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October 2006 Postings

10-31-2006-1

I am just posting this in regards to the job Iron Mountain city council and John Marquart have been doing. I really want to thank them for the job well done. This is the first time in my lifetime that I have noticed dramatic changes in this town. I give them credit for having the balls to do what they have done as so many past mayors and managers have failed. This town is changing for the better not for worse. In regards to the landlord issues, wouldn't you suspect that if they are so afraid of having it inspected they have something to hide? Embrace what the city is doing because it is going in the right direction for once. I mean just look at the new things going on in the city and tell me if you can honestly say they are doing a bad job.

10-30-2006-02

TIFA has done many good things for the city. It is now at a place where it is causing serious problems in many other areas affected by the capture of so much tax money. If they refuse to abolish it, they should cut the size of the district by half, at the very least. There is no justification to continue at the present rate while everyone else is hurting because of it.
 
The financial problems being faced by all local units should not be blamed on the TIFA board. It is their responsibility to spend the money on beneficial things, and that is what they do. It is ultimately the decision of the City Council that is keeping TIFA the way it is, hurting all other local units and even our own public services citywide. I live in the city, but I live in the county, too. The current Iron Mountain city council is the most self-serving bunch to ever hold office.
 
Maybe someone on the TIFA board can answer a question: Since its inception, how much Iron Mountain TIFA money has gone into the coffers of Bacco Construction? We have a council member who is directly benefiting from that, as someone said earlier in this forum. Is it actually millions of dollars, as the other writer said? He should be set for life.

10-30-2006-01

On the comment from 10-29-2006 on TIFA
 
That was very informative. You don’t notice how many things in the city are disintegrating until they are put together like that. The TIFA link on this site talks about how two thirds or so of the TIFA capture would go to the county and other units if it was abolished. On the county level, there are many beneficial areas suffering from the TIFA capture. The library system, senior citizen’s program, and the health department are just a few who have suffered from TIFA capturing money that should have gone into these very useful and beneficial programs. We nearly lost our health department because of this.
 
It is selfish to defend TIFA by saying the city would get only a third of the captured funds. Those other units need that money, too, and the only alternative may be for the county to raise taxes. That is not supposed to happen as a result of TIFA fund capture. Just like what happened in Iron Mountain because of the pension money that was being taken by TIFA. I was flabbergasted that the city council would defend their "right" to take money we were being told was a special assessment for a specific use, and then not put it where it was specifically collected for.

10-29-2006-3

This is another take on the TIFA issue, and I hope you will print it as an opposing viewpoint.  Fair & balanced? I am greatly concerned about the last paragraph in the TIFA information on this website. It does not tell the whole story about TIFA programs and how they hurt towns when they get too big. In fact, When Mr. Corombos was the mayor at the start of TIFA, he assured the citizens that TIFA would never get big enough to hurt other areas like the general fund, and even said that, if it did get too big, it could be cut back or abolished at any time. He also said that any unit that felt it was being hurt by the funds TIFA captures could ask for the funds back at any time. What he did not say was that the TIFA board could deny the request. I have two newspaper articles from 1985 that quote Mayor Corombos on these issues.
 
TIFA has grown so big that it now captures more money than the City puts in the general fund every year. This has hurt the City very deeply, as far as services go. Here is an excerpt from the TIFA Act:
 
125.1818, Section 18. (1) (h): Whether public services, such as fire and police protection and utilities, are or will be adequate to service the development area.
 
Our public services have been seriously degraded, greatly because of the money TIFA captures. The level of service has been drastically lowered while the value of protected property has gone through the roof. If the police and fire were "adequate" at the beginning of the TIFA program, what are they now?
 
1. The amount of property value the fire department is protecting has skyrocketed, and the fire department has been hamstrung for "financial reasons." We now have fewer people protecting more value, with grossly inadequate numbers.
 
2. Same for police protection - police are now sometimes tied up on fire calls when they are needed for police matters.
 
3. We can’t afford to keep the cemetery properly maintained.
 
4. There are not enough staff in Public Works to keep up with everything they need to be doing.
 
5. We have farmed out the garbage pickup to a private company and no longer have control of how that should be done. That private company has close ties with a TIFA board member, too, and I find that bordering on unethical.
 
6. The police & fire pension system was underfunded, and that millage was being raided by TIFA. Hats off to the TIFA board for addressing at least one of these issues.
 
I say that public services are no longer adequate, and that TIFA is the direct cause. Every person in the city suffers from the loss of public services while the TIFA district sucks it up. What good are these improvements to someone on the east, west, or north side when they have a house fire? The number one priority of a City is to provide essential services, and that it now not the case in Iron Mountain, because of TIFA.

10-29-2006-02

It sure is a good thing our City manager writes those long and informational newspaper articles from time to time. I was very impressed by all of the things listed as accomplished in the article from Saturday’s paper. He even addressed the "patently false assumptions" and "irrational attitudes" about the Cool Cities program. Everything is hunky-dory in Iron Mountain, because we had a "conversation" with Mr. Marquart. I am confused on the Cool Cities thing, though, and even offended.
 
What "patently false assumptions" is he talking about? Is it the "self-identified gay presence" that is written into the Cool Cities program? Is he saying the Cool Cities own website is lying? Or, is it the other way? Is there someone out there spreading a rumor that there is NO gay initiative in the Cool Cities program? Is that who his comments are directed at? Which is it?
 
And, who has an "irrational attitude"? What was that supposed to mean? Was that directed at all those who have a religion-based moral belief about the gay issue, or was it directed at those who have no religious or moral beliefs? I tend to believe the former. I am greatly offended those comments were belittling me for my religious, moral, and ethical beliefs. The Constitution guarantees me the freedom to believe what I want, worship how I want, and say what I want. A government official should not call my beliefs an irrational attitude. Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?

10-29-2006-01

For those readers that have questions about the Iron Mountain TIFA Agency please click here TIFA

10-26-2006-01

I think that we should all be sending Mr. Marquart and his illustrious city council thank you notes, for their wisdom and insight in their decision to reduce the staff of the fire department.  Saving all this money, according to the aforementioned,  would mean that the taxpayers of this fair city would not be burdened with higher taxes and larger water bills..........etc......etc.....etc......How lucky can we be to have such considerate officials?   Excuse me for a moment.......I think that my tongue is stuck in my cheek. And given it's sharpness, this could be quite painful.   I will get back to you as soon as it's dislodged!  In the meantime, I will be busy trying to decide what to do with all this extra money that I'm saving.

Carol Wicklund

10-26-2006-02

Can this website get and post the City monthly Payroll and Vendor Reports for the past year or so.  As citizens, we can then see where the money goes each month.
The city, if it had nothing to hide, would be glad to put it on its own website.  It's public information, so they can't deny anyone who asks for it through the Freedom of Information Act.
The city council never questions anything on these reports.  Then again, I am not convinced all of them can read above the fourth grade level. We need to get this information and post it here.
I'll have some questions for them - guaranteed.

10-26-2006-01

Answer to earliest post:  The landlords are waiting for the city to make the first move, i.e., try to enforce their revised and still seriously flawed ordinance.  Then comes the counter-attack.

10-24-2006-01

Hello.  Very informative site.  I noticed this site is linked in a comment on a similar website up in the Keweenaw area. 

 
I am writing to see if someone out there knows if there is anything going on with the landlords and the rental ordinance.  Last I heard, there was a lawsuit brought by the landlords.  That seems like months ago.  Is there anything new to report?  Are attorneys still involved?

10-18-2006-01

I was just fuming and a friend told me about this site.  You guys are just what I'm looking for.  Too bad about the vulgar-language ban -- but a rant, if I may?

I could just kick myself for swallowing hook, line and sinker all that bull**** this time last year from Marquart and Tousignant and Rigoni and VanLaanen and those other city hall boobs and nitwits who swore up and down so piously with the straightest most earnest faces over and over and over again that we should gut the fire department and in the great tradition of half measures make off-duty cops fight fires from the trunks of their cars -- any of you seen these guys respond to a fire? -- and that we'd all be safer and our insurance ratings and premiums wouldn't go up or be affected and it would be less expensive for the city (and each of us in it) and misled us that firefighters and experts universally knew, were in consensus, that this was the best route to follow ...

What a bunch of ****.  Ever since they won that vote last year, nothing but legal and safety consequences and expenses and impending insurance downgrades and evidence to the contrary of what they promised has emerged.  I mean, this program they finagled us into doesn't have a single redeeming quality!  It's junk in spite of their assurances and denials even today -- spinning it positive don't make it so, folks.  Didn't they ever learn that if something ain't broke they shouldn't fix it?  Fine-tuning is one thing, but to dismantle and destroy?  Do these bozos honestly believe that we were all born yesterday, somewhere out in the woods?  Brother!  They either didn't know what on earth they were talking about last year or they were lying through their teeth to us to satisfy some agenda the rest of us knew nothing about.  Either case is awfully damning to my way of thinking.  And as public "safety" sinks in the wake of their giddy P.R. blitz, they blithely move on to their cutesy, pipe-dream, out-of-touch, delusional, boosteristic, and politically correct but practically, financially and morally ridiculous Cool Cities and Main Street silliness to benefit -- whom? -- maybe six people in old downtown Iron Mountain, maybe, before they realize what the rest of the community has accepted in practice for years, that the viable downtown and Main Street for the entire area now stretches a few hundred yards either side of and across the highway from Wal*Mart, and that the community's other successful business districts have adapted and survived because they don't pretend to be something they aren't, something they no longer are.  I guess there's always a bunch around town who are gonna play the angles and make their grab at everyone else's expense, but how stupid are the rest of us not to see or stop it?

What set me off?  I'm in Ann Arbor on the web and barreling through piles of library hardcopy trades, researching Iron Mountain for a couple business clients back home, when what do I run across but a tip and a trail that leads to an article using Iron Mountain and what's happened there the past year as an international example of exactly what not to do with fire and police departments.  Great.  Just what we need.  Notoriety.  And that kind.  That'll bring the big business bucks to town.  That'll pump up economic development.  No wonder that tech consortium and Parros Metals and Bechtel could never evoke a response or get past John Marquart's secretive and selective bottleneck office and ended up fleeing for rational environs -- and counting themselves fortunate!  Turns out that the city's fire department, if not shouting from the rooftops and waving the news from the battlements, has a copy of the article at its IMFD.org website, from International Fire Fighter magazine: http://www.imfd.org/folly.html.  I wish I could go back and change my vote.  You can't imagine!  I want my cops to be professional cops and my firemen to be professional firemen and my properties safe and my insurance premiums low and unthreatened, thank you very much.

It's always someplace else.  You never think this kind of garbage is gonna happen in your own town.  It feels like the town's being looted and we're all just bumbling around awkwardly, wondering what to do and not wanting to confront the barbarians at the gates or hurt anyone's feelings.  Kind of horrible when it dawns on you what's happening, isn't it?  Just out of curiosity, is anyone else seeing any of this malarkey as it unfolds month in and month out around town, and is anyone doing anything about it?  I mean beyond arenas like this web forum?  (Which is invaluable, by the way.  Great job if a bit stark and primitive.  The stuff you have on here!  If you could just get it properly organized and presented!  Talk about damning!  The documentation -- it's just one thing after another.)  Is anyone going after this Marquart character and his growing platoon of expensive and redundant bureaucratic staff deputies, and is anyone going after those council members he manipulates to keep himself in power and his will done?

10-17-2006-01

Dear Iron Mountain Issues Association,

The following letter from Jim Hogan to the Daily News was in the paper last night.  You people should post this letter too, in your "Train Noise" section or in the "Public Forum" -- or both! 

Like most other readers I spoke with last night, I find the letter interesting because it's an example of what's going on in town that increasingly makes me wonder why we're annually paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries and expenses to an ever-growing city-management staff that noisily goes after the high-profile and trendy circus-and-hoopla "programs" -- stuff of traditionally dubious effectiveness and value at best -- while average and poorly equipped citizens themselves -- regular stiffs like most of us -- are actually spending their time, effort, money, and sanity to tackle the stuff around town that has any real-life, day-to-day, nuts-and-bolts meaning to them, any meaning to their standard of living, and any meaning to their quality of life.  You know?  The boring, routine stuff that really matters to each of us on a daily basis -- and that city management is supposed to be taking care of, is getting paid handsomely to take care of, and is not taking care of.

I'm not saying that people along and near the tracks shouldn't do what Hogan suggests.  But they shouldn't have to.  Their city council and city management should have taken care of this over a year ago.  The mayor, members of the council, and the city manager are constantly talking about responsibility and accountability.  So okay, Mr. Tousignant, Mr. Marquart, the rest of you -- pony up.  Let's get some basic, relevant things accomplished that really matter on a real-life regular basis to 95% or more of the people who live in this town and expect you to represent them effectively.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

EDITOR, On behalf of my family, neighbors, friends, overnight guests, and other visitors, I’m using this opportunity to publicly recognize Gary Siminson and Canadian National Railway (CN), as well as Mark Pontti and Verso Paper for their help, for voluntarily quieting CN’s train-horn usage in and around the neighborhoods on the east-west tracks in and out of Iron Mountain.

Still within the bounds of safety and the law, they’ve done a terrific job coming up with a sane and common sense alternative to indiscriminate horn usage at city crossings, and now resort to horn-blowing only during the day and only when it’s a must, which has been very rarely in recent weeks.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that this new quietness is a definite and sizeable uptick in our neighborhood’s standard of living and quality of life.

We appreciate the sensitivity, sensibility, and consideration of these individuals and their companies. This is a example of how businesses can effectively create goodwill, good feeling, and harmony within a community.

I applaud them.

Simply by doing the right thing, it’s great public relations for them; for us, it’s sanity, safety, reduced tension, sleep, the ability to hear other sound, better health, and all of the far-reaching things that those items affect and improve.

Because the city government has been alternately unresponsive and ineffective dealing with this issue since we first approached the city manager, mayor, and then-council October 15, 2004, and since the horns first started blowing June 25, 2005, I encourage the citizens of Iron Mountain who live along or near the city’s north-south tracks to contact and actively pursue a similar arrangement, if possible, with the Escanaba & Lake Superior Railroad Company (E&LS) and the companies with which it does business.

It may be the way, in at least this one instance, to start to again raise the standard of living and again improve the quality of life along the length of track in your neighborhood.

The place to start is E&LSRR General Office, One Larkin Plaza, PO Box 217, Wells, MI 49894. Phone: 906-786-0693. Fax: 906-786-8012. E-mail: elswells@up.net. Marketing/Customer Service: 920-435-8006, tomklimek@gbonline.com.

Let them know what you think and how you feel, then ask if there’s anything the rail company and its customers themselves can do to ease the problem, at least until Iron Mountain’s city management and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) can get on the same page and re-establish the city’s longstanding quiet zone.

Jim Hogan
Iron Mountain

From The Daily News, October 16, 2006.

10-15-2006-01

Hi.  I was reading some of the older comments.  There are some about the city assessor not counting parcels right.  So, I looked at the document that was referred to, under the assessor link.  Am I the only one who noticed that the document was a request for a price from another appraisal firm?  The numbers Brook gave would cause a prospective bidder to overbid by 25% or more.  I think this could be much worse than calling it an addition error.  Lucky for him, no one else submitted a bid, 'eh?  I'm surprised no one had commented on it before now.

10-11-2006-01

Now we know what "Iron Mountain Is Poised" for.
 
Cool Cities. Quite a revelation in the 10-09-2006-01 posting. Why did the Mayor & city manager obsessively, yes, obsessively pursue this grant for two and a half years? Why was the public kept completely in the dark about the homosexual agenda that is clearly obvious in the cool cities website? I am not happy that my tax money was spent on trips to Lansing for this while I was being deceived by deliberate omission of controversial information.  Deceit, plain and simple.  What happened to open & honest government?
 
Let me see if I have this straight. Iron Mountain gets $300,000.00 worth of in-kind services. The city uses that to dictate to businesses what they should be doing to improve their buildings. This has already cost us tax payers big bucks, in that the city has hired a director of planning & community development to do part of the city manager’s job. What happens if the businesses tell the city to mind its own business? What good are the in-kind services in that case? Or the new yes-man position? On top of all this, I am supposed to believe that: "cities with the largest foreign born and gay communities are the most desirable for young families . . ." Yes, that is a direct quote from the cool cities website. This beats all.
 
I would welcome a response from any government official on this subject.  Were any of you deceived, too?  What about the DDA people involved? 

10-10-2006-01

With the 2006 election approaching, the local branch of the American Association of University Women is sponsoring a candidates' forum on October 19 at the Premiere Center.  Local attorney Julie LaCost will moderate.  For details, visit the AAUW's online billboard.  Spread the word.  Hope to see all of you there.

10-9-2006-01

Subject:  Homosexuality and the Cool Cities Initiative

For my whole life I have been too complacent politically about my rights and freedoms as an American citizen, despite the service I have given to my country here and abroad.  I have grown lazy and probably more than a bit cowardly.  I tend to take my life as an American living in the U.P. for granted and just let the leaders lead.  But I am not a fascist or a hate-mongerer or a homophobe.  I am not some fat yooper redneck.  Individual persons are what they are.  I believe that, within the bounds of human responsibility, we should live and let live.  I am a generally conservative fellow, but college-educated, open-minded, flexible, pragmatic, and progressive.  Politically, since 1972 I have voted Democratic about as much as I have voted Republican.  I'm a reasonable, religious, moral family man, not some right-wing religious fanatic, I try to avoid self-righteousness and be nonjudgmental, and I believe in responsible human values and the freedom of a person to believe as he or she believes.

But I do not know if I want my mayor and city manager traipsing all over the place for two years at the city taxpayer's expense, trying to convince the state's powers-that-be that Iron Mountain is gay enough to qualify for a type of grant that has had historically limited value in urban renewal downtown programs of every type over the last 40 years.  That's right.  As discriminatory as it may seem, Iron Mountain had to have, among other head-scratching standards of diversity, a gay quotient to qualify.

In all the self-congratulatory circus hoopla, mugging for the camera, and attempts to ignore how skeptical we should be of something that government bureaucrats, of all people, call "cool," why did Mayor Tousignant and City Manager Marquart never inform us that Iron Mountain had to meet a particular type of homosexual standard of diversity to qualify for this grant?  A measurement of "self-identified gays per capita" that the Cool Cities people claim "shows that cities with the largest foreign born and gay communities are the most desirable for young families." 

"Cities with the largest foreign born and gay communities are the most desirable for young families"?

Go to the Cool Cities website and see for yourself.  Go to the "T.I.D.E." link and then to the "Diversity" section.  Also read the "FAQs" that apply to this subject matter.  The writers never cite the research they refer to. 

I suppose what may be bothering me the most is that the mayor, city manager, and other city officials never mentioned this stuff over the months and years.  I feel that they have been unnecessarily sly and shifty, slipping something by me and all the other common and complacent Iron Mountain citizens like me.  As if they clearly did not want us to know.  And that maybe they have been doing it with issue after issue, as some in town reasonably claim, for over two years now. 

Actually, I'm ticked off.  And I am very disappointed in the mayor and city manager, as well as the other city officials and the local press, because none of them displayed clearly and openly to all of us citizens over two years the entirety of this Cool Cities Initiative and everything that it involved.  And for that reason, I am not going to be complacent anymore.  And I intend to see that other citizens I know are not complacent either.

10-8-2006-03

After reading all the comments about civil service and anonymity, I want point something out.  Mr. Revord used the word "retribution" in his comments.  I don't think that is the proper word in the context it was used, because retribution implies a "deserved" punishment.  A better word would have been retaliation. 
 
Has there been retaliation?  What else would you call these examples?
 
1.  A former councilman repeatedly questioned city officials at council meetings.  As I understand it, a vacant building he owned was broken into at the direction of the manager. 
2.  A former(?) planning board member disagreed with our council and manager.  According to the old IronMountainMichigan.org website, he was confronted at his home the very next day. 
3.  A firefighter voiced his opinion at a Kingsford City Council meeting, where he lived.  He was suspended by the manager - suspension found to be baseless by the civil service commission. 
4.  The chairman of the TIFA board disagreed with the council about pension money.  The response was a public attack on his character by city officials.
 
Any more examples out there?  I'm sure there are, but, people would probably like to remain anonymous in citing them.

10-8-2006-02

Hello:  I would like to remind everyone that this site was created to provide to the citizens a central point of information.  Citizens of Iron Mountain can come to this site and read about issues that we are facing.  Hopefully there are 2 sides to the issue that I can post.  Most of the time only one point of view is submitted.  I am receiving emails that accuse me of only posting one side of an issue.  To be totally honest I have never received the other view point.  If you have information and would like to share your thoughts about an issue please email me and I will post it.

I will not post every email that I get.  I have gotten some emails that make personal attacks on individuals and not comments about a problem.  This site and this forum will not host or publish personal issues that someone may have with someone else.  Issues that we face as a community are posted.  As you read the posting below please find that the person is attacking me.  Why?  I am not picking and choosing posting to fit my personal agenda. I have no personal agenda.  But what I do see is that we as a community are facing some huge problems:  Property Taxes, Business Taxes, Landlords being Taxed, our roads turning to gravel, a lack of athletic fields for our children to play on, and a lack of industry to attract families to live in our community.  Individuals on the Iron Mountain City Council, Kingsford City Council, The township Board all have personal agendas.  "The needs of the many out way the needs of the few or the one"  They better start thinking of the overall problems and work together as a team and quit this "lone ranger" attitude if we as a community are going to grow and set the example for our children.  This is why I maintain this site.  I am not compensated for the time I spend here. There I am done. If you send me information about an issue I will be glad to post it.  Thanks

10-8-2006-01

Well once again, nice job pick and choose only those e-mails that suit your own slanted needs. Do the city a favor and print all the e-mails you get. I mean really, the city manager is not a food guide. That's all you have to bitch about?  Petty petty petty. Why not start taking on real matters. Like we are now where we are cause of lousy city managers who were civil engineers and not managers or police officers who campaign for office when they should be working. This city is screwed up cause of people like you who feel the need to destroy rather then create.

10-6-2006-03

On the 10-06-2006 comment from the out-of-towner:
On behalf of Iron Mountain, sorry.  We thought the mayor displayed his indifference to the common folk to Iron Mountain residents, only . . . and Breitung . . . and Kingsford.  We're not all like that in Iron Mountain.  In fact, a lot of us common rubes are quite embarrassed by the current city government, and more than a little peeved at their arrogant disdain for any but their own special interests.  I'm sorry to hear that your contact with our mayor has left you feeling tainted.   Please do consider a vacation here in the future.  It truly is a great little city.  If you do find a world-class restaurant or hotel here, please let the rest of us know where they are. 

10-6-2006-02

A friend recently linked me to your site. If it’s permitted, I would like to briefly share an experience I had with your city (or, at least, its Mayor). 
 
We planned an extended vacation to do some biking and site-seeing in northern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan during the summer. In May, we sought out areas to stay and contacted those cities/towns.
In his Welcome, on the official Iron Mountain website, the mayor states that your city has “world class restaurants and lounges”; so, I sent him an e-mail asking him to direct us to some of these establishments, saving us the trial and error process once we arrived in town. (Other towns have happily answered such inquiries.)
He responded by sending me the name and phone number for the Dickinson County Area Partnership.
I once again emailed him with my frustration about his lack of response, and asked if he could link me to another website instead of leaving me with just a long-distance phone number. He never responded back.
So, not only was he not willing to back up his statement in his Welcome letter, but he pawned me off on someone else. I wasn’t about to start making long distance calls to get information; and if your mayor isn’t even willing to assist, why come at all. Needless to say, we (and the other 4 couples in our group) took our 6 motel nights and other spending to Escanaba instead.
I’ve saved the e-mails I sent and his single response. I wonder how the merchants in Iron Mountain feel about your Mayor’s lack of interest in bringing in visitors.

10-6-2006-01

Speaking of Iron Mountain as a Cool City; I’d like to add a comment or two. In the Thursday, October 05th article in the Daily News: “Cool City project off to good start”, Mr. Kalogeresis comments that “there is no pedestrian traffic which gives the impression that there is nothing going on in the downtown area. The question is how to make the downtown area more pedestrian friendly.”
 
I want to know how pedestrians are supposed to motivate downtown. If a person is pushing a stroller or wheelchair, or trying to walk with children in tow it’s not easy getting around downtown. Between café and farmer’s markets signs blocking corner ramps, signs for clothing stores or roses placed in the middle of the sidewalks, planters and trash containers on ‘A’ street by City Hall, and seating extending into the sidewalk in front of the café on that same side of the street, how are we supposed to get around?
 
I’m so tired of the hype to revitalize downtown. I’ve tried getting interested in downtown, but don’t see the merchants being interested in getting me there. In the Winter, the sidewalks are barely kept open or ice-free; in the Spring, sidewalks are not swept of the debris and sand from the winter, the expensive brick that was put into the roads is sinking and un-maintained; and you see very few store-fronts that are truly inviting and say “come on in and see what we have”.
 
There’s just not much left to bring me downtown anymore… even if I could motivate around.

10-5-2006-01

Is Iron Mountain a Cool City?  How cool is it that they leave us with roads riddled with potholes, un-kept parks and cemetery, and less than adequate sidewalks; yet they have used our tax dollars to provide and maintain an elaborate parking lot for Systems Control.
How cool is it that they have used lack of funds as a reason to cut our fully-staffed fire department and are constantly trying to cut benefits to our retirees, yet they can afford to hire how many new staff people to replace recent retirees.
And now where is the money coming from to pay this new person they need to head this Cool City project?
There is no direct money coming to the city for these projects. only in-kind services.
How cool is it that they are paying Rich Brook more money in a month (for several months) than the average Michigan tax assessor makes in a year.  Other assessors don't get paid per parcel to assess their cities.  It is part of their job.  Where is this money coming from if the city is so strapped for money?
Also, there has been so much bragging about all of the grants that the city has acquired over the past year.
Aren't the majority of these matching-funds grants? Where is all of the money coming from to match these grants?
Are they expecting to pay for all of these new expenses thru increased taxes from the re-assessment currently taking place? Back in February, when asked how the director of community development would be funded, Mr. Marquart stated:
"If the city undertakes a plan to reassess all property over a two- to three-year period and re-evaluates personal property tax accounts, the extra revenue generated will more than assist in paying for the position,"
["IM mulls community development department"  Iron Mountain Daily News 2-7-06]
I'm not seeing a "Cool City" coming about. What I am seeing is a scam on the Iron Mountain tax payers. and that is just plain COLD!

10-3-2006-5

I think the creator and or the manager of this website should do the public a service and try to inform as many people as possible about this website by posting the link with a description of what it is and what it's intentions are. That way every person will have the option to respond to comments made on this website. It will go a long way to substantiate or discredit any information given in these articles. I'm sure many voting citizens in the community would like the chance to review as much information as they can gather to make an intelligent decision on the various dealings that are affecting their daily lives. Also all elected officials should be told of the website and perhaps they would share with the community their thoughts and opinions on the various subjects that have come up in this forum. And after receiving as much information from this forum as they can and if not satisfied with the answers provided to them they then should put their questions in writing and send them to the city manager and city council. Possibly another job for the administrator of this website would be to volunteer to become the spokesperson or liaison between the government officials and the people that have raised questions in this forum, it could become another segment on this site. I found out about this site through the grapevine is this the way that it is supposed to be?  

10-3-2006-4

I’m having trouble reading the figures in the 10-03-2006 posting on reassessment. There seems to be a sharp stick in my eye again. It’s been happening a lot, lately. I had no sooner removed the first one, after getting my first "Marquartized" water bill, when I was jabbed again by cuts in my fire protection. While working on that one, I was hit by another after reading about the International Property Maintenance Code. Then, there were repeated jabs with new yes-man positions popping up all over the place - so many that they had to create new departments to fit them all in. It’s one thing after another. Train horns.  Attorney fees.  Vehicle allowances.  A carousel?  Where’s our bike path?  Ouch!! Ouch!! Ouch!! My own tax money is paying for Marquart and Company to do this to me; that one hurts the worst.  Doc says there’s not much I can do about it. I tried blinders. They didn’t help. Tried washing it out, but used city water and got an infection.  What to do, what to do?

10-3-2006-3

Here is some figuring on the amount of money spent over the last three months for reassessment of the City.  From the June, July, and August vendor reports, here are the figures:
 
June - $7,922.22 in one payment to Rich Brook
 
July - $59,435 in five listed payments - 4 out of five not "in-house"
 
August - $67,170 in five listed payment - 4 out of five not "in-house"
 
Total - $134,527.22
 
At $50.00 a parcel, that should have covered 2,690.54 parcels, or over half of the entire number of parcels in the city.  An accurate reappraisal that would cost $50.00 a parcel should take 5 or 6 hours to complete.  2,690.54 parcels times 5 hours per parcel equals 13,452.7 hours of work.  What? 
If you add up 24 hours a day times 92 days for June, July, and August, that equals only 2,208 hours.  In other words, if the reassessor was working 24 hours every day, 7 days every week for the past 3 months, he spent eight tenths of one hour on each parcel.  If a forty hour week was adhered to, that leaves less than 15 minutes per parcel!! For an "accurate" appraisal!! 
I'd like someone from the city government to explain how this incredible amount of money could be doled out without any questions asked.  It's not even possible for the claimed amount of work to have been done in that time period.

10-3-2006-2

This is In answer to the inquiry on 9-29-2006-02, regarding whether the County Board ever got a written from TIFA that there would be no  capture of the one-mill college voted millage. 
Apparently an agreement existed between TIFA and the County that is now in effect.  This agreement will now prohibit any additional capture by TIFA of couty-wide voted millage I believe. I suppose you could check with TIFA or the County Equalization Department to make sure I've got it right, but I'm almost positive that is the case.

10-3-2006-1

The dialogue that Bill Revord, Jim Hogan and others started was excellent.  Overall, I think the hosts of this website have done a great job.  No
swearing, most comments are well written.  I have no idea, of course, if they have edited or thrown out some of them.
They acted responsibly in deleting the Civil Service results quickly, and correctly so, even though it is public information.  No point in
embarrassing anyone for no reason.
The information found in the various links is quite eye opening.  I would be very difficult and time consuming for any one of us to gather it  Even if we
did, how would we disseminate it?  This site is performing a very important function.  Spread the word to your friends, like I am doing.

10-1-2006-01

Ah, what a beautiful morning it was this Sunday.  The sun gently warming the earth, the leaves turning, deer grazing, and the pleasing babble of water bubbling up through the pavement on Kent Street.  Does it get any better than this?