The Space Vehicle City

Extraterrestrials take note: Flint is not necessarily a friendly environment. Ron "Space Cowboy" Fonger of The Flint Journal reports:

Just weeks after a man told police he spotted an unidentified flying object above the Rave theaters in Flint Township, three more sightings — one each in the Flint, Flushing and Grand Blanc areas — have been made to the Mutual UFO Network.

This month alone, 13 online reports from the county have been made to MUFON, ranging from randomly flashing, multi-colored lights to to a large, glowing object to a bright orange light hovering above tree tops.

"I believe a great deal of the reason for the ever-growing number of reports is growing popularity of both UFOs and MUFON in general," said Robert Nolan, chief investigator with MUFON, who said he may visit the county this weekend to have a look around for himself.

Giving Up on the Borderlands?

The city of Flint hasn't officially endorsed the shrinking city concept, but budget woes may help make it a reality.

Ron Fonger of The Flint Journal reports:

The city says it can't afford to help pay for fixing one of the most deteriorated sections of Carpenter Road, Flint's northernmost border, leaving the Genesee County Road Commission saddled with the full bill for the local share of the job.

A Disgruntled Flint Fire Fighter, I Presume

What exactly does this photo have to do with Flint? Keep reading to find out. And, no, it's not a reference to Paul's Pipe Shop.

Sometimes crediting the source of a blog item takes up more space than the item itself, which is one of the reasons many lazy bloggers (which may be redundant) don't even bother. But I have high standards for Flint Expatriates — except when it comes to spelling or making a profit — so bear with me.

Here's an item from Ron Fonger at The Flint Journal, who got it from an email in response to another Journal article — actually, just a reprint from The Florida Times-Union, a strange paper that runs a daily Bible verse in its editorial pages — that referenced a website called Eighteen in America, which is where Fonger ultimately got the quote he used.

Hello? Are you still with me? Are you wondering why I don't just reprint the "You know you're from Flint if...", which is the most popular post in the history of Flint Expatriates? That would be more interesting, right? But we've come this far, so let's just get it over with.

Apparently, some kid from Williamstown, Massachusetts named Dylan Dethier decided to golf in every state in the country, excluding Alaska and Hawaii, and he got in a round at Swartz Creek Golf course, where a former firefighter allegedly told him: "Be careful around here. Keep your wits about you. I was a firemen in this city for 27 years, and it's as bad now as ever. If I were you, I'd play this course and then get the hell out of Flint by the time it gets dark."

Not sure that was even worth it.

By the way, are there people out there — besides troubled individuals trying to sound like Sherlock Holmes or Dr. Watson — who actually say things like "Keep your wits about you"?

Land Bank Job Up for Grabs

Eight candidates are now vying to replace Dan Kildee as county treasurer and chair of the Land Bank. The job pays $82,749.

Ron Fonger of The Flint Journal reports:

A committee of county Chief Probate Judge Jennie E. Barkey, Clerk Michael J. Carr and Prosecutor David Leyton is scheduled to meet Wednesday to decide weather to immediately select a replacement for Kildee or whether to conduct interviews before making their decision.

Dan Kildee's New Gig

Ron Fonger of The Flint Journal reports:

The Ford Foundation said today it is committing more than $1 million to a new national land use group being headed by county Treasurer Daniel T. Kildee.

Kildee has told The Flint Journal he will leave his county job at the end of this year to lead the yet-to-be-named organization, which is also being funded by a Mott Foundation grant.

"The Ford Foundation has been investing in new approaches to metropolitan development for several years, both in Michigan and across the county," said George McCarthy, director of Metropolitan Opportunity at the Ford Foundation. "That experience shows us that city leaders are eager for fresh solutions to today's challenges, including foreclosures and abandonment, metropolitan sustainability and shifts in population.

Buick City: From Cars to Copper

What's left of Buick City is still producing revenue...for copper thieves.

Ron Fonger of The Flint Journal reports:

The thefts are just an asterisk in the long history of the sprawling Buick City complex on Flint's North Side, where only a few hundred workers still produce parts for GM vehicles at what's called Powertrain Flint North.

Much of the Buick City site has been decommissioned or demolished since vehicle production ended here a decade ago.

The thefts apparently came from Plant 36, which had produced Buick engines until August of 2008.

Flint and the Healthcare Debate

At the risk of touching off one of those silly battles in the comment section that I try to avoid, I can't help but pass along two news items that I ran across today. In the midst of the healthcare debate, Flint is cutting medical services in response to budget shortfalls.

Ron Fonger of The Flint Journal reports:

The new director of the Genesee County Health Department says he won't be able to save the McCree North Health and Human Services center after all.

Mark Valacak, named county health officer less than one week ago, had said it was a mistake to close the East Pierson Road clinic and vowed dig deeper in his proposed budget to find a way to keep McCree open.

But on Thursday, Valacak told the county Board of Commissioners that he could not find the money to make needed repairs to the building and provide staff to keep programs operating.

"I looked up and down in the budget," Valacak said. "There's just not a way without drastically reducing other services."

Regardless of your political persuasion, I think it's safe to say the country does have a problem when it comes to healthcare. (How's that for stating the obvious in a blandly apolitical manner?) Susan Heavey of Reuters reports:

Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday.

"We're losing more Americans every day because of inaction...than drunk driving and homicide combined," Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, said in an interview with Reuters.

Overall, researchers said American adults age 64 and younger who lack health insurance have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those who have coverage.

You read stories like these and it's hard to believe we're the richest nation on Earth.

UPDATE: A reader points out a local effort to help the uninsured in the Flint area:

"I believe about 4,000 individuals enrolled in the Genesee Health Plan receive their primary care at the UM-Flint Wellness Center, where nurse practitioners (under the direction of a physician) provide routine medical care. Others are under the care of private physicians. The health plan protects working poor, students and a variety of struggling county residents – of course it isn’t a solution – it covers very rudimentary services, but it is effective in linking people to primary care, where diseases such as diabetes can be caught and treated before they become life-threatening. It isn’t a solution for everyone, but it does demonstrate – I think – how Flint continues to innovate, despite our many challenges."

Go here for a story about the plan on the Mott Foundation’s website.

Buick City Beautification

Will taxpayers pay to clean up Buick City?

Ron Fonger of The Flint Journal reports:

Taxpayers already paid for most of the "new" General Motors, and there's increasing pressure on the government to dig a little deeper to do something more: Guarantee to cover the cost of future environmental cleanups at old plant sites like Buick City.

The Genesee Regional Chamber of Commerce has scheduled an Aug. 26 meeting on the subject here, saying it wants to start a national discussion about how a government promise to take over long-term environmental liability could make the difference between investors buying abandoned properties left with "old" GM or leaving them to sit as they are.

Of course, there is another option:

Russ Harding, a senior environmental policy analyst for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said GM should have been required to re-assume its environmental responsibility for the sites it is leaving behind if it ever regains profitability.

"It's fundamentally unfair for taxpayers to be stuck with that bill," said Harding, a former director of the state Department of Environmental Quality. "I look at this as a lose-lose situation."

A Smaller, Greener Flint

Genesee County Land Bank Chairman Dan Kildee. (Photo courtesy of Jon M. Brouwer/Grand Rapids Press)

When temporary Mayor Michael Brown told a Rotary Club luncheon last month that one solution to Flint's woes might be "shutting down quadrants of the city," it sounded more like wishful thinking than actual policy. In fact, a Brown spokesman claimed it was just an off-the-cuff remark.

But a front-page story in yesterday's New York Times indicates that the concept is gaining momentum. It's even got an environmentally pleasing name; it's a "greening strategy."

As you might have guessed, Genesee County Land Bank Chairman Dan Kildee, who also happens to be the county treasurer, is leading the charge.

“Decline in Flint is like gravity, a fact of life,” Kildee told David Streitfeld of The New York Times. “We need to control it instead of letting it control us.”

(Streitfeld's article builds on a good piece by The Flint Journal's Ron Fonger published a month earlier.)

One thing the Times story inexplicably failed to mention is that Youngstown, Ohio has already put a similar plan into action that would be an obvious model for Flint. I mentioned this in an earlier post about shrinking Flint, and Fonger zeroed in on it in his Journal article:

The Land Bank chairman said he's prepared to promote talk about shrinking Flint by helping to bring in an expert on the subject, like Youngstown, Ohio, Mayor Jay Williams.

In Youngstown, the city is demolishing homes but also monitoring neighborhoods that have largely been abandoned, and is offering up to $50,000 in grants for remaining homeowners to relocate, according to news reports.

Flint is in the process of updating its master plan for the first time since 1965, so now would be the time to map out a "greening strategy" and make it official city policy.

For a racially diverse — some would argue racially polarized — city like Flint, it’s bound to be a controversial process. Namely, which parts of Flint get eliminated? And what happens when the predominantly white power structure selects predominantly African American sections of town to turn into verdant pastures? I don’t think I’m going out on limb in predicting that the north end will go before Mott Park or East Court.

And do you offer out-of-state speculators who own abandoned property the same payment as an actual Flint resident living in a house slated for removal? There's no question this whole process would be very complicated.

Are you wondering what this might resemble if it’s handled badly? Look at the mess Flint has made trying to close schools in its shrinking, cash-poor educational system. Shrinking the entire city could make that fiasco seem like a model of cooperation and efficiency.

Don’t get me wrong. I think this is a good idea. Flint has become a poverty-stricken town trapped in the boundaries of a once-prosperous city. Providing services for 34-square miles just doesn't make sense. But it will take leadership in the mayor's office to pull this off, something that's been in short supply for a long time in Flint. (Given his temporary status, I'm not including Mike Brown in this negative assessment. His short stint as mayor has reminded us what a competent, rational leader looks like after the Don Williamson years.)

At least Kildee seems to know what he's up against:

"I am pretty well sold on this, but the challenge is to do this openly, with participation of the citizens," Kildee told the Journal. "Really, the question is whether the city is going to let this happen in the most destructive manner or the most constructive."

UPDATE: Kildee appears to be on the porch of a house on Sanford Place, a dead-end street off W. Third Ave. in Carriage Town. It's not on Google Street View, but here's a shot of the street from Third Ave.


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Riding shotgun! Well, actually it was a handgun

My mom always told me to wear a helmet and a holster for my revolver whenever I went for a bike ride back in Flint. Now I know why.

"A 20-year-old man was in good condition after his gun accidentally discharged while riding his bicycle last week," Ron Fonger of The Flint Journal reports.

"A Flint police report Saturday said that the man was in good condition at Hurley Medical Center after the incident.

"The man told police he was riding his bicycle Wednesday night on Davison Road, near Averill Avenue, when he hit a pothole that caused his 22-caliber revolver is discharge, shooting his leg."

It's time the city started fixing the streets so bike-riding gun enthusiasts won't have these problems.

Who wants to go for a dip?

I just finished a conversation with my mom about how she used to swim in the Flint River. It made me think how great it would be if we could somehow get the river back to that relatively pristine state. Then I ran across this item by Ron Fonger in The Flint Journal:

"The city of Flint says it dumped 750,000 gallons of raw sewage into the Flint River on Friday after a 6-inch bypass line broke, the second large sewer spill from the city since last month.

"Untreated sewage was diverted to the river from the city's Water Pollution Control facility for more than 10 hours, according to a report filed with the state Department of Environmental Quality."

Gardeners wanted

So much for using the broken-window approach to improve Flint.

Ron Fonger of The Flint Journal reports:

"When the state spent nearly $3 million on dramatic gardens, new trees, special fences and streetlights designed to give people a good first impression of Flint, it expected the city would keep things looking good

"But just days into the first summer with the face-lift, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Transportation said he's already planning to give the city a friendly reminder about living up to its end of the maintenance bargain.

"People who drive around the I-69 entrances and exits to Saginaw Street in downtown have noticed that area already is looking unkempt in spots, with weeds scattered among the flowers and grass getting shaggy."