Pontiac – we build excitement?

There’s a pretty well-written, well-researched and fair piece about Michigan’s Emergency Manager crisis at Governing.com. It focuses heavily on Pontiac and their history with EMs including their current one, Louis Schimmler.

There wasn’t a lot in the article that I didn’t already know but there were two things that caught my attention…

I find your quaint city constitutions mildly amusing… At a speech criticizing Michigan’s Emergency Manager law yesterday, former Pontiac Emergency Manager Michael Stampfler was talked about the importance of investing in capital infrastructure and something he called civic capital — engagement of the local citizens in the process of governing. Then he suggested that city charters were just “interesting reading”. […]

Oh. NOW you tell us. Former Emergency Manager of Pontiac Michael Stampfler is giving a presentation to the Rotary Club of Wyandotte about why Public Act 4 – Michigan’s Emergency Manager law — isn’t working and cannot work. Stampfler says, “I do not believe EMs can be successful — they abrogate the civic structure of the community for a period […]

Public Act 4 no longer in play in Detroit

Detroit’s financial review team was given the okay to meet yesterday morning by the Michigan Court of Appeals, clearing the way for them to vote to approve the consent agreement between the city and the state in the afternoon. And, last night, the Detroit City Council followed suit in a 5-4 split decision, agreeing to the consent agreement, actually called the “Financial Stability Agreement”, which gives city leaders some measure of control, including choosing some of the members of the financial advisory board… (more after the jump)

Yes, it’s still the law In what appears to be a never-ending saga of a ham-handed, clumsy implementation of a constitutionally-questionable law, the Snyder administration has finally won a court battle which put Flint Mayor Dayne Walling out of a job (again) and Emergency Manager Michael Brown back in (again). This and the continuing battles in Detroit and elsewhere to […]

Second time’s a charm Michigan Rising has risen like a phoenix from the ashes of the first attempt to recall Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and is giving it a second try. Last week, they submitted petition language in Washtenaw County. They had no trouble getting their language approved last year so there is little reason to believe they will have […]

Stop Public Act 4! The Michigan Secretary of State’s (SOS) office has confirmed that the Stand Up for Democracy coalition has turned in 24,151 valid sheets containing 225,885 signatures, exceeding the 161,305 needed to put the law on hold and the referendum on November 2012 ballot. [NOTE: this does NOT mean the signatures themselves have been validated, just that they […]

What the good judge giveth, the Appeals Court taketh away

On March 20th, Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina sent Flint Emergency Manager Michael Brown packing as she overturned the work of the review team that put him in place. Once again it was for violations of Michigan’s Open Meeting Act.

I characterized that decision as “for now” and I was, not surprisingly, right. Yesterday, the Court of Appeals overturned her ruling and Brown is back in while the state appeals the decision.

Take your victories where you can get them Flint Mayor Dayne Walling As I mentioned earlier, a judge had put a restraining order on Flint Emergency Manager Michael Brown due to potential violations of the Open Meetings Act. The hearing was this afternoon and, now that it’s over, Michael Brown is unemployed and Dayne Walling is mayor again. Not only […]

Can’t win for losin’… The Snyder administration was handed another in a long list of legal setbacks today as my now-favorite judge, Ingham Country Judge William Collette, smacked them down again. Recall that Judge Collette had already issued a mighty smackdown to the Detroit Emergency Manager Review Team earlier in the month: An Ingham County judge this afternoon ordered all […]

We all agree, this isn’t easy Last night, the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan held a public panel discussion on Public Act 4 — Michigan’s Emergency Manager law. On the panel were Deputy State Treasurer for Local Government Services Roger Fraser, Chairman and CEO of Michigan Forward Brandon Jessup, Benton Harbor Emergency Manager […]