The only people I have seen (on the 'Politics in Lansing' fb group) expressing interest in serving have been people who lost in the council primaries and the agitators. I think it is going to be nuts. It's hard to guess what could happen with so few people interested in drafting proposals and then only 10-20% of the electorate actually voting on whatever the commission comes up with.
I should have clarified, yes what I have seen is people arguing for 8 or 9 wards, no at-large, to capture 'better representation'. From my time in Flint I think this change will more often than not lend itself to faction forming and too many resources being fought over by whichever council members develop political power, rather than allocating resources and projects by data-driven assessments.
Oh how I love the concept of ranked choice voting. It's one of the few ideas that might actually fix some of the government dysfunction at all levels, I hope it's given a chance. I could get behind the addition of a 5th ward to stave off ties.
I am not sure why a Free Press editorial would want to say something like "Lansing is a Sad Little Town and should not be the State Capital!" She bad mouths just about everything here including "Lansing Tacos"! Where did she go for tacos? Not Pablos or even Mr. Taco! Maybe she should stay in wonderful Detroit where you can spend an hour or two in traffic each day on the way to work! What fun!
I read that article and Couch's rebuttal to it in the LSJ. It's a just dim-witted poor take the likes of which I've come to expect from today's hollowed-out newspapers. Not many legit journalists out there these days, there's no shortage of this kind of idiocy. I'm partial to Famous Taco myself.
Just a note about the "Sad Little Town" story, someone has come up with a T-shirt with a mittened fist with a star in the middle and the middle finger flipping the bird, and "A Sad Little Town" printed below. You can get one at sadlittletown.com! Pretty funny I'd say.
I saw a YouTube video about the last beam topping ceremony at the new Hudson Tower in Detroit. It looks like a very nice building with some interesting windows and design features beyond just a glass tower. I also noticed how nicely paved all the street are in downtown Detroit! Another video showed the progress on the Gordie Hall Bridge, it is a very impressive project, Michigan can still build some amazing things. I noticed there are no piers or supports in the water, which is a very good thing.
I'm also a fan of the Hudson Tower's design, it's SHoP Architects, they've done a lot of nice high rises. The Tower on Grand kind of has their aesthetic imo.
Lots of stuff happening in Detroit in general, I loosely keep up on things going on down there and have been impressed.
So, I went and did something I do very rarely: start a thread on Reddit. I made clear my disdain for the plan to tear down Eastern along with support for a mental facility and response from some people truly took me aback. All sorts of people perfectly happy to see the building the go, practically cheering for it. People mindlessly chanting about mental hospital=good without any concern as to where or how its built and disregarding the fact I said I supported it. I'm dumbfounded at the opinions of some, I can only assume some are trolls, many aren't from/don't care about the city and some are just dumb? I gotta say, it's one of those things that makes me lose a little more faith in humanity. Even at their worse the internet, social media and forums skew more intelligent than the general population just due to the literacy requirement, if the kind of opinions and "debate" I regularly see on Reddit and Facebook are anything to go by I just don't know what to think.
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I should have clarified, yes what I have seen is people arguing for 8 or 9 wards, no at-large, to capture 'better representation'. From my time in Flint I think this change will more often than not lend itself to faction forming and too many resources being fought over by whichever council members develop political power, rather than allocating resources and projects by data-driven assessments.
Lots of stuff happening in Detroit in general, I loosely keep up on things going on down there and have been impressed.
Just ranting and sharing frustration
https://www.reddit.com/r/lansing/comments/1dbd5cg/sparrow_wants_to_tear_down_eastern/