LSJ Blogs: Derek Melot is Just Asking

Sonic just wants its share

Fourth Ward Councilwoman Jessica Yorko doesn’t know anything about Sonic Drive-Ins, or so City Pulse reports from a council committee meeting recently.

As one of Yorko’s constituents, I’d be happy to tell her about my personal admiration for Sonic over the years — the fried pickles, the chicken-fried steak sandwiches, the foot-long cheese coneys and cheesy tater tots and the ice-cold Coke with enough carbonation to burn your throat.

Even as a Sonic fan, I can understand, though, why Yorko or other council members might balk at the idea of a tax break for its developer. After all, it’s just a drive-in/thru.

What you are seeing though, with the Lansing Economic Development Corp.’s proposal, is the logical bottom of the city’s slippery slope. Once you decide that businesses can’t or won’t operate in your town without tax help or other public aid, how do you argue against aid to any business that knocks on your door?

For some fun, let’s spin this the other way.

The Sonic site is on South Pennsylvania Avenue in south Lansing. Plenty of residents and businesses on the south side, rightly or wrongly, think they get short shrift from City Hall. All the attention, money and effort go to downtown or Old Town or Michigan Avenue or anywhere that’s not south.

Through the Lansing EDC, the city has given plenty of aid to eateries downtown, yet when a southside project comes up, the answer is no? What gives? Will Troppo provide more jobs than a Sonic? I don’t know. So, what would be the distinction used for denial of this tax break?

I appreciate the council asking questions here, but the city of Lansing nailed its colors to the masts of government help for businesses -- small, medium, large -- a long time ago.

Rasmussen polls governor's race

I’ve seen chatter on the Web about Rasmussen being a polling outfit whose work tends to favor Republicans. I don’t know, but if its method of using robo-calls to query voters is more reliable than traditional methods or if said method actually yields a greater GOP result, I’d be a bit concerned if I were in charge of a Republican gubernatorial campaign.

A Feb. 9 Rasmussen poll checked 12 different general election match-ups and the GOP led in 11. So, what’s the problem?

In none of the match-ups did the GOP candidate exceed 50 percent support.

Another break for Bernero

Wow, another huge break for Virg Bernero in his bid to be the Democrats' man for governor: Former state treasurer Bob Bowman says he will not be running. Bowman is the second potential candidate with deep pockets to back away from the Democratic primary in barely a week.

So, Michigan Democrats have two candidates in the race -- Bernero and Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith -- and a whole lotta speculation. House Speaker Andy Dillon may still get in, but he's exceedingly vulnerable to the "Democrat in name only" attack after making enemies with practically every traditional Democratic constituency.

Maybe Bernero is proving the old adage, "It's better to be lucky than good."

Bernero's 527 won't be factor

With Virg Bernero gearing up his gubernatorial campaign, I got to thinking of an old topic: His federal 527 fund, the City Administrative Account.

LSJ readers may recall that Bernero has used this fund to raise more than 200,000 since 2005, which he has used on a variety of supposedly city-related expenses such as meals and travel.

Bernero’s latest 527 report, which covers the last six months of 2009 is routine stuff. He did return the $2,500 check from BWL that was never supposed to be in that account. And he did get another $5,000 donation from Blue Cross Blue Shield.

For the period, he raised $15,500 and spent almost $10,000. I got wondering what role, if any, the 527 could play in his gubernatorial bid.

Pretty much none, judging by what Rich Robinson of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network tells me.

By e-mail, Robinson informed me “He can’t move money from the City Administrative Account to his gubernatorial committee. Nor can he use it for gubernatorial campaign activity — e.g., gas to get to a campaign event. He might be able to use it for ‘independent expenditures,’ although he’d have to make some kind of display of letting go control of it.”

So, if the folks at Blue Cross or Tetra Tech -- two sources of large donations to Bernero’s account -- want Bernero to be governor, they’ll be better off spending money on their own as a “third party” to tout the mayor’s prospects.

Bernero gets big break

Busy times on the political front. Denise Ilitch announced today she will not seek the Democratic nomination for governor this year.

That’s a huge break for Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero since Ilitch had more name identification and a much more visible path to the piles of money needed to run.

Should the Democratic primary come down to, say, Bernero vs. House Speaker Andy Dillon, Bernero would have to be the favorite. Dillon has worked hard to anger several groups whose members tend to vote heavily in Democratic primaries. Bernero could have a field day with “Democrat In Name Only” swings against Dillon.

How far will cable attention go?

Virg Bernero’s campaign sent out an e-mail alert (headlined “Bernero’s National Attention”) Tuesday to notify people he would be appearing on an MSNBC news show Tuesday night. Now, in political circles, so-called “free” media usually is a great thing.

But I have to wonder if Bernero & Co. are getting too caught up in this cable news notoriety.

Consider, “The Ed Show,” where Bernero was to be a guest, drew 529,000 viewers on Monday night. That’s nationwide. How many of them were in Michigan? How many of those folks were unfamiliar with Bernero and therefore a prime campaign target?

For a little comparison, the weakest broadcast network entertainment shows on Monday night were drawing 2 million to 4 million viewers. (All numbers are from this Web site.)

Bernero has a huge name ID challenge. A January poll had his name ID at 11 percent. And among those, his favorable/unfavorable rating was 7 percent to 4 percent. That’s not so great.

So, how do you become known to the other 89 percent of the state? I suppose appearances on “The Ed Show” might help some, but, in the end, free media on cable news programs won’t carry the day for Lansing’s mayor.

The traditional way to gin up name ID is to buy lots of ads in all sorts of media. That requires piles and piles of money.

I haven’t heard one whisper about a fundraising total for Bernero yet. It better be big.

Help for Troppo -- worth it?

I found my way into the new Troppo site last Friday. It is an impressive space. (The food was good, too.)

Friends who had visited earlier offered one complaint: It’s cold in there.

And while the restaurant has made at least one modification, I am still surprised the building does not have double doors to minimize the flow of cold air into the eatery. The curtains hung to block off the bar area and restaurant from the lobby probably help, but the single-door set-up still strikes me as odd.

Is there an architectural or engineering reason I’m missing?

Now for the really burning issue: Would Lansing have this new asset had it not been for the type of economic development policies -- read special deals -- the city and state pursue with such abandon?

Troppo received a $440,000 loan from the Lansing Economic Development Corp. to buy equipment. Troppo is still paying off a $224,000 loan given it for its previous location downtown. It started life in East Lansing in 2004.

Now, I am of the mind that the opportunities for a high-end restaurant in downtown Lansing would have been such that someone would have taken the plunge on their own, regardless of EDC’s loans. I’m sure LEDC’s Bob Trezise would politely, but emphatically, disagree.

Maybe LEDC can write them a second note to pay for another set of entry doors.

Bernero's bid has trial run feel to it

So, Lansing’s mayor will spend his time trying to become Michigan’s governor. All pressing policy issues aside, I find it hard to see this as more than a trial run for a more serious bid in 2014 or later.

Virg Bernero’s name ID statewide is low. He’s never raised money for a statewide campaign before. He will need a couple of million, just for the primary. And he potentially faces people with either personal wealth (Bob Bowman) or wealth and better name ID (Denise Illitch).

And, let’s not forget the fact that the winner of the Democratic nomination will be the underdog come fall.

Maybe Bernero can get to the fall. But if you are trying to learn how to run a statewide campaign, the only real way to do so is by actually running one. Bernero really loses nothing by making a bid this year — especially if his exit is early.

I can see him spending a couple of months on the trail  learning what works and what doesn’t and, if trends aren’t going his way, withdrawing before the official filing deadline on May 11.

Links land

This guy offers an exact date on when the economy will be truly back on its feet. He has caveats, though.

We all know that corporations are people now, but did you know that property -- like cold, hard cash -- can commit crimes?

This ruling is bad news to me, but I’m a FOIA absolutist. If the people are the boss, then every document that any government ever creates is a public document.

Good news: The ACLU is going to look at Lansing’s little experiment with police video surveillance cameras.

Another thoughtful take from Aaron Renn about urban issues. Mid-century design rules!

CSO rears its ugly head on West Side

If you live on Lansing’s west side or commute into Lansing from the west, you may want to consider a long summer vacation.

The wonderful world of CSO work will visit Saginaw Street in 2010 in a couple of big ways:

“CSO Construction is coming to Saginaw Street in 2010, including the following lane closures:

“March - November: Saginaw reduced to one-lane between Westmoreland and Chestnut (expect lane reductions to begin further west of Westmoreland)

“July - August: MLK Jr. Boulevard temporarily closed at Saginaw for approximately six to eight weeks. ...

“Traffic will be detoured from Saginaw to Jenison, Shiawassee and Walnut. ...”

The MLK-Saginaw intersection gone for 8 weeks, which, in government parlance, will mean 10 to 12 weeks. Looking at an MDOT traffic map, I would guess at least 30,000 vehicles are traveling through that intersection regularly. (That’s an estimate based on nearby traffic totals, so if someone has a better number, please share it.)

It will be a fun summer.