http://michiganmessenger.com/48333/benton-harbor-takeover-sparks-furious-reaction

Quote :

"The impoverished former industrial town of Benton Harbor has become a flashpoint in the controversy over the new law that allows the governor to appoint Emergency Managers with virtually unlimited authority over local governments. On Thursday the state-appointed Emergency Manager Joe Harris used the expanded powers granted by the new law to issue an order banning the city commission from taking any action without his written permission. Benton Harbor City Commissioner Juanita Henry says her constituents are angry and looking for help, but without the power to hold meetings the city commission can’t even provide an official venue for citizens to ask questions and get answers. “They are using Benton Harbor as a test case,“ Henry said. “If they have disenfranchised the people so badly they just don’t respond to anything, they can do this all over the country.” "

4/21/2011 12:33:05 PM

I can't watch the video so can you explain the thread title or the golf course references in the article. It sounds like there are two separate topics being discussed.

1.) That the local government is basically being dissolved and taken over by state officials.
2.) That the public park is basically being sold to Whirlpool for a golf course.

I might be missing something, but it seems to make sense that if a town can no longer support itself, that its not really immoral for the state to step in and try to help. The town is bitching about losing a public park and fire department when it can't afford pay public employees.

4/21/2011 12:51:55 PM

I don't see the problem here.

4/21/2011 12:52:24 PM

Sounds like a Dukedom or Barony.

4/21/2011 1:16:38 PM

One problem is that one of the people involved in the takeover of the town has a big investment in the golf course.

4/21/2011 1:17:59 PM

I cant watch her for more than one minute, sorry

4/21/2011 1:37:31 PM

You guys do realize this is the plot to the goonies.

4/21/2011 1:42:05 PM

Wow. Two months ago I was interviewing for a position at Whirlpool in Benton Harbor. I ended up declining the 2nd interview because I had done some research on the town and decided I definitely did not want to live there.

Its a city with a population of ~10,000, situated on one side of the St. Joseph river where it empties into Lake Michigan. It has the lowest per capita income in the state, half the residents are below the poverty line and demographically its something like 90% black. Exactly opposite Benton Harbor across the river is the similarly sized city of St. Joseph, which has triple the per-capita income, marginal poverty and 90% of the residents are white.

Lots of potential for political drama there

4/21/2011 2:09:54 PM

The town elected officials are being done away with by state directed fiat without any say from those being effected. The park was a gift to the town in the early 1900s. Rachel explains it very succinctly. I'd like to know what happened to all the "small government" republican talk from back during the elections? Yeah, we see how long that lasted. . .

Quote :

"I cant watch her for more than one minute, sorry"

Well that's your loss. Continue to wallow in ignorance.

[Edited on April 21, 2011 at 2:57 PM. Reason : .]

4/21/2011 2:56:18 PM

Quote :

"You guys do realize this is the plot to the goonies."

Winner.

4/21/2011 3:03:26 PM

What is the proper course for a state if one of its towns goes insolvent? It sounds like the town basically shut down if it couldn't pay employees. No doubt nobody wants outsiders coming in and making decisions for your community, but I don't see what the alternative was.

If one of the state officials does have direct ties to the golf course, then yeah that part is definitely shady

4/21/2011 3:43:34 PM

There is no "if" here. The connection is there and this notion of the state merely doing away with local officials as it sees fit is something that Rachel has been talking about for weeks now. This is just the first (of what are likely to be many) casualty.

4/21/2011 3:59:41 PM

What is the alternative for an insolvent local government? Not arguing a position, just curious what alternatives would be.

4/21/2011 4:29:51 PM

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/golf/2010-05-20-golfeconomy20_ST_N.htm

Benton Harbor hopes to mirror the success of its neighbor. St. Joseph, a city of 9,000, is now a retirement community and a tourist destination with its beachfront property. Property values have increased 28% in the last five years, according to city manager Frank Walsh. Unemployment, he says, has fallen to 3%. A decade ago, the downtown vacancy rate was 22%. Today, it is 0%.



Good ole Maddow

4/21/2011 4:32:48 PM

This is what happens when states insufficiently regulate the behavior of towns within their jurisdiction.

4/21/2011 4:50:04 PM

Benton Harbor chose to have their elected officials nullified? They chose to have one of their few civic gems simply given to a golf course? How many citizens of Benton Harbor will be able to enjoy this new, swanky golf course?

4/21/2011 4:56:08 PM

Lets be real here, a town with a per capita income of 10k isn't taking advantage of a park for its intended purpose.

4/21/2011 4:58:45 PM

There are some interesting twists to this story. The Emergency Financial Manager and villain in question, Joseph Harris, was actually appointed by the previous administration, Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm. Also, the development of the golf course began BEFORE the EFM came into power and was initiated by the now dissolved City Commission. Harris may be an opportunist taking advantage of the situation, but he doesn't appear to be the grand architect of some diabolical scheme. Therefore, while the grand Michigan Republican Party conspiracy sounds nice and neat, the truth is a bit murkier.

Some would argue to that the project was initially started by Whirlpool as an attempt to revive the local economy, though the entire question of gentrification and displacement is a separate issue.

There is still a very important story here about the role of state governments in near insolvent local governments, and Joseph Harris has taken some pretty extreme measures that should be called into question. His links to the Harbor Shores golf course, being quite real, should also force him to at least recuse himself from anything related to the park's development. Yet like all things in life, we're not talking about clean "Black and White", "Good vs. Evil", and "With Us or Against Us" situation here but a much more complex tragedy.

This column neatly sums up some of the gray covered up in Maddow's narrative.
http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/04/column.html

Quote :

"But as the story of Benton Harbor shows, these issues are much, much more complicated than good versus evil. What's worse for Benton Harbor: A financial manager with dictatorial powers or an utterly dysfunctional city government? Are Benton Harbor residents better served by 90 acres of parkland, or 68 acres and a new source of revenue for cash-strapped city coffers? Is it insensitive to build an upscale development in a downtrodden community, as Maddow suggests? Or does it show that the business community hasn't turned its back on Benton Harbor?"

[Edited on April 21, 2011 at 5:02 PM. Reason : Picked a better quote]

4/21/2011 5:01:27 PM

Black people make great caddies.

/sarcasm.

[Edited on April 21, 2011 at 5:08 PM. Reason : sarc]

4/21/2011 5:07:57 PM

I can appreciate the complexity of the situation and to be fair we're all airchair debating this anyways. I'll go ahead and admit my problem with this. (Not surprisingly) My complaint is taking that parkland what was given to the town in good faith and destroying it to make some golf course. Golf courses are notoriously detrimental to the environment and there is little doubt that Benton Harbor will bear the brunt of the pollution generated by this.

4/21/2011 5:11:47 PM

This is the most important point here

Quote :

"when it can't afford pay public employees"

The town couldn't pay the public employees. I suppose the state could have still stayed the hell out of the way and then what? Hope you can get people that will take care of the town for free? I'm sure that wouldn't cause any problems.

4/21/2011 5:11:57 PM

The city council meetings following the EFM suspension are on youtube and interesting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppG_BT-i_98&feature=related

4/21/2011 5:12:12 PM

Quote :

"You guys do realize this is the plot to the goonies."

I was thinking Breakin' 2: Electic Boogaloo.

4/21/2011 5:19:23 PM

state’s rights, ftw

4/21/2011 9:03:12 PM

all they gotta do is find one eyed willy's treasure and problem solved.

4/21/2011 11:48:47 PM

Quote :

"The town couldn't pay the public employees. I suppose the state could have still stayed the hell out of the way and then what? Hope you can get people that will take care of the town for free? I'm sure that wouldn't cause any problems. "

This is sort of an interesting question. What do you do with a city/town that's bankrupt? A company goes out of business, and the assets are liquidated. Can you do the same to a city? Do you un-incorporate it and make everyone part of the unincorporated county again? Do you let a near by city annex it if it wants?

I'm not sure I like the idea of just handing over the city to some random politician, but is that much different from simply dissolving the charter and dumping the city under county control? I suppose the difference is, you may have elected your county officials, but not necessarily the emergency manager.

4/22/2011 12:17:20 AM

I don't think some of y'all are following all of this. I did some investigating and made this huge post about Benton Harbor, and I thought it was really interesting, but then I realized it's wasn't. The impoverished people of Benton Harbor and their little park (or one of their drug/hooker marketplaces, as Chance has suggested) are downright adorable in the grand scheme of things. Instead of summarizing, I'll just let y'all read some links along with me:

http://www.eclectablog.com/2011/04/connection-between-michigans-efm-power.html
http://www.eclectablog.com/ (general blog)
http://blog.mlive.com/grpress/2007/12/photo_courtesy_of_marge_beaver.html
http://www.saugatuckdunes.org/
http://theblindedeye.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/who-is-fred-upton-r-mi-6/

We're talking the Seattle Supersonics and Indian burial grounds and billionaires and big oil and not just preying on bankrupt towns but trying to force solvent ones into bankruptcy so you can get one of these newfangled EMFs to do your bidding. Benton Harbor is obviously a political/economic disaster (which is what my original post was about), but they are just the pathetic tip of an iceberg of injustice. Of course, none of this is that out of the ordinary, but the EMF element is elevating things to a whole other level.

[Edited on April 22, 2011 at 3:02 AM. Reason : ]

4/22/2011 2:45:29 AM

Come on, guys!

Let's chat!

4/28/2011 10:45:34 PM

New jobs on the course, rich money pumping into the town, new government officials...seems like a winner

4/29/2011 9:22:44 AM

Since 1/2 of my family is from Benton harbor/ st Joe I'll say fuck Benton harbor. It's residents let it get that way. The area used to have a lot of migrant farm help, but when they figured out they could do just as well financially by staying in Benton harbor year round and riding welfare the place went to shit. Only thing I miss about the area is that my extended family used to own a golf course up there that I could always play free on.

5/1/2011 8:12:25 PM