Update 7/11, crosspost to excellent diary-
The Successful Drowning of local and state government
About the pledge to drown us, wow, good job diarist
"And here we all were just worrying about ALEC."
In the diary I wanted to call attention to the link to state-by-state office-holders who signed 'the Norquist pledge', it's just that there are so many of them, take names, that's what I say
Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform Pledge
1,244 Legislators as of Wednesday, June 13, 2012
13 Governors, 4 Lieutenant Governors, 4 Attorneys General, 3 Secretaries of State,
3 Treasurers, 1 Auditor, and 1 Board of Equalization Member from Norquist's site
Just the words Board of Equalization are scary, that's in California
Update 7/11 - Roger Fraser (MI treasury) is having a hayday on his shopping spree, was he as bad as Ann Arbor city administrator as it sounds? How did he end up in the state treasury? Doubling the city debt, then getting to go on a bonanza?
The city of Ann Arbor has seen its total primary government debt more than double from $107.6 million to $248.2 million while Fraser has been city administrator, city records show. and then they give him 100 more cities ...
And announced today, working on his next acquisition, Allen Park
Lt. Gov. Brian Calley appointed a six-member financial-review team Tuesday to examine the City of Allen Park's finances under state Public Act 4, the emergency manager law.
The team includes Deputy State Treasurer Roger Fraser and Frederick Headen, the director of the Michigan Department of Treasury's Local Government Services Bureau. emergency man comes to Allen Park
(end update)
________ original ________
Weird how some places are losing their local governments to ... private managers, sometimes by declaring "emergency management", sometimes other creative ways
Since getting canned from my job I’ve had time to become intrigued with the “emergency manager” struggles in Michigan. Learning that I needed to learn a lot, and thanks to the ‘emergency manager’ and ‘emergency management law’ tags, and Eclectablog, I ended up learning it is indeed passing, or morphing, in other states (caveat, when I say passed I mean it has passed at least one vote, or, ahem, enactment/declaration)
So in addition to the great peoples of Michigan's fight-
It’s passed in Indiana
Eclectablog, January and March 2012
http://www.dailykos.com/...
It’s passed in the Senate in Pennsylvania, two weeks ago
http://www.pennlive.com/...
It's now law in North Las Vegas as of last week
http://online.wsj.com/...
Stockton seems to be on the brink, Burlington, not good (doesn't mean we'll lose them as towns, but I can almost hear Midas counting his gold)
http://www.nytimes.com/...
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/...
The above I got from only recent news, and thanks to the www.pewstates.org
As an aside when I learned on DailyKos yesterday that North and South Carolina banned the cities from being their own ISPs, I would suggest there's something afoot, they are actually preventing local government recovery in order to... force... bankruptcy... maybe, just a possibilty
And here's a twist! get rid of the governing body altogether!
The prospect of more Sandy Springs (GA)-style incorporations concerns people like Evan McKenzie, author of “Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private Government.” He worries that rich enclaves may decide to become gated communities writ large, walling themselves off from areas that are economically distressed. http://www.nytimes.com/...
And just today's Snyder first veto special for the beleagured Michiganders -
nope no transparency for you! how dare you cooperate
http://www.mlive.com/...
Thanks for your patience in my newbieness on Diaries, I'm not leaving the thread, I'll be back in a few hours.