LSJ Blogs: Derek Melot is Just Asking

MLK median needs a trim

The grass is getting mighty tall in the median on MLK Boulevard in downtown Lansing again. I'm surprised, since this is a city election year and few small things annoy voters more than daily reminders of inadequate city maintenance.

You'll recall that the city and state got into a bit of a tussle last summer over median maintenance. The city does the mowing, but the state is supposed to pay since MLK is part of the state highway grid. I trust this isn't a payment issue again. The state is a property owner, just like the rest of us. If it won't maintain its property to code, it should be sanctioned just like any other owner.

My advice to the city: Mow the grass and bill the state. If prompt payment isn't forthcoming, explore creative ways to remind state leaders that the city can make it quite an ordeal to get into their buildings and parking lots.

Old Town 'tradition' revived

Arctic Corner has taken up the mantle of Tate's Freeze and is dispensing icy treats from the former Tate location in the heart of Old Town. A summer stroll in Old Town just wasn't the same when you couldn't end it with a cone or shake from Tate's. It's great to see the tradition can be revived.

Unlearning 'helplessness'

Anyone interested in city politics or the course of civic debate in Lansing should read this piece on governing.com. It refers to a New York town, but has haunting similarities to what I see happening in Lansing.

The primary thrust is about the workplace and handling the problem of “learned helplessness.” Still, I think some points apply to Lansing’s civic culture, especially this line: “I learned from early interviews with residents that the biggest barrier to success wasn’t high taxes or closed factories. It was attitudes. Residents didn’t believe that they and their leaders could turn the city around.”

Oh, the horrors of river improvements

I made a mistake today ... I stopped to read the story chat comments on the Grand River revitalization story at lsj.com. Only in Lansing can a rather routine spiffing up of a riverfront turn into a debate over whether certain people are anti-tree.

I like trees, but I paid to remove some scrub trees in my back yard a couple of years ago. What was once a scrubby corner of my yard is now grass, landscaping and a vegetable garden. Does that make me anti-tree?

House Dems blow smoke on casinos

I find it hard to swallow that House Democrats are so short in leadership timber that they have to resort to people who think like Speaker Andy Dillon and his crew.

Take this item from a Detroit Free Press story on a smoking ban: “Committee chairman Rep. Bert Johnson, D-Highland Park, has supported the smoking ban exemption for Detroit’s casinos, which testified that a ban would cost them hundreds of jobs because patrons would choose to gamble at Indian-owned casinos, where a smoking ban would not apply.”

From Detroit, the nearest tribal casinos are in Mt. Pleasant and Standish. My state of Michigan map shows Detroit to Mt. Pleasant as a 147-mile trip; Standish is 132 miles away. With traffic and construction, that has to be a 2.5 to 3 hour drive, right?

So, in order to roll the dice or play the slots with cigarette in hand, huge numbers of people will embark on a 4-6 hour round-trip?  Really?

Broadening the boulevard

Returning from a holiday trip Monday (don’t fret, it was an in-state journey, enjoyable as usual), I noticed another house had vanished off of MLK Boulevard in central Lansing. This reminded me of two points county Treasurer Eric Schertzing made to me recently:

First, demolitions can be good for property values -- a notion I’ve agreed with for some time.

Blog returns May 26

I will be on a company-ordered furlough until the morning of May 26.

About the short-handed State Police

Just think, if Michigan lawmakers hadn’t imposed budget cuts, an entire new class of State Police troopers could be out next week protecting us by writing seat-belt tickets.

Yes, it’s that time of year again ... time for warmer weather and seat-belt enforcement campaigns financed by D.C. bureaucrats. MSP is one of “300 law-enforcement agencies” giving special attention to seat belts May 18-31.

BWL: Out with old fridge, in with new money

The Board of Water and Light has a new program to advance energy efficiency. The utility is being quite clever in highlighting a key point: There’s money in it for you.

Under its Hometown Energy Savers plan, BWL customers who have old, but operating, refrigerators and freezers can get them hauled away for free — and receive a $25 check to boot.

Take a new gamble on prisons

If the law enforcement crowd is right about Michigan’s corrections system, the state is in big trouble. So big, in fact, it may have to gamble wildly on a solution.

First the bad news, prosecutors and a judge testifying before a House committee warned that Michigan’s crime problems are major and that any major reductions in incarceration of prisoners will only make matters worse, the Gongwer News Service reported (sorry, no link, it’s a subscription service).