fred upton, a former fred upton staffer, republican state rep al paschalka, he represents benton harbor in the statehouse, he s the person who introduced emergency state takeover bill that governor rick snyder signed. this is their ceremonial re-enacting of the signing there. until last year, he served on the board of directors for a nonprofit that wants to build a half billion-dollar, 530-acre lake-front jack nicklaus-designed golf course and luxury real estate development that would span both relatively wealthy st. joseph and poor little benton harbor, a development that eats the one collective asset that benton harbor had, benton harbor s beautiful beach-front park.ç it would turn it into a place where caddies carry bags for whirlpool executives and for rich folk who is drive in from chicago for a weekend at their new luxury signature home! i don t know what a signature home is, but they re very expensive and they re part of the whole golf course deal. benton harbor s park was dee
emergency financial managers, and one of the things that ç lucked out for me was, as you were saying, this is something that used to exist in a very small scale, reserved for real emergencies. they re talking about broadly expanding this and using this with something more than a dozen different triggers that can start a process like this where a town just gets taken over. what bloomberg pointed out was that it is investment banks and law firms and other people who have been involved in sort of corporate takeovers, doing this stuff in the private sector, who are now hoping to get in on this as a hot industry in the public sector. do you see this as a privatization of democracy, of public processes? exactly, and this is why i say corporatization, profitization of local government. it is unprecedented. it s dangerous. it s incredible that it s come to this. you know, i m a believer in democracy. this is autocracy. i think the governor must have asked himself wwpd, what would putin d
now they can fire elected officials. it is unprecedented in michigan and i think in america and it s dangerous. i saw a bloomberg news report about those trainings for the emergency financial managers, and one of the things that lucked out for me was, as you were saying, this is something that used to exist in a very small scale, reserved for real emergencies. they re talking about broadly expandsing this and using this with something more than a dozen different triggers that can start a process like this where a town just gets taken over. what bloomberg pointed out was that it is investment banks and law firms and other people who have been involved in sort of corporate takeovers, doing this stuff in the private sector, who are now hoping to get in on this as a hot industry in the public sector. do you see this as a privatization of democracy, of public processes? exactly, and this is why i say corporatization, profitization of local government. it is unprecedented. it s dangero
the new boss over the elected officials in your town, someone who can order them to do things, who can undo what they have done as elected officials, who can fire them if she or he so decides. the state is not only coming in and saying we don t care who we elected to represent you, we re firing them and taking over ourselves, and they re saying abolish your town. who are your town founding fathers or mothers? the state says we can dissolve your town now. we can wipe you off the map, give your land and assets to the next town over if we want to, just roll up the whole deal and deed it over. your town doesn t get a say in the matter. the first town to feel the tender administrations of governor snyder s new law is little benton harbor, one of the toorest towns in the state. and yes, despite the rust belt decline that has defined life in benton harbor for decades, benton harbor is also home to the global headquarters for whirlpool appliances. among the heirs to the whirlpool appliances fo
and like transocean they are right back at work in the gulf. the company s chief executive now bragging have won 30% of the drilling contracts and 40% of the well contracts for the permits that have been handed out by the government so far. tomorrow april 20th marks one year since the big bp transocean, halliburton oil disaster. and a year out from that disaster which was specifically the fault of those three companies, really full speed ahead for all of us. it s not just those three companies. it s really full speed ahead for the entire oil industry. heading into today the federal post bp permits to deep water drill on the gulf of mexico and they did that even though they are still not done figuring out what went wrong in the bp disaster. the investigation is not complete. the results we have thus far indicate the crucial piece of safety equipment known as the blowout preventer does not work