The Detroit News. October 9, 2018
Vote no on all ballot proposals
Michigan voters will decide three statewide ballot proposals on Nov. 6. Each would make substantive policy changes by referendum, a practice that hasn’t always served the state well. We recommend a no vote on all three measures, urging instead that the Legislature settle the issues through the regular lawmaking process.
The basic problem with making law through direct democracy is that once a measure is enshrined by voters in the state constitution, it’s hard to fix when unintended consequences arise, or if it proves not in the best interests of the state.
Term limits is the perfect example. It’s widely agreed that the limits, as imposed by the ballot amendment, are not working. But changing the law will require another expensive campaign to secure voter support.
It’s much better that lawmakers do their jobs and not foist difficult decisions off on the voters. And if they won’t adopt the policies voters demand, then they should be replaced at the ballot box.
It’s the unintended consequences that doom the three current proposals facing Michigan voters.
Proposal 1: The Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol proposal would legalize the use of recreational pot, an admirable goal and a position Michigan should adopt.
But a lesson should be learned from the passage a decade ago of the ballot measure to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes. The state still hasn’t figured out how to effectively implement the initiative. The current quagmire over the awarding of licenses for retail pot shops is just the latest twist in the road to getting the policy right.
Legalizing recreational pot will face similar challenges. The primary problem with this proposal is that it won’t do what its name implies: regulate marijuana like alcohol.
Prop 1 would leave too much of the marijuana production and distribution network underground, making enforcement of regulatory and tax policies difficult.
Private individuals would be able to grow marijuana for personal use, though all sales would be through licensed brokers. The proposal would also allow pot to be sold in a variety of forms, including candy and and other food products.
As with medical marijuana, retail sales would be limited to specialty retailers.
That’s nothing like how alcohol is regulated.
The better approach is to license commercial growers, carefully regulate the content and the products, and sell pot alongside alcohol in a variety of licensed retail outlets. That would bring the pot trade fully out of the shadows.
Lawmakers could craft a law to give the state greater flexibility in assuring recreational marijuana doesn’t harm local communities, put children at risk or cheat the state of the tax revenue legal pot should generate.
The state has considerable leeway in regulating alcohol; it would not have the same ability to manage the distribution and sale of marijuana. For that reason, voters should say No to Proposal 1.
Proposal 2: Voters Not Politicians is another measure with a name that sounds better than the results it likely will produce.
Contrary to its promise, it will not remove politicians from the process of redrawing political district lines; the person who will ultimately select the “independent” commission that will set the new districts is the elected secretary of state, a partisan.
Can voters be certain that a politician beholden to a political party will not put his or her thumb on the scale?
Michigan would be moving to an untested approach. If Prop 2 fails to deliver on its promise of eliminating gerrymandering, the fix would require another ballot measure.
A better solution would be for Democrats and Republicans to embrace the use of technology to draw balanced districts made up of voters with similar concerns without absurdly distorting the geographic map.
In addition, the language defining how communities of interest should be grouped is vague and opens the door to endless litigation.
Voters should say no to Prop 2.
Proposal 3: The Promote the Vote measure is the least suspect of the three proposals, but it, too, has fatal flaws. The initiative would amend the state constitution to allow no-reason absentee voting, give the military additional time to vote, let citizens register anytime with proof of residency, return straight ticket voting, protect secret ballots and require audits for election results.
Most of those are OK, and should be adopted in some form by the Legislature.
But this proposal would allow would-be voters to show up at the polls on Election Day and ask to be registered. Polling places would become clerks’ offices, requiring more staffing and leading to voting delays. It would also make validating voter eligibility more difficult.
Michigan does very well at registering eligible voters. Roughly 95 percent of those eligible to vote are on the registration rolls.
Prop 2 deals with too many separate issues that would be better debated one-by-one by the Legislature. Voters should say No.
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Times Herald(Port Huron). October 11, 2018
Good plan: It offends everyone
East China School District officials have long faced an intractable dilemma. After years of effort, controversy and capitulation, they’ve found a solution to their problem of too many schools for two few students.
If it wasn’t so expensive, it might even have had a chance.
The plan unveiled Wednesday would close the Marine City and St. Clair high schools and replace them with a single new high school built on land the district owns on Meisner Road. St. Clair Middle School would become St. Clair Elementary School. Belle River Elementary would become Marine City Elementary School. Pine River Elementary would be turned into an early childhood center. Palms Elementary would remain an elementary school. Marine City Middle School would close.
Middle school students would get a new school that would adjoin the new high school.
All of this comes with a $148 million price tag. The district would have to borrow $145 million of that. Voters would have to approve a 1.7 mill tax increase to repay the money.
Closing any school is emotionally difficult. Closing a school in the East China district is an order of magnitude more problematic. Students, parents and alumni identify with their local schools - that’s understandable; those sorts of sentiments are what make us human beings. But closing one of a dozen elementary schools in the Port Huron district unsettles only a part of the community. And while it might require a longer bus ride, it doesn’t instigate a huge change in school-day habits or personal identity.
In East China, though, you can’t close a school in St. Clair and send those students to the middle school in Marine City. You can’t close a high school and send all the students to the remaining building. It affects more than students and alumni. Marine City High School belongs to Marine City. Locking its doors affects the entire city. Not having a St. Clair High School diminishes the entire town. Attending the other city’s high school would be the ultimate ignominy.
So East China proposes to close both high schools and both middle schools, the buildings that now bear the names Marine City and St. Clair, and replace them with a grand, sparkling new complex on neutral ground. People might vote for it if the promised prize on Meisner Road is reward enough. It is the only option that keeps the district intact without tears, pickets and recall elections.
There are alternatives. We have to wonder about splitting into separate St. Clair and Marine City school districts. That would be expensive, too, and would take forever. It would leave the problem to someone else to fix.
Or everyone could try separating sentimentality from fiscal responsibility. That’ll never happen.
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Petoskey News-Review. October 8, 2018
Vote ’yes’ on emergency communications millages
The case for upgrading three Northern Michigan counties’ emergency radio communications system is one that area authorities have made loudly and clearly, and we’d encourage voters around the region to support millage proposals on those counties’ Nov. 6 election ballots to provide the necessary funding.
Charlevoix, Cheboygan and Emmet counties each are seeking new property tax levies for emergency communications purposes. Rates and durations for the millages vary a bit from county to county, but all three proposals would serve a core purpose: updating the radio system which allows communications among police, fire and medical responders and the dispatchers at the counties’ shared 911 center.
If approved, the millage levies would cover a much of a combined estimated $10.3 million project to switch the area’s emergency radio operations from the very high frequency (VHF) bandwidth to a digital 800-megahertz (ultra high frequency, or UHF) system, a format now in use in a large majority of Michigan counties. Despite some slight variations based on local infrastructure and equipment needs, the proposed funding method would split changeover costs fairly evenly among the three counties.
Public safety and emergency dispatch officials note that Federal Communications Commission policy has cut back on the usable radio bandwidth for the area’s existing analog radio system in the last few years, part of a process for making shares of the VHF airwaves available for other communications uses. As a result, efficiency and reliability of radio communications for police, fire and emergency medical needs have dwindled locally.
Despite efforts to maintain the VHF system’s effectiveness amid the FCC’s “narrowbanding” process, the Charlevoix Cheboygan Emmet Central Dispatch Authority notes that radio transmissions now are reliable only about 70 percent of the time.
As one example of the radio reliability shortfalls, dispatch authority director Pam Woodbury has pointed to a May 2015 situation in which Cpl. John Hasty of the Charlevoix County Sheriff’s Office was shot and seriously injured when trying to apprehend a car theft suspect. In a three-minute audio recording of Hasty’s interactions with an emergency dispatcher that day, the dispatcher can be heard trying multiple times to make out Hasty’s radio transmissions over persistent interference, repeating over and over that he is “unreadable,” before picking up that the suspect had a gun, and finally that he had shot Hasty.
Dispatch officials and the three counties’ sheriffs have projected that the switch to an 800-MHz system would boost the reliability of radio communications to 96 percent or higher around the three-county area. Along with better prospects for summoning help when citizens and responders are in need of it, authorities note that the proposed changeover would bring improved capabilities for communicating via radio with surrounding jurisdictions, which have already made the switch to 800 MHz.
Authorities also see significant potential for further narrowbanding of VHF frequencies in the years ahead. Absent a local move to an 800-MHz system, they note that upgrades to keep the existing radio technology usable would carry their own multimillion-dollar price tag - perhaps a figure higher than implementing the newer system format.
If funding is secured for the 800-MHz transition, authorities note they’ll be seeking a five-year warranty on all radio equipment to be purchased so that local police, fire and ambulance agencies will know they will have at least that long before they will have to pay for any future radio-related costs.
To fund the changeover, officials in the three counties are seeking voters’ consideration of millages for the following rates and time durations:
- Charlevoix County: 0.5 mill to be levied for three years
- Cheboygan County: 0.5 mill to be levied for four years
- Emmet County: 0.31 mill to be levied for five years
A mill represents $1 in property taxes for each $1,000 of a property’s taxable value, typically equivalent to about half of its market worth. At the highest of the counties’ proposed rates, 0.5 mill, the emergency communications levy would cost the owner of a $200,000 home about $50 per year, or $4.17 per month.
Emergency dispatch infrastructure plays a critical role when lives and property are in jeopardy. When considering this - along with the prospects for the 800-MHz system to offer reliable communications for years to come - we see the dollar figures like those above reflecting a small price to pay. We’d urge voters to answer the call for the needed financial resources.
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The Mining Journal. October 10, 2018
State’s cash bail system needs reform
A group of bipartisan legislators last week introduced bills to reform the state of Michigan’s cash bail system.
The legislation focuses on changing a system that costs taxpayers millions of dollars while low-income defendants await trial.
State Rep. David LaGrand, D-Grand Rapids, who sponsored the legislation, explained on the Michigan House Democrats website the justice system doesn’t give rich and poor the same freedoms.
“We should only take away a non-convicted person’s freedom if they are a danger to the community or a flight risk,” LaGrand said.
Someone’s failure to post a small-dollar cash bond because of the inability to pay could lead to a loss of job or housing, and separates parents from children, he said.
It’s estimated about 41 percent of the county jail population in Michigan is composed of pretrial detainees who can’t afford a modest cash bail. This costs the Michigan taxpayers about $150 million a year.
The legislation would make personal recognizance bonds the default form of pre-trial release, with judges retaining the ability to set cash bond if they believe the defendants pose risks to their communities, are considered flight risks or have histories of missing court dates.
Personal recognizance is defined as the pretrial release of a defendant from jail or arrest by a judicial officer without bail.
Other components of the legislation include: creating an assessment process to determine a defendant’s financial situation and assets, and requiring courts to collect and submit quarterly data to the state Supreme Court about the cash bonds they levy and collect to assure the cash bond system isn’t abused.
Also, local governments would be urged to use savings from cash bond reforms for community policing efforts.
John Cooper, associate director of policy and research of the Lansing-based organization Safe & Just Michigan, released a statement on the introduction of bail reform legislation:
“Cash bail is an outdated system that unjustly disrupts the lives of thousands of vulnerable Michiganders before they are convicted of any crime and without regard for whether they pose a risk to public safety.
“The mere inability to pay bail causes many people to languish in county jails for weeks or even months at the cost of their jobs, vehicles, housing, credit scores and minor children.”
The fact is that most defendants pose no risk to the public and could be safely returned home to their families and their jobs.
By resuming their normal lives, they may continue to contribute to their communities while the legal process progresses.
Regardless of their guilt, defendants should not be incarcerated based on their wealth.
Justice should be money-blind, and we believe these bipartisan bills can go a long way toward this goal.
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