A Non-negative Economic Look at Iron River

For a change, the news about the City of Iron
River is not bad. Ben Smith, our Associate Editor,
acquired the information that the City has been
found by the Michigan Treasury to be in a
sufficiently sound state that a close watch is not
necessary.

The scale of numbers starts with zero, the best
score, and moves upwards, to depict the level
of alarm that each municipality engenders.

Iron River achieved a zero score. The full table,
as well as a tabulation of several earlier years,
can be found at:

http://tinyurl.com/3fzkq2m

I look forward to the day that the City of Iron
River volunteers the auditor's report as well as
the budget for scrutiny and public comment. If
the City is actually proud of their achievements
perhaps they'll put a copy in the mail to me, they
already have my address. As far as I know, those
are public documents and they should be available
on request. I have to wonder why such records
aren't routinely put up for public view on their
web page. The business of the city is our business,
not the City Council's alone.

The old Russian adage "trust but verify" comes
to mind. Reagan, and others similarly clever,
took that caveat to be a rule of living, as we all
should where governments are concerned.

Bill Vajk