Scott Galloway and new-comer Melanie Piana, I'm instead contributing an article to Ferndale Friends and my speaking engagements are limited to lecturing my kids.

On the plus-side of the ledger I won't have to balance a $15 million budget that's $3 million lighter than last year.

Losing does have its advantages.

This is probably the last opportunity comments on November's election can be indulged or at least forgiven. Please read-on with either one or both of those in mind.

Let me share a major difference I noticed between this year's campaign and 2007's. This year I limited the houses I visited personally to only those that voted in 2007's off-year election. When I ran in 2007 I used 2006’s gubernatorial voter list which had a couple thousand more voters. The difference between the two lists is the people I was lucky enough to speak with this year were generally more informed about local politics than the bigger list.

Believe it or not, in 2007 I had a conversation with a voter that went something like this.

"Hello, my name is Thomas Gagne. I'm running for mayor and would like to ask you a few questions."

"Mayor of what?" she said.

“Let me start with, do you have children?”

I also learned this year I can’t extrapolate election results based on the people I talk to going door-to-door. To be honest, I bet I spoke to fewer than 10% of the residents whose homes I visited. All were unanimously against spending any money on city hall and wanted council to immediately stop their Pay-Consults-For-Everything Economic Stimulus program ($65,000 and rising). Though most agreed Nine Mile and Woodward sparkles (Mayor Craig Covey’s word, not mine) many felt it was time the DDA stop baby-sitting our downtown businesses and agreed it was time to show Hilton some love.

If that’s how voters really felt and if those were my issues, then I should have been a shoe-in.

Well, there was certainly a shoe involved when the results were in, but not where I anticipated it.

It turns out the best predictor of 2009’s election was a gentleman I spoke to that told me he felt everything was OK. As long as he’s lived in the city taxes have always been high, council has always spent money on silly projects, and too much attention has always been paid downtown. But as none of that threatened him personally he wasn’t inclined to change anything.

Maybe that explains both the results and the low voter turnout (14%). Without pain, a mayoral contest, or a major issue on the ballot there just wasn’t much to get people to skip Desperate Housewives or Grey’s Anatomy.

A quick story.

At a meeting for the candidates held by the city clerk, Cherilynn Tallman, and city manager, Bob Bruner, we were discussing the lack of a current city map. Apparently the original map used to make copies from disappeared a couple years ago after Mayor Bob Porter left office. Greg PAW-lica suggested the map that hangs on the wall near the city council table could be used as a new original. We all went over to it to take a closer look.

While studying the map’s superior quality and imagining its potential to make dittos I couldn’t help but notice the little bit of real-estate cut-out of Ferndale’s northwest corner to make room for Pleasant Ridge.

“How many police officers does Pleasant Ridge have? Five? Six?”, I asked.

“Maybe six. Eight tops,” someone else replied.

“Hmm. And they don’t have their own fire department,” I said. “I bet if we took our 60+ police officers and fireman, along with a few allies from Oak Park we could easily invade on three fronts and take over the city. As liberal a city as it is there’s bound to be few armed residents. It should be easy.”

Melanie Piana’s mouth fell open and her face had that shocked you-can’t-possibly-be-serious look on it. Greg paw-LICA was LOL. Apparently, Melanie wasn’t familiar with my sense of humor. I mean really, who would want to annex Pleasant Ridge? Is the pool that nice?

I wonder. Maybe that could be an issue for 2011?