This ‘n That and a Tale Of Two Kings

About Pentoga Trail:

On March 22, 2012 I attended a conversation about education,
k-12, at the George Young Complex in partnership with The
Center for Michigan. That event is engendering another article.
This one has to do with a road I took while going to that
meeting, Pentoga Trail.
I had used that street before, but hadn’t noticed what, to me, is
normal, that being a “good road.” Unfortunately it is an unusual
state for a road in Iron County. Pentoga Trail isn’t anything like
Lynx Lane, or heaven forbid FFH 16 that was completely
repaved just a few years ago, let alone Old Beechwood road
that residents have been waiting some 28 years to get fixed.
No indeed, that’s a smooth road from one end to the other, and
not a single bump or dip did I encounter.

Of course there’s a possible explanation for the wonderful state
of the road. A former Iron County Road Commission chairman,
John Archocosky, just happens to live there. Could there be any
connection between the quality of the pavement and the
status of the individuals who reside there?

See also: http://tinyurl.com/d4kcgxp

That said, we leave it to the readers to decide.

Building a Blight:

So the three story building at the corner of Genesee and Third
Avenue is experiencing an “Act of God” deterioration and
crumbling of the facade above the third story.


The recent photo in this article shows that there was an
infiltration of water that apparently froze and cracked some
of the bricks, which then fell. The City of Iron River has
determined that this represents a blighted building under
ordinance 91.16. The City Attorney, in a council meeting of March
21, 2012, suggested that the current owner might bankrupt or
otherwise transfer ownership of the building.

Well why wouldn’t they? This is a reasonably good 3 story
building that could have rental apartments on the upper two
levels, except for some very narrow minded for actions by the
City of Iron River that make reasonable use of the property
impossible. That solution could be simple enough, but the City
refuses to acknowledge its culpability in the continuing
deterioration of the downtown. It appears that despite the lip
service given to improving the downtown (as expressed in the
Cool Cities project, which see) it is anti-business whenever the
slightest inconvenience to the city appears.

This building would be well maintained if economic viability
were made possible by designating some parking areas as
available for overnight parking to downtown residents and their
guests. If the Iron River City Council and the City Manager
weren’t so narrow minded and obstinate, the downtown could
be much more inhabited and at least have a chance of economic
redevelopment instead of experiencing the deterioration that
presently has buildings being sequentially torn down.

The only reason for the ongoing deterioration apparent to your
humble correspondent is that the City of Iron River would
actually prefer a completely vacant downtown, otherwise the
city would take those steps, within its power, that are
necessary to redevelopment, economic growth, and vitality of
the downtown.

This building is not the only evidence of the anti-business
mindset of the City Manager and the City Council. Recently
David Sankey, who operates an auto repair business on
Washington Avenue up on the hill, approached the City
Council the second time in a year to ask that the two hour
parking restriction be removed.

On 10/19/2011, the minutes of the meeting report that, “Dave
Sankey, owner of K&D Service, requested the Council lift the
two hour parking restrictions on Washington Avenue. Manager
Archocosky will meet with Chief Mike Goriesky and report back
to the Council.” Subsequent meeting minutes of the city council
indicate that the promise was not kept, or, at the very least, not
reported in meeting minutes.

Sankey returned to another meeting later and asked again. The
ensuing discussion indicated that the restriction had been
created so that employees of the “Call Center” would not park
on the street, and that since no one other than Mr. Sankey had
complained, the restrictions would remain.

Here’s the simple fact. The two hour parking restriction was
not emplaced on Washington Avenue as a consequence of any
actual problems in the area caused by all day parking, it was
brought about because the City thought that perhaps there
might be a problem at some time in the future.

Now that an exactly opposite difficulty has been brought to
the City Council’s attention by an individual who has actually
invested his time and money into operating a business within
the city limits, but the City Council has determined that its
suspicion that there might be a problem in permitting all day
parking as it does almost everywhere else in the city should
prevail rather than seeing what problems might develop and
addressing them should any real problems actually occur.

So if it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and talks like a
duck, it probably is a duck! Similarly, the parking restrictions ,
as they exist, must surely be an anti-business strategy because
we cannot discover any other reasonably rational possibility!

Given the long term close relationship between the current (soon
to be ex) City Manager and the Michigan Economic Development
Corporation, the Iron County Economic Development
Corporation, and the Michigan Municipal League,
Mr. Archocosky must surely be conversant with the municipal
practices that yield successful municipal strategies, and apparently
none have been implemented in the City of Iron River during his
tenure as City Manager. We have only to look at the ongoing
deterioration of the downtown and recognize the negative growth
that has taken place there under Archocosky's tutelage.

Once again, we leave it to the readers to decide the truth of this
matter.

A King Tale #1:

Your humble correspondent recently attended the Iron County
Board of Commissioners special meeting that approved a
municipal bond for the Iron County Medical Care Facility. Since
the population of Iron County is aging at a rate faster than the
average for the rest of the nation, we need to improve and expand
this resource.

Just before the close of the meeting, Chairman Wales reported
that all prior difficulties with the Iron County Fair Board had
been resolved. Once the meeting was adjourned, former chair,
and current board member, Rosalie King verbally attacked Mr.
Wales by repeating some of the allegations that had been the
topic of published advertising supporting her as part of the recent
recall election Mrs. King and her cohorts had undertaken, and lost,
against Mr. Wales.

The election is over. Mrs. King’s faction failed to unseat Mr. Wales
at the polls, and lost by a good margin. Votes to retain Wales
amounted to 381 while votes to unseat him were 237. It is our
opinion that Mrs. King is a sore loser who needs to work with the
rest of the county board to benefit those who elected her to that
position rather than to continue the grammar school caliber
theatrics and useless infighting I witnessed after the meeting.

King Tale #2:

Tom King is Rosalie’s son, former county dogcatcher, and
currently holds the position of City Councilman in Iron River.
He was elected in a three way split of votes amounting to 6, 5,
and 4 votes for the candidates vieing for the position. In his place
I would have had the personal pride to decline the seat under
those circumstances because there was no clear simple majority.

Because I own property in the neighborhood Tom King lives in,
I pass by his home frequently. Recently I noted that he is
violating some provisions of the blight ordinance, section 91. See
the relevant photo.




“No person shall maintain or permit to be maintained
any of the following cause of blight or blighting factors
upon any property in the city, owned, leased, rented,
or occupied by the person”

[…]

“Storage of junk, refuse, and the like in residential
areas. In any area zoned for residential purposes, the
storage or accumulation of junk, junk motor vehicles,
trash, rubbish, or refuse of any kind, except domestic
refuse stored in a manner as not to create a nuisance”

Defined: “JUNK MOTOR VEHICLE. Shall include,
without limitation, a motor vehicle which is incapable
of being self-propelled upon the public streets, or which
does not meet the requirements for operation upon the
public streets, including a current license.”

The photo provides all the necessary evidence. So
does the city provide special treatment for elected
officials? Let’s see how long this particular blight
prevails.

Bill Vajk

A Periodic Reminder To Our Readers

We remind readers once again that the entire function of
this publication is to provide news and analysis of events in
Iron County that are either not covered by other press
members reporting about Iron County, or are misreported
as part and parcel, members if you prefer, of the imbedded
socio-political power structure.

For "feel good" stories about Iron County, this publication
refers readers to the Iron County Reporter or radio station
WIKB. Both those entities have a significant internet
presence as well as reporting some of the available
information in their medium of choice.

And while sharing a reporter/newsreader, those two entities
perform an exemplary service in providing only the "good
news." That includes reporting the misfortune and
misconduct of the public at large in their court reports, with
purposeful, conspicuous, absence of reporting of official
misconduct or potentially unpopular information such as the
exorbitant salary demanded from, and paid by, the city
council to Iron River's city manager.

We generally report news rather than make it. There have
been, and will be, exceptions, when we directly confront
local government behavior and practices. The long and the
short of is is that to hear the pleasantries, attend to the
Reporter and WIKB. But come here to get significant
information about issues that affect all of us.

Bill Vajk

The following email exchange took place this morning from
Ben Smith to the undersigned.


"John:
I will be very happy to advise my editor Mr. W. Vajk of the
different interpretation made in the posting concerning your
desire to retire from your position as City Manager for the
city of Iron River. In fact I'll forward this message to him at
this time

Best Wishes for a Happy Retirement
Ben

--- On Wed, 2/29/12, John Archocosky
wrote:


From: John Archocosky
Subject: retirement
To: "Ben Smith"
Date: Wednesday, February 29, 2012, 8:46 AM

Good morning Ben,



Kathy tells me that on Mr. Vajk’s web page it says that I
submitted my “resignation.”

I know that not many folks bother to read what is presented
there but for the few that do, I think it is important to get the
information correct.

I did not submit a letter of resignation, I actually advised
the Council of my decision to “retire”.

The word “resignation” suggest that I might be leaving for
reasons other than retirement. It could for example suggest
that I am leaving because of problems or issues between
myself and the Council. As you know, I have a great working
relationship with all the Council members, both past and
present.

I would appreciate it if that wording could be corrected.

Thanks, for your help.

JAA

John A. Archocosky, Manager
City of Iron River
906-265-4719 Phone
906-265-5776 Fax
www.IronRiver.Org

This message may contain confidential and/or proprietary
information and is intended for the person/entity to whom
it was originally addressed. Any use by others is strictly
prohibited."

To begin at the beginning, we have no idea why John
Archocosky is presently so enamored of words that
have no particular connotation. All the available
discussions on this topic make that statement very
clearly.

In fact, we determined to see just what the word
"resigned" means in the AmerEnglish language
today. To that end, your humble correspondent
plugged the following into internet's google search
engine:

define:resignation

Here's a screen shot of what came up for me:

If it isn't clear on your screen, here's what it says:

Noun 1. The act of retiring or giving up a position
2. A document conveying someone's intention
of retiring.

While we don't see any difference, it apparently means
something special to Mr. Archocosky, so we have
republished the exchange here in a public forum.

In the end, a resignation is a termination, and that's
all that happened. Mr. Archocosky has had his
public platform here once again. It is not the
intention of Iron County Doings to mislead anyone
so we've played into the Archocosky sensitivities
and, dare I say, drama.

It should be interesting to get an outsider in the
position of City Manager for Iron River. We are
looking forward to a future comparison of how
the city is managed while we remind the reader
that a city manager is supposed to minister to
the needs of the city council and the people, not
to establish policy that overrides the needs of the
people.

Bill Vajk

Documents related to John Archocosky's Resignation

This story, as many or most political stories in Iron County,
remains incomplete despite the contents of documents we
publish today.

Please see 2 pages at:

http://bill-vajk.angelfire.com/archocosky-resignation.pdf

We also have to wonder at the relatively high starting wage,
for this particular position, offered on page 2. After all, the
position is strictly administrative, meaning ministerial
application of the City Council's decisions. It appears to be a
significant reduction from Archocosky's wages and benefits
package.

We note that some of the seeds, as a prelude to this retirement,
were sowed at an earlier city council meeting where a MERS
(pension plan) actuarial report was requested. See minutes for
the regular city council meeting of 11/14/2011.

Bill Vajk

Today is election day in Michigan. Have you voted yet?

Please do.

Resignation

During a City of Iron River city council meeting on Friday,
February 24, 2012, the city manager tendered his resignation
effective April 28, 2012.

Ben Smith, Associate Editor

Election Season Heats Up And Spills Over

The Iron County Reporter of February 22, 2012 has several
paid advertisements for and against the recall of Wayne
Wales, the Chairman of the Iron County Board. The ads
against the recall explain themselves well enough, but the
pro-Rosalie King and friends ad bears some scrutiny.

Anyone with a depth of interest sufficient to delve into the
actual records can get at most of the information by reading
the meeting minutes that cover some of the topics. It is
unfortunate that the Reporter and WIKB don’t do a better
dissemination of underlying facts. Rumor has it (admittedly
your humble correspondent has not verified this) the record
and the ad do not agree. But check for yourself. We state this
as rumor because we have not made the effort to verify the
facts, though memory tends to lend credence to the rumors.

I think the final lines in the pro-Rosalie ad on page 12 of the
Reporter are the most telling. It reads in part, “These
statements are not made by a ‘Special Interest Group,’
only by your fellow citizens who have been involved in these
and other groups for many years to promote Iron County.”

We have in Iron County a collection of municipalities that
mostly cannot afford so much as a 2 wheel drive pickup
truck or a police car without a grant from somewhere. How
many roads have been waiting for decades to be repaved. I
would love to be able to use Smoky Lake Road, but that is a
formerly paved road that’s been graveled over much as the
alleyway behind my house on Plum Street in Iron River
was recently. Obviously there has been little to no success
with the promotion of Iron County by the Rosalie club and
some of the predecessors, otherwise we could afford the
important essentials without outside money in the form of
grants. The EDC, another enterprise of the County Board,
hasn’t brought in any new businesses or new jobs capable
of supporting a family in the time I’ve been here full time
(since 2003).

Further analysis of the sentence written on Rosalie’s behalf
shows it is inconsistent in the very words used. The claim is
that the people involved promoting Wayne Wales’ recall are
not a special interest group, but then goes on to say their
special interest has been Iron County. And the sad part is
that the interest they tout so boldly has only resulted in such
a depressed local economy that a regional salesman I speak
to several times a year told me that he hates to come here
and only visits here when he must.

As pretty as this countryside is, isn't that a shame? And
Hovey Company folks, who have the contract for revamping
Central School, stated they used to drive through Iron
County on their way elsewhere, not thinking to stop here
because nothing attracted their interest.

On this basis alone, isn’t it time for those who have failed
for so long, for 36 years and counting, to move over and
give someone else a shot at improving our outlook?

Wayne Wales and the recently formed alliances on the
county board have been doing those necessary things
that King and her little troupe have avoided out of
self-interest.

But the analysis is hard to stop there. The dogcatcher
position has been eliminated. “In fact it will cost the
taxpayers more money for less service,” says the pro-
Rosalie ad. The ad admits that isn’t true so far. What
is going to change that? Sorry folks, I ask these rhetorical
questions now and again. Nothing anyone can lay their
finger on will actually make the service cost more while
providing less. The position Tom King was in, and his
father before him, was created as a personal interest
matter so that Rosalie’s son would have a cushy job at
the public expense. And in a grant application for a new
vehicle, he was listed as a “first responder” when in fact
he never has had any training along those lines. And the
reason for the grant request was that the old vehicle he
was using burned too much oil. What was wrong with an
engine overhaul? It certainly would have cost a lot less
than a new vehicle!

The fact is that a fully qualified peace officer is now serving
as animal control officer. When not involved in animal
control activities, this individual is providing police
services that Tom King was not qualified to do. When
Tom King asked if he could carry a gun on the job, that
request was denied. Given that animal control does not
keep an individual busy at all times, what did Tom do
with the rest of his time? We know what the sheriff’s
deputy is doing, and those patrol duties are important
to the citizens, so where does this “costs more for less”
idea come from?

The creme de la crème in Rosalie’s ad says, “We have
always gotten public input and it should remain that way.”
Then why, under the Rosalie King chairmanship of the
Board, was the “Airport Committee” continuing to meet
and work? From all reports the people spoke loudly
against a new airport around the turn of the century. So
the sentiment that the King group is in favor of public input
and heeds appears on the surface to be false.

To begin wrapping up the discussion about this debacle, we
point out that DICSA failed to pay rent that was due under
the previous administration. Now called to task and required
to pay some back rent, complaints about it come from the
King camp followers alone. Iron County Doings and this
humble correspondent have always spoken in favor of
government and agencies running very thin on money. The
fact that DICSA had over $60 thousand dollars at its disposal
addresses that issue directly. The ideal situation, in our
opinion, is that government and its agencies should have
next to no discretionary funds in any account. If they they
have more, then we’ve been paying too much in taxes.

And that brings us near the end of this analysis (although
there’s enough material to fill a large college textbook) the
ad accuses Wayne Wales of operating the road commission
when “payroll could barely be made.”

Hurray!

That’s an ideal circumstance, so long as the payroll could
actually be made. I applaud that sort of diligence.

We point out here that along with the escalation of
antagonism in the King camp is a similar escalation in
at least one other municipality in the county. We offer
the reader, and all government officials, the simple
premise that you serve the public, so get your personal
initiatives and keep your emotions out of the equation
and do your jobs serving the public. Everything else is
self-serving. Such process that has no place in governance.
If you want to take on something that personally bothers
you, quit your government job, go get another one, and
then take on personal issues when you no longer have
political prestige and power distracting you from your
official duties and expending public funds.

While we have used facts to arrive at the content of
this article. It contains a bit of well founded opinion,
so read it with that in mind. And voters, please
understand that it is time to get the “Boss Hawg”

http://tinyurl.com/6rkcnv5

mentality displayed a while back in a TV show called “The
Dukes Of Hazard” out of Iron County politics. That
attitude is what has held Iron County back and forced so
many of your children to leave the region in order to earn
a living.

Retain Wayne Wales, and let’s have some real progress in
Iron County.

Bill Vajk

A Rare Endorsement

Iron County Doings has, for some time now, taken the
position that endorsing candidates is a dangerous
situation because so often candidates reverse their
positions after taking office.

The present situation is somewhat different, however.

Based on his performance as Chairman of the Iron County
Board, Wayne Wales has shown that he is able and willing,
despite opposition, to steer the county in a direction that
will serve the citizens in ways your humble correspondent
has not seen witnessed we moved here in 2003.

In addition, I have made a short lived sign (the election
to which the sign refers takes place on Feb. 28) supporting
retaining Mr. Wales and placed it out at the highway.





Bill Vajk

Northstar Health System Financials 2/16/2012

The Northstar financial report was released today. The
report shows another loss for the year consisting of
$499,000 expenses exceeding revenue.

http://tinyurl.com/7v86m99

How long can this continue?

Bill Vajk

About that Trolley

A few years ago your humble correspondent proposed a
trolley project for Iron River. A few pundits in the east
end of Iron County asked whether they could be included
in public transportation plans. You'd think a project like
that would gain traction, take off, and be implemented.

In desiring continuing self-supporting sustainability, I
expanded the project to include a railway school. In a word,
the project got quashed because local politicians charged
with providing the best for the public they represent
were unable to see past the ends of their noses, but more
importantly, there weren't perks included to allow the
local oligarchy to reach into and steal from whatever deep
pockets were to be tapped to put this project together and
to build it.

Today President Obama proposed an $80 Billion spending
budget for ground transportation. It is likely that number
will be cut, BUT!

Had those who are charged to grow the local economy
looked past personal interests, they should have seen
something like this coming. Their blindness was self-
inflicted.

Had we proceeded with project design, and railway design,
and school design, back when the project was proposed,
we would be in a position to benefit from this enhanced
federal spending, and we would have a shovel-ready
project all set for funding

Our failure to be ready falls squarely on the shoulders of
those few individuals who worked to quash the project
because it would provide no private benefit for themselves
or their friends.

That's the way business has been done here in Iron County
for a long time. This loss of opportunity should not pass
unnoticed by the average citizen.

Information on the budget for ground transportation can
be found at:

http://tinyurl.com/85dxez2

How do we prevent such people from holding back
advances and economic growth that Iron County
residents deserve in the future?

Get involved!

To anyone prepared to criticize this revelation as simple
sour grapes on part of the author, wake up and smell the
coffee. The days when information was held back from
the public to advance your private agendas at the expense
of the people you're supposed to be serving has ended.
From now on, Iron County will hear voices other than
yours and your stooges.

Bill Vajk

A Puff Piece & the Lessons of Hunter v. Pittsburgh

One of the things that was lacking in the Iron County Press
until the advent of Iron County Doings is a rational analysis
of information that’s made available by local governments,
and the impact their announced plans can have on the lives
of the citizens. Today we begin an analysis of the report
placed on the internet by the City of Iron River that’s called
“FUTURE CONSOLIDATION, COOPERATION, and
COLLABORATION PLAN.” This may be acquired in hard
copy at the Iron River City Hall or accessed on the internet
at:

http://www.ironriver.org/downloads/pdf/consolidation_services.pdf.

It is clear from the title alone that Iron River’s intention is
to consolidate even more. The only problem that is created
by the desire to consolidate is that it further consolidates
local political power that’s already in too few hands.

We repeat the text from the document that describes the
plan to consolidate the Cities of Gaastra and Caspian.

“Shared City Management – The City of Iron River is
directly adjacent to the City of Caspian and the City of
Gaastra. Both of these municipalities are physically
smaller in size and therefore maintain substantially
smaller work forces than Iron River. Although they
both rejected total consolidation in 2000, these two
communities continue to share many services through
existing collaborations and formal agreements. The
physical location as well as other common
administrative elements provides the ideal situation
to employ one City Manager to oversee the operations
of all three communities. Eliminating the duplication
and sharing the cost of this administrative position
could result in a substantial savings to each
municipality. Estimated annual savings for the City
of Iron River...$85,000.”

There are a number of propagandist falsehoods built
into this piece. The first one is in the projected savings.
The existing City of Iron River would not save $85,000
with the additional consolidation. The false projection is
the savings to the citizens of Gaastra and Caspian and
mislabeled as savings to Iron River.

The reality requires doing some arithmetic. The
projection simply eliminates two paid municipal
positions that cost the projected amount. That’s not
the right approach.

The 2010 population of Gaastra and Caspian represent
29% of the projected total population of a city that
combines all three cities. In 2011 the city manager’s pay,
including benefits and special considerations
approximates $250,000. 29% allocated to the added
cities amounts to a cost of $72,500 for those citizens.
So the projected $85,000 is replaced by $72,500
providing a savings of $12,500 to those citizens, or about
$10 per citizen to lose the level of control over their own
politicians that they now enjoy.

Of course, given enough time that “advantage” will
disappear soon enough. The pay raise schedule for Iron
River’s city manager has been established as we
previously published in November 2011. That schedule
is:

2010 $104,939
2011 $111,235
2012 $117,909
2013 $124,982
2014 $132,482
2015 $140,431

And the increases continue unabated as far as the eye can
see, and beyond.

The average reader may think they’re safe from
consolidation because they voted it down in year 2000,
and they’ll vote it down again. But that’s a false sense of
security. State ordered consolidation, against the will of
the people, has happened in the past and held by the
courts to be legal.

We have only to look at the Supreme Court case of
Meriwether v. Garrett, 102 US 472,1880 for the principle:

http://tinyurl.com/7wrtfa4

“The right of the State to repeal the charter of Memphis
cannot be questioned. Municipal corporations are mere
instrumentalities of the State for the more convenient
administration of local government. Their powers are such
as the legislature may confer, and these may be enlarged,
abridged, or entirely withdrawn at its pleasure. This is
common learning, found in all adjudications on the subject
of municipal bodies and repeated by text-writers. There
is no contract between the State and the public that the
charter of a city shall not be at all times subject to
legislative control. All persons who deal with such bodies
are conclusively presumed to act upon knowledge of the
power of the legislature. There is no such thing as a
vested right held by any individual in the grant of
legislative power to them.”

In Hunter v. City of Pittsburgh, the state legislature
combined the cities of Pittsburgh and Allegheny against
the will of the people.

http://tinyurl.com/84edsqv

The citizens of Pittsburgh voted in favor of consolidation.
The majority of the citizens of Allegheny voted against.
The State of Pennsylvania and the courts consolidated
the cities anyway.

The power structure of local Iron County politics does not
find a neutral arbiter at the state level. Beware.

This is the first of several articles that will analyze the
Iron River plan. It doesn’t seem to get any better as we
proceed. As Reagan copied a philosophy from the Russians,
“Trust but verify.” Right now the citizens of Gaastra and
Caspian are in a state of ignorance, not realizing their
municipalities have been announced targeted for
consolidation by their “big” neighbor. After all, there has
been no discussion or disclosure of Iron River’s plan in
either the Iron County Reporter or by the radio station
WIKB, up till now the two primary means of the people
getting the news.

Iron County Doings predicts consolidation unless the
two smaller cities take an active role in opposing it now,
not later. If the citizens of Gaastra and Caspian don’t
mind consolidating with the City of Iron River after
seeing the significant waste and ineptitude in past
Iron River consolidations, they simply have to wait and
do nothing. It is critical to remember that procrastination
is a decision.

Bill Vajk

Revisiting Parking, Apartments, and Reasonability

There was a report in the Detroit Free Press on Feb 3, 2012
about a housing project in the City of Pontiac, a city that has
experienced a downturn in population that began about the
same time as Iron River.

The news story is here:

http://tinyurl.com/8657uos

Pontiac is a city that is in deep financial straits. In 2009 the
state placed the city in receivership. And while the population
is significantly larger than Iron River, median wages and such
data are similar to that of Iron County.

Despite such difficulties, Pontiac has managed to put together
a project to redevelop existing space into housing
approximating @20 million while Iron River sits around
designing its future based on whatever grants local
consultants can discover.

It is interesting that the $20 million project is expected to
result in 46 units. That's about $434,000 cost per unit.

Iron River's downtown apartments, much needed by our
aging, significantly non-driving, population, would probably
cost, per housing unit, between 3 and 4 % of what the Pontiac
project will.

Iron County and Iron River aren't in the bad financial shape
that Pontiac is. Why don't we have anyone, including
outside visionaries, working on improving the housing, and
other, situations in Iron County?

What is it about Iron County that can't even consolidate
school districts for such a small population? If the politicos
of the county can't get their act together in the best
interests of the people they claim to represent, how will
reasonability ever prevail?

We recently called attention to John Archocosky's parking
habits, sometimes in violation of municipal ordinance. The
only point of that discussion was the unreasonability of
ordinances that irrationally get in the way of progress. Iron
County Doings knows of no one who cares one way or another
just how Archocosky positions the wheels on his vehicle while
parking next to City Hall. If Archocosky doesn't understand
the problems we recount here, then perhaps he should resign
from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, the
Iron County EDC, the Michigan Municipal League, and his
position as Iron River's City manager.

Many do care about the unreasonable behavior of local
politicos who continue to flex municipal muscle at the
public's expense. If Pontiac can develop 80,000 square
feet of a vacant Sears store, what, besides political ineptness,
is keeping Iron County and Iron River from redeveloping
every square foot of viable vacant buildings?

Bill Vajk

Lip Service: Page 4 – EDC – Where’s The Beef?

Marian Volek of the Iron County Reporter and radio station
WIKB filed her report about the Iron County Economic
Development Corporation (EDC) January 19 meeting
including quoting board member Tom Lesandrini, “She’s
the reason why this county has been successful with
economic development.”[1] This Lesandrini opinion
alleges that Julie Melchiori’s work at the EDC has provided
success.

As far as Iron County Doings can determine, Lesandrini’s
opinion echoed by Bruce Tusa, has no foundation and we
invoke Clara Peller’s question, “Where’s the beef?”





The only thing missing from the propaganda gambit is
music. It repeats conduct of Bagdad Bob[2] who we
laughed at during the early stages of the Iraqi police
action

If the EDC were a legitimate business venture, it would
be bankrupt. As I wrote several years ago, it all begins
with the mission statement that we copy from the EDC’s
web page[3]. “To implement strategies that will increase
job opportunity, tax base and quality of life within the
County of Iron.”

Despite the fact that we’ve been hearing for years what
a wonderful job the EDC has been doing, we have never
ever had a report card about their failures and successes.
Although we disagree with the propriety of the mission
statement, we can use that document to measure the
success of the corporation and its former director.

How has the EDC increased job opportunities in Iron
County? Can the EDC identify 25 positions that were filled
in 2011 as a direct result of EDC strategies. We don’t mean
a replacement for a position that was filled earlier and that
individual terminated employment, but a brand new job that
never existed before? If not 25, then how many?

How many properties can the EDC identify that experienced
an increase in tax value, and corresponding increase in taxes
collected, as a direct consequence of EDC strategies for the
paired years of 2010 and 2011?

Can the EDC identify any improvements to the quality of
life within the County of Iron during 2011 that result
directly from the implementation of EDC strategies? Your
humble correspondent has not experienced any
improvement to quality of life as a result of EDC actions
and I would be very interested to know some details about
anyone who has.

We take the stance that because the EDC has not seen fit
to report on its successes, there are none to report. That, in
turn, makes Lesandrini’s and Tusa’s opinions questionable at
best in the context in which they were offered. Taken in
absolute context, meaning words like “success” can be
assigned either a positive or a negative value, there is an
inherent truth in the opinions. Let’s reword the quote to
read, “She’s the reason why this county has been a failure
with economic development” we’d have equal validity taking
the statement in absolute terms. But people generally don’t
read in an absolute context. Tusa’s statement was, “She’s
done a great job” is an equally meaningless platitude that
has all the benchmarks of sounding good, but lacks any real
meaning that could be measured. It is very much the sort
of statement made when awarding an equal prize to all
participants, including those individuals who didn’t even
finish a task.

Are the EDC board and the county board supporting the
EDC as it is currently organized as a simple expedient
rather than taking a serious look and searching for a
meaningful solution?

In the same issue of the Reporter, on page 5, is another
article discussing Iron River Township resident complaints
about the inability of government to repave Old Beechwood
Road that the residents have been patiently waiting 30
years to have restored to pavement that has instead been
graveled over. The same article also discusses more people
scheduled for disconnection from the municipal water
system because local government cannot afford to
maintain/improve mains to serve them adequately.
Similar measures have been the way local governments
all over Iron County have been dealing with their
responsibilities. In an economically successful region,
such things could not happen, the money to make
necessary repairs would be available. Where is the
increase…to the quality of life” for those people? Or are
we to use the absolute meaning of the term once again, and
the negative experiences demonstrate the sort of economic
success that the newspaper quoted?

Where is the “successful economic development” touted by
Lesandrini and Tusa? The raw fact is that Iron County is
economically depressed and that the EDC has achieved
nothing worth the money that Iron County and the State
of Michigan have spent on it. Hiring Julie Melchiori as a
contractor economic developer will, in my opinion, only
compound past waste. As far as Revolving Loan Fund
management is concerned, the county would be much
wiser in assigning that responsibility to any bank or credit
union in the county.

The misjudgment on the part of the EDC in helping Kim’s
Restaurant on Stambaugh Hill is a classic failure on the
most elementary levels. You just don’t subsidize a business
like that in a low traffic area. The Call Center[4] was
heralded as “Phase 1” when created in 2006. Where is
Phase 2? How is employment in Phase 1 some 5 years
later? Where’s the promised growth? In fact, isn’t the Call
Center on the wane? None of this sounds like “successful
economic development” to me.

Iron County Doings believes that a better approach needs
to be taken to economic development than has been. A task
force should be organized and economic developers from
nearby more successful counties should be consulted for
their successful ideas. Julie Melchiori attended a meeting
that your humble correspondent chaired and stated her
opinion that our economy is not regional. Lacking such
basic understanding of how an economy works is a clear
signal that Julie Melchiori should seek employment in
some other field. She appears to have had no formal
education and little to no comprehension of the workings
before she started as a political appointee to the EDC.

There was a radio program on National Public Radio
(NPR) last fall describing the joint efforts of at least 6
county economic developers in northern Wisconsin, a
region significantly more prosperous and successful
than Iron County. Those same developers, along with
others coordinating the efforts of 9 adjoining Wisconsin
counties, were undertaking negotiations with a railroad
that was contemplating abandonment of the regional rail
line with the intention of purchasing the right of way and
revamping the tracks in order to maintain economic
viability. It is truly a shame that our EDC, standing in
isolation by choice, didn’t undertake to purchase the
right of way, as several Wisconsin counties are doing,
before agreeing to pay for track improvement. That was
another mistake made by the Iron County and the EDC
based on inexperience and the failure of those bodies to
seek counsel from visionaries. How can we expect
economic growth when such elementary errors are
de rigeur in Iron County?

Such models, ladies and gentlemen, represent models of
vision leading to success such as Iron County presently
fails to enjoy. There’s nothing keeping us from that except
the internal political climate in Iron County that must
change if we are to achieve anything resembling the sort
of economic development we can experience if roadblocks
of personal political power are removed.

It is the opinion of Iron County Doings that repeating
past mistakes can lead only to the continuation of the
failures we have experienced, despite the “success”
that Messieurs Lesandrini and Tusa have falsely claimed.

We urge the EDC and the County of Iron to seek someone,
anyone, better suited to serve as the EDC economic
developer. We recommend the employment of a
visionary outsider to receive minimum compensation
with a bonus compensation schedule based on the number
of new (not mostly transferred, as was the case for Pine
River Hardwoods) jobs created.

In the meanwhile, we ask, “Gentlemen, where’s the beef?”
We see our EDC as a huge bun and very little by way of
protein. Improvement requires action by the Iron County
Board of Commissioners and the EDC.

Bill Vajk

Footnote [1] See Iron County Reporter, January 25, 2012,
Page 1. A Library of Congress registration ISSN, if one
exists, is not readily discernable in the referenced issue.

Footnote[2] Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, usually called
al-Sahhaf, was also known as Bagdad Bob, the Iraqi
“Information Minister” propagandist during the final
stages of the US invasion and takeover. Wikipedia writes,
“His last public appearance as Information Minister was
on April 8, 2003, when he said that the Americans ‘are
going to surrender or be burned in their tanks. They
will surrender, it is they who will surrender’.”

Footnote[3] http://www.iron.org/edc-index.php

Footnote[4] http://www.iron.org/callcenter.php

Lip Service: Page 3 - A Bit of Chiding (Revised)

A Bit of Chiding to Prove A Point. Its "Animal Farm" all
over again, where some pigs are more equal than others.

In our article published Tuesday, January 17, 2012 we
challenged the appropriateness of certain of the Iron River
parking ordinances. Then we selected an individual who
recently proved to the world that he occasionally has a
caustic personality in a recent email attacking your
humble correspondent. We published that on October 5,
2011.

See http://tinyurl.com/6upm7qw for reference to the
following.

Section 7.102(B)(5) prohibits parking on a grade in the way
that John Archocosky does daily while working as city
manager at Iron River's City Hall. There is a $25 fine
associated with this particular violation. Because he is
parked "on any grade" he is required to turn his wheels
in to the curb and set his parking brake.




It is clear from the photo above that he is in violation
of the ordinance because his wheels are pointing away
from the curb.

We add here that there are relatively few places on this
earth where one might park that is not on some grade. It
is a simple fact that perfectly flat and level spots are hard
to find anywhere. So in this case the ordinance is very
poorly worded.

If we say OK, so the grade isn't enough to worry about,
let's just say the vehicle is parked on a level enough spot
to escape the section cited above.

Then John Archocosky runs afoul of another section of the
parking ordinance, section 7.102(B)(2) which presents us
with a $15 violation instead for failure to turn the font
wheels parallel with the roadway.

The point of this article is that the City of Iron River
ordinances are poorly written at best, and many sections
were ill conceived when enacted. This problem affects the
entire body of work, not just the traffic ordinance.

Much of that historic work needs to be revised rather
than retaining something copied from sources that never
had a real clue about governing.

If you're going to copy from someone, at least do your best
to copy from an A student rather than from a failing
student as has been done.

IronCountyDoings has no doubt that Mr. Archocosky didn't
intend to violate the ordinance. But shouldn't citizens who
have run afoul of the noxious weeds ordinance, either
through their own fault or because the public works
foreman has unbridled power in another very badly
conceived and executed section, 91.32, insist that John
Archocosky pay up for every violation just as the city
demands of property owners under 91.32?

Well that's not going to happen!

It is generally accepted that the population at large is law
abiding. But the City of Iron River seems to prefer to
presume that any violation, or apparent violation, of
section 91.32 should bring the wrath of the city down
about the ears of property owners to enrich the city
coffers while only paying lip service to:

“Our entire staff is here to serve our local taxpayers, and
you are our first priority.” – (s) Anderson and Zanon
Clerk [1] and (former) Mayor

As we offered yesterday, that's propaganda, pure and
simple. And we demand that all local governments put
their money where their mouth is. If you're going to say
"we serve' then by gum, do it!

And if not, resign.

Bill Vajk

Footnote [1] We originally listed Anderson as City Treasurer when in fact Anderson is the Clerk. We apologize for our error.

Lip Service: Page 2-Rigging the Game (Revised)

“Our entire staff is here to serve our local taxpayers, and
you are our first priority.” – (s) Anderson and Zanon
Clerk [1] and (former) Mayor

Are the parking ordinances within the city limits of Iron
River enacted in the best interests of the local taxpayers?



The ordinances may be found at:

http://tinyurl.com/6mkam4g

Cities that don’t concern themselves with such nitty gritty
while unnecessarily controlling citizen behavior have a
much easier solution than banning overnight parking, let
alone banning longer than 72 hour parking. What
constitutionally permissible objective is achieved by
prohibiting parking in the ways that Iron River does? Other
cities simply plow in any cars parked where snowplowing is
necessary. It is left up to the automobile owner to dig the
car out. That’s part of the price of ownership.

But the real problem, much more than the inconvenience
afforded by such ordinances, is that the existing parking
ordinances destroy property values for certain buildings
that should, and could, become housing for low income
families or the elderly. Because of parking regulations,
year round street parking is not available to 2nd and
3rd floor apartments that exist in downtown Iron River
and they have been unused for several decades. This
essentially destroys the commercial viability of a majority
of existing upper floor downtown apartments. Most
renters need a car in order to go to work. With no public
transportation available, another area where Iron River
falls short (and more discussion in IronCountyDoings in
the future,) essential regional trips become impossible for
potential tenants who have no car because there's no
parking available.




We’re still waiting for the old Central School, a block away
from the Middle School, to be converted. Middle School
could have been easily converted to apartments as it was
and is an intact building currently in use. But no grant
money was found, so it has been repurposed in an
unsustainable way at additional public expense. And it
looks, at the moment, as though the wait for Central
school to become apartments will outlast many of our
senior citizens in need of downtown apartments. Central
School has been vacant for a long time. Perhaps the
grant money that the city, and the contractor, were
relying on dried up for that project?



There isn’t a viable plan in place for affordable downtown
housing in Iron River. IronCountyDoings asks, “Why not?”.

The city is well aware of the discussion about apartments in
the Iron River Downtown Blueprint that was created at a
public expense exceeding $100,000. A copy of the report
(printed version weights about 1.5 pounds) is available on
the Internet at:

http://tinyurl.com/89xq22l

See pages 35 and 36 for a discussion about downtown
apartments. HyettPalma unfortunately fell short by not
discussing the real reasons the apartments are not
currently viable. But then, the entire Cool Cities project
was brought about through the auspices of the Michigan
Municipal League, and criticism of cities would not have
been in HyettPalma’s best interests.

That, by the way, is the reason that further Cool Cities
projects are contraindicated in Michigan. Are you
listening, Michigan Legislature and Governor Snyder?
Such partial fixes don’t serve the public well, because
the consultants’ hands are tied by political interests. I’d
love to know what HyettPalma really thought about Iron
River. Their thoughts are probably much like mine, but
their livelihood depends on doing the best possible job
under the existing political constraints. It is hard to fault
them under such circumstances.

The first part of the problems related to downtown
apartments has to do with the city rigging the game for
its own benefit instead of, as repeatedly promised, to “serve
our local taxpayers.” Propaganda, as a partial truth, is a
powerful political tool extensively used here in the United
States. That's certainly the case here in Iron County.

The second part of the problem is that the City of Iron
River appears to base its entire strategic planning
exclusively on the availability of grants.

If any sort of grant were available for permitting overnight
parking on city streets and publicly owned parking lots, the
City of Iron River would lose all reluctance to allow parking
the way that most cities in the US do. Why hasn't the City
of Iron River done that for the public good?

In the meantime, why are apartments are being wasted?
They’re wasted on the premise that it is more convenient
for city snowplows not to have to plow around cars a few
days a year.

Consider that. Just a few days a year! Tell me, Mr. and Mrs.
Citizen, how’s that working for you?

With an increase in the value of downtown properties
based on use of upper floors as apartments, we could either
be receiving more and better city services, or the taxes that
exist could be reduced. Is the small convenience to
snowplows a few days a year worth giving up all that?

How is it serving the taxpayers of Iron River?

It is obvious that more people living downtown would
also mean more consumers for the local businesses,
as well as a broader tax base for the city and the
school district. It would also create additional income
for all downtown building owners, and with higher
demand for goods and services comes more employment.
But after decades of non-use, even with an immediate
change in the parking ordinances, the other
improvements will take time, though doubtless far less
time than has been wasted on repurposing Central School.

The solution requires the city to start planning based on
service to the public. There’s a tremendous gap between
realistic public service, and governing a region based on
“well they probably won’t complain about this.”

Unfortunately it is the later paradigm that is currently
in use in Iron County and has been used here for a long
time. Could it be that public officials have been doing this
so long that they aren't even aware of their decision making
process?

The city spent half of $100,000 (the state provided the
other half) to get the Downtown Blueprint created for us
by HyettPalma. I’m still waiting to hear about meaningful
implementation meetings involving local government,
business, and the general public. The Blueprint document
provides only direction, but it offers no solutions. That’s
the city’s job, and the city has failed to do very much. Five
years have passed since the Blueprint became available in
2006. You can count the achievements on less than one
hand, but you would soon run out of fingers enumerating
the failures. Why is the city wasting the Blueprint this way?

While I’m on the topic of the Blueprint, pages 7 and 8 list
“Concerns.” The most salient of those is a discussion
about the negativity and apathy of some of the people
interviewed. HyettPalma only interviewed prime players
in the Iron River environment. This should not be glossed
over! Of a number of other Blueprints prepared for
Michigan cities that are available on the Internet, Iron
River’s is the only one I found that has such a concern
expressed by the consultants.

It is the primary function of this publication to raise issues
depicting the failing performance of Iron County local
governments to public scrutiny. The local newspaper and
radio station serve the role of providing the equivalent of
“society pages” describing the happy moments experienced
despite local governmental oppression. It is a sad
commentary that this publication is forced to provide the
function that it does.

I attended the meetings leading to the Cool Cities
Blueprint providing ideas and enthusiasm. It didn’t take
very long for those charged with running the city to quash
them. Yet, it is in that same positive sense that I expose
shortcomings and “lip service” of those government officials.
My hope is that somewhere along the way one of these
articles becomes the straw that breaks the camel’s back,
leading to a serious review on the part of Iron County local
governments along the lines of :

“Just what are we doing anyway, and how can we improve?”

Of course that brings up the important question, why aren’t
the elected and appointed officials doing that as a regular feature
of governing? Our governments need to create the incentive
necessary to have plenty of public presence at your meetings.
In fact, why doesn’t every public body in Iron County make
the above quoted initiative a regular agenda item for every
meeting?

We begin by changing your “rules of order” to prohibit
adjournment and dismissal of the quorum until such time as
at least one idea for improvement has been brought to the
floor, discussed, and voted on. Every meeting would then bring
about some bit of much needed progress. Possibly the toughest
hurdle is to get elected officials to think in such terms. How
about a public “suggestion box” that has every submitted
item considered and voted on at the next meeting? Where
a delay for study is needed, vote to put the item on the next
meeting agenda for resolution, but NEVER drop that ball.

Enthusiasm is catching, just like the negativity and apathy
that persist in the region at present. Who provides the
leadership that drives this paradigm and can change it?
Elected officials? Chamber of Commerce? Churches? Library?
The Caspian progressive group?

IronCountyDoings suggests that all of the above, and any
other interested person or group, cooperate in a concerted
effort to undo what currently ails Iron County.

In the “if I had my wish” category, any elected official not
bringing at least two good ideas for improvement to a
meeting every year should be prohibited from standing for
re-election. Heaven knows there are plenty of things in Iron
County that can be improved. Elected officials are supposed
to represent the interests of the electorate. Voting solely on
proposals made by others pays only lip service to that
promise.

Bill Vajk

Footnote [1] We previously listed Anderson as treasurer when Anderson is actuyally the Clerk. We apologize for this error.

Lip Service, Page 1

The premise of a representative government is that elected
and appointed officials have as a solitary mission the altruistic
service of the public they are entrusted to serve. And some
governmental units attempt to live up to that promise better
than others. When I had dealings with the Village of Skokie,
Illinois, they offered themselves as “The Village that Cares.”
And in all my dealings with them, they followed through.

Iron River has an undated welcome letter signed by treasurer
Anderson and (former) mayor Zanon on their web page. A
sentence stands out. “Our entire staff is here to serve our local
taxpayers, and you are our first priority.” The attachment that
accompanies the letter explains how tax dollars are spent. It
closes with, “If you have a concern with your property tax bill,
utility bill, or another concern the City may be able to help with,
our office is open to help you solve your concerns.”

This reminds me of the time, when as a young man, I went
Christmas shopping with my father. When we left a store I
mentioned to him that he had been given too much change
by the clerk that rang up his purchase. He insisted on going
back in to set things right. I warned him it wouldn't work.
As soon as he mentioned to the clerk that there was an
error ion his transaction the clerk adamantly denied any
error and refused to listen.

Generally speaking, the City of Iron River elected officials,
appointed officials, and employees, listen. But the ratio of
disappointed public to resolved issues is pathetic, and that's
what has led to this series of articles.

At the November 11, 2007 city council meeting, Nancy
Timbrook of St. John's Church asked the city council to
consider lowering the current penalty structure on water
bills and that 60 days in arrears is too long a time to incur
delinquency, leading to difficulty in receiving assistance from
charitable organizations , as well as the “service charges”
when water is shut off.

See

http://www.ironriver.org/downloads/minutes/2007/11-14-2007-2.pdf

for the results. Mrs. Timbrook's “solution” is typical of how
the city responds to citizen concerns. Mrs. Timbrook asked
the city council to “consider” changes. They flat out refused
because to do so might reduce income in one of the few
methods that the city can do with minimal to no state
oversight. And besides, why wreck a perfect record by actually
accommodating a request?

Fast forward to the 9/21/2011 city council meeting. The
council approved the transfer of an excess amount of money,
in the amount of $150,000, from the “water savings account”
to improve the city's required funding of the MERS (state)
pension fund for city employees.

Three things are salient in this action. First, why was tax
money carelessly spent by the city instead of being paid into
the pension fund as required? I have to wonder how long the
city would have continued avoiding payment of pension funds
if the penalty were 10% per month compounded as the city
charges for delinquent water bills. And second, why did the
city have such an excess amount (actually more then the
$150,000) of money in the water fund while people are
suffering shutoffs because they cannot afford the rates
being charged?

Third, and very very important, why is it that the periodic
auditor's reports that depict a clean slate for the City of Iron
River do not also report excess savings account monies as
well as shortfalls in the funding of employee pensions? The
auditor's report is supposed to be the public's safeguard
against fiscal mismanagement of the city, and clearly what
the public has received as a report has not been thorough
enough to qualify as truthful. The way things are set up, the
auditor can only report on the information received from the
city. It should also be noted that according to the official
record of the 9/21/2011 meeting, the auditor provided
information to the city's legal counsel regarding the legality
of the $150,000 transfer.

Lip service? The dearth of really pertinent information is
clearly designed to lull the taxpaying public into believing
that all is well. However we have some small windows into
the inner workings that say otherwise. What we are getting
is merely lip service. Those who have made the promise to
serve the public haven't been, in my opinion, doing a very
good job of it. What do you think?

So, is the City of Iron River really serving you?

IronCountyDoings would appreciate your feedback. Our
email address is at the top of the page.

Bill Vajk

The New Year

Happy New Year to one and all. For Gloria and me this
is a double celebration. We were married 40 years ago
tonight. That was the best decision we ever made.

2012 holds a promise of being a banner year for this
publication. There are many irons in the fire but the
one holding the most promise at the moment is a
series entitled "Lip Service," a term I first learned
in the early 1960's under the tutelage of a Jamaican
business man in New York City. When I expressed
shock on first hearing the term, he had the patience
to sit down with me and explain the words and provide
examples rather than provide a hand-waving harangue
that is the usual case when the emotionally charged
words enter a conversation.

I grew up in the academic environment and community
where such realities were not in evidence, let alone talked
about. So I never heard about such matters until I was
in early adulthood.

A side note to those readers who would prefer that
this publication focus on the positive things about
Iron County I am called to remind you that that is
the obvious purpose of the our local radio station and
the publication that calls itself, "The Reporter." The
premise and purpose of this publication is to call
attention to all those matters that the other two
news reporters in Iron County purposely avoid. Trust
me when I say that what you generally hear and read
there is the nice front end that local governments show
to everyone.

It is my function to lift the carpet and to clearly what
dirt has been swept there. Please bear in mind that
hidden contagion will damage you more surely that
those you know about and can avoid.

Bill Vajk

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to one and all.

This is a celebration of the Birth of Jesus Christ.
Please keep His teachings in mind all year long.

Bill Vajk

Back in my youth I joined with a small group of “self-starter”
kids and went to a set of caves in North Georgia to receive
my introduction to spelunking. We had a fun day clambering
through caves that had features one could equally well enjoy
above the ground. There were waterfalls, cliffs to repel down,
small dimension passages to squeeze through with gear, and
huge galleries with beautiful walls, stalactites and stalagmites.
It was an experience to cherish, especially for someone like
me who was uncomfortable with the confinement (I dealt
with it at the time) and who would never similarly explore
natural underground formations again. But the draw of such
adventures was obvious.

A few years later, a group of boy scouts undertook exploring
the same caves with somewhat different results. Several
miles away from these caves was a gas station with leaking
underground storage tanks. The owners of that gas station
had known their tanks were leaking, but as the lost gasoline
was inexpensive (the retail price for regular gas was, in
those days, still 19.9 cents per gallon,) and since the tanks
weren’t leaking very fast, the decision had been made to
simply absorb the cost of the losses rather than to expend
cash in order to replace the tanks. Besides, at that time the
environmental protection laws that later prevented that
practice had not yet been thought about let alone enacted.

It turned out that that the leaking gasoline had been
accumulating in the caves and had achieved a level where
fumes were able to ignite and to sustain a fire. Standard
gear for spelunkers of the day was a carbide lamp:

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/2613/oilwicks8xp0.jpg

that used an exposed flame, and set the gasoline fumes on fire.
While “explosion proof” versions were available, they usually
weren’t used in natural caves. Such lamps are well known to
the mining community in Iron County. If memory serves
correctly, only two of the scout group survived to emerge
alive.

In the 1960’s and 70’s, the EPA gained strength and
eliminated a lot of pollution from the air, ground, and water.
No longer would rivers catch fire and burn for long periods.
Pittsburgh, one of the most environmentally vile places on
earth became a clear and friendly place to live, even while
steel mills remained in operation.

If one looks at public health as an indicator of pollution,
one needs to go no further than a Wikipedia web page
discussing cancer clusters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cancer_clusters

This is, naturally, only a partial listing, and other illness
clusters brought on by pollutants is not discussed. Such
information is broadly spread out around the world.
Many nations, aware of their pollution problems, elect
to keep the information a state secret.

To bring this discussion home to Iron County, we look at
the November 23, 2011, issue of the Iron County Reporter.
The City of Iron River, the paper headlines, “Goes for EPA
Grants.”

The State of Michigan has been riding herd on pollution,
within the state, for some time through the DEQ. Thus
either the city is looking for pollutants concealed by
previous governments, or pollution that is older than
DEQ activities. In either case, none of the proposed
possible pollutants have showed up in drinking water to
date. Because no specifics are given in the newspaper
article, we cannot know what the process for these
particular grants is.

However, we need to look at the resources available to the
city directly from the DEQ.

http://tinyurl.com/7o2rzx2

Reading this form and taking the information it provides
at face value, we can see that:

“The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality
(MDEQ) conducts Site Specific Assessments (SSAs) at
brownfield properties at no cost to communities through
a 128(a) grant from the United States Environmental
Protection Agency (U.S. EPA).”

But the problem with this form of serving the public is
that the engineering firm GEI would play no role and
achieve no income. After all, the principals at GEI are
personal friends of Iron River’s City Manager who
previously worked with those same people back when
the now local firm was part of STS.

And too, the City Manager is up for his annual review in
January with nothing “new” having happened in Iron River
during 2011. But the promise of an influx of up to
$400,000 should be enough to trigger approval for a 6%
raise for the coming year atop the already outrageous
salary he is being overpaid.

This is “business as usual” for Iron River. But what will
this proposed EPA grant yield the citizens of Iron River?
At best it will trigger additional engineering work for
GEI and perhaps the cleanup of low contamination sites on
private property, contamination that has been known for
decades. Like the spent motor oil that was allegedly spread
on the dirt roads on the Proksch Construction property at
the south edge of downtown Iron River (from John
Archocosky’s lips to my ears….) They knew they were
polluting the property at the time! But it was a convenient
way to get rid of all that spent motor oil, and to keep the
dust down at the same time. Now the property owners are
to benefit from federal grants for their misdeeds? If the
soil is tested, they will eventually receive a clean bill of
health for the property, thereby increasing the marketable
property value without increasing the property taxes.

I saw no evidence of oil on the roads there, but then it has
been decades since the alleged acts. Is there enough
petroleum product concentrated in the soil to show up on
tests? What other properties within the borders of the City
of Iron River will be tested? Who owns those properties?

The political slight of hand in such matters is simply amazing.

In short, there’s no advantage to the citizens at all. This is
just another pig with lipstick, the transfer of public money
to the pockets of a few friends of the City Manager and the
double whammy of a justification for another raise for the
City Manager. Are we on the pay rate schedule outlined by
the contract? 2011 rate at $111,235, and 2012 rate at
$117,909 for the City Manager. We ask once again, can
the citizens of Iron River actually afford this?

“In 2009, average compensation, salary and benefits, for
state employees, totaled $85,076. For teachers, $75,137,
and for local government workers, $57,333. The average
private sector benefit package was $39,986.”

http://tinyurl.com/7l5h6qu

If we were to include those seeking employment in
Michigan, these numbers would be even further askew.

The Iron County Reporter dedicated almost a quarter of
a page to the story about the EPA grants, and never thought
to ask the first question on behalf of the public they claim to
serve. It is most unfortunate that IronCountyDoings is the
only vehicle asking difficult questions and doing
investigative journalism at this time. I wish it weren’t so.
If others were doing the job they’re being paid to do,
IronCountyDoings could fold up our tent and this editor
could retire as I would prefer.

We remind our readers that information in this article is
based on things we were told by public employees, that is,
city officials. Because we take public officials at their word
that they are telling the truth, and for dearth of any
mechanism by which we can actually verify the things they
tell us, we report what they have said. On the other hand,
the City Manager has recently accused another municipal
employee of lying without providing any proof, so we are
left to wonder who to believe. Since we have a right to the
truth from every public employee, we take as true what is
told to us by the public employee providing information, as
much as possible. Still, the public has a right to know what
has been said, and so we report about these issues with the
caveat that the information is the best available to us, and
there is no way to verify any of it at this time. Verifiable
corrections, if any, will be published as they become
available.

On December 7, 2011, former Illinois governor Rod
Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years incarceration in
federal prison. To the citizen, this demonstrates the
culture of corruption that surrounds the Illinois
governor’s office. Other recent prior governors also
sentenced on federal corruption charges were Dan
Walker, Jim Edgar, and George Ryan. I moved to Illinois
from the east coast during Walker’s reign. The only
former Illinois governor not charged and convicted since
then was Jim Thompson. That means 4 of the 5 recent
former Illinois governors were convicted of federal
crimes. The cluster of miscreants in the Illinois
governor’s office gives us a unique view of how a
culture of corruption becomes ensconced.

These EPA grants being sought clearly demonstrate
a form of “crony capitalism” that is corrupt when
government becomes one arm of an economic
octopus that strangles the economic viability of a
community. Wouldn’t Iron River, indeed the entire
county, be better served if the people spending time
on this EPA grant that does nothing for the population
at large were to put their minds to bringing more
business, and jobs, into the community?

Many of the elected officials in this community have become
tethered to grants from higher levels of government. That’s
probably a good temporary fix, but here it has become a
way of life. And what good have the large grants done for the
people living in this community? Cool Cities has achieved
what? The EPA grants discussed here will achieve what?

Sorry about those rhetorical questions. All that the Cool
Cities initiative and these EPA grants seem to have achieved
is a self-congratulatory buzz around Iron River’s City Hall
and some unpopular roadway enhancements in the
former Stambaugh business district. We’re still losing
businesses in the county. The population continues to
decline. The children are still moving away. The roads and
infrastructure are deteriorating. In exchange for over
$111,000 in salary to Iron River’s city manager you’d think
we’d be seeing some sort of economic growth, wouldn’t you?
So why aren’t we? Since the City of Iron River has decided
that sort of pay scale is acceptable, why haven’t the
requirements for some sort of communal economic success
been attached to continuing that salary? After all, we could
get perfectly acceptable performance from a caretaker city
manager for $50,000 a year, or even less.

While no one objects to paying for value received,
IronCountyDoings says we’ve paid and asks, “Where’s
the value”? Municipal resources expended for private profit
of friends, without any measurable benefit to the public at
large, just doesn’t cut it. It is past time for this to have ended.

Bill Vajk

About Christmas in Iron River

Enough is enough!

The first year that Iron River celebrated the Christmas
Season with a parade, it was called Christmas in Lights.
Julie Melchiori was out of town when the decisions were
made and the name worked out just fine.

From the second year forward, Julie claimed that because
some aspects of the event were funded by the Downtown
Development Authority, that is government, the religious
word Christmas could not be used.

I went along with her despite my misgivings. In year 3
I offered (see letter to the editor in the Iron County
Reporter during that period) to donate the first $100 in
order to get government out of the celebration. But it
seems that the DDA doesn't have all that much going
on (perhaps part of the reason for the TIF lawsuit
between cities and Iron County?) and needed to spend
money for downtown "improvements" and the idea
never took root.

What remains, however, is that the federal holiday is
called Christmas, not Holiday. And US Postage stamps
are issued with Christmas and Hanukkah emblazoned
on them.


There is only one U.S. Constitution. The federal, all state, and
all local governments must abide by it. Special rules made up
by Julie Melchiori don't apply. They sure aren't applying over
in Florence, Wisconsin, a community nearby, just east of Iron
County on US2, where there is a Christmas parade today.
They're not hiding behind naming it "Holiday." Holiday is the
name of a petroleum distributor. Are we sure the parade isn't
free advertizing for them? If the gas station were funding the
parade I could see that name for the celebration.

We need to get this fixed for next year. Whether the name
came came about because of ignorance or secular progressive
ideology it doesn't reflect community values and it needs
to go.

And while on that "needs to go" topic, where's there any
report of original work or creative work performed on
behalf the people by Julie Melchiori? I'd like to know
about any original ideas she's brought to the table that
have improved the Iron County or the regional economy.

The people of this county cannot afford to support dead
weight that's doing us no good. When people invest money
with the promise of a return we deserve a report showing
what that return is. Skating along doing clerical work to
promote ideas from others isn't worth our investment. If
the EDC can be run by a clerk, then lets hire a clerk! With
the EDC's track record (or lack of,) as far as we can discern
without a formal report to the contrary, perhaps we don't
need an EDC at all. Is the Iron County EDC just another
useless money pit? Should I hold my breath while I wait
for an answer?

Bill Vajk

Entrepreneurship

Several years ago I approached a number of local EDC
and Chamber of Commerce people to recommend a
high school course on entrepreneurship. I was told
by one and all that the topic is covered in the high
school's business classes.

I dropped the topic, but WHOA. Whatever coverage
that is done is inadequate. In fact, the two areas of
inadequacy Iron County Doings criticizes in both the
local school districts are entrepreneurship and
civics, from the standpoint of citizen responsibility
and understanding interaction between the citizen
and government at all levels.

But to focus, today, on entreprenship, the following
tidbit arrived today in email from the Michigan
Economic Development Corporation:

=======================================

U-M student incubator getting national

attention

TechArb, the student-run business incubator at the
University of Michigan, has just announced that a
record 19 new businesses launched by UM
entrepreneurs will all share space inside the
incubator for the next six months.

Since the incubator began in 2008, more than
80 entrepreneurs and fledgling companies have
gotten their start with the help of TechArb’s
resources.

“Today we have more student entrepreneurs
than ever in TechArb pursuing their dreams
to impact our world,” Moses Lee, assistant
director of student ventures at the College
of Engineering’s Center for Entrepreneurship,
said in an interview with the Michigan Daily.

Lee went on to say that the incubator plans
on bringing in more partners, including venture
capitalists, alumni, local and national business
leaders, to further help start-ups grow.

A new study from the U.S. Department of
Commerce Economic Development
Administration shows that business incubators
are a better source of regional business growth
than any type of government-sponsored public
works initiative, according to an article in
medcitynews.com.

The EDA report shows that incubators generate
20 times more jobs than community infrastructure
projects, and at a bargain in the process.

“Business incubators are critical components
of the nation’s entrepreneurial support
infrastructure and the only public works projects
that were designed entirely as job generators,”
Dinah Adkins, president and CEO of the National
Business Incubation Association, told MedCity News.

Join the conversation about business, talent
and growth opportunities at
http://www.facebook.com/MIAdvantage or help make your
own case for the opportunities of Pure Michigan
by sharing our "Why Michigan'' video:
http://www.michiganadvantage.org/Why-Michigan/

============================================

Shouldn't our schools and the Iron County Economic
Development Corporation be doing stuff like this?

Nothing breeds huge success like little startup success.
It doesn't require tremendous financial resources and
backing to start a successful business. All it takes is
a good idea and dedication to get a successful business
going. Ideas don't cost anything!

Bill Vajk