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The Michigan Messenger going forward

By Staff Report | 11.16.11

I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]

Colorado-based abstinence program provided false and misleading information to Michigan students

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By Todd A. Heywood | 11.16.11

An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.

Class action lawsuit filed against MERS over unpaid taxes

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By Todd A. Heywood | 11.15.11

Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.

Schuette fights important mercury regulations

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By Eartha Jane Melzer | 11.14.11

Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.

Why big business community is hush-hush about Kilpatrick

By Minehaha Forman | 08.20.08 | 7:15 am

These days it seems like Detroit’s nationally infamous Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is losing all of his allies—except for one big, powerful group.Think about it. In the past couple weeks, after his trip to jail, three major sects of the local and state community disowned Kilpatrick: The Michigan Chronicle, Michigan’s leading black newspaper, front-paged an editorial telling him to get out, senior Congressman John Dingell publicly urged for his resignation, a group of prominent Detroit pastors said they want him out, and the majority of City Council members have wanted him gone for a while now.

But the business community’s lips are sealed. He’s not good for religion, culture, or politics, but he’s good for big business.

Have any corporate business fat cats said a word in public about getting rid of Kilpatrick? What does the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce think? They’re mum. They won’t want to say anything because under Kilpatrick, they are getting paid big money in contracts with the city and are not getting taxed.

If you drive around downtown and see all the signs for new lofts and new infrastructure, you’ll know what I mean. But the work doesn’t reach beyond the immediate downtown area. Also, a lot of these companies are not even based in the state, so that money’s leaving Michigan on the first flight out.

So what’s good for big business isn’t exactly good for Detroit. Small-business owners are struggling, and that’s a sign of the deteriorating middle class.

The bottom line is, if you’re a corporate business leader, why would you want to out Kilpatrick? It’s almost as if he were adhering to GOP values. Even Peter Karmanos, head of software giant Compuware, is willing to make him a deal.

Comments

  • ShakespearesIdiot

    I don't think it's necessarily Kilpatrick that Big-Business is mum about, but the city itself. As the largest city in Michigan, it seems to be in corporations' collective best interests to not ostracize themselves from Kilpatrick because its hard to measure what influence he'll have when he leaves. Like him or not, the city is undoubtedly made up of “his people”, who are best to not be angered, but rather, allied. And since Detroit's city government is technically non-partisan (officials run on non-partisan tickets), its difficult for Big-Business to ride party lines as in other venues. So I think they're just playing it safe. I'm not sure what you mean about the mayor having GOP values but I don't think that forming positive relationships with large companies is an inherently republican move, just smart one. Out of curiousity, why do you say that the money from developers leaves the state? Certainly, the workers live in or around Michigan (its unlikely they are shipping laborers in) and they have to pay taxes to conduct business in Michigan. Mostly all of Michigan's major retailers are “based” somewhere else, but they still create jobs and economy for Michiganders so the fact that companies are the developers are “based” somewhere else seems negligible.

  • ebrayton

    When I was researching a story last week about McCain's supporters, I came across the fact that Jim Nicholson, a lifelong Republican, had helped raise several hundred thousand dollars in 2006 to save Kwame's reelection campaign. I called a good friend of mine who is very well connected in Detroit politics and in the business community (he's a lobbyist for a powerful company in the Detroit area) and asked him why Nicholson would be supporting a Democratic mayor. His answer: there are no Republicans in Detroit. Republicans simply don't get elected in the city of Detroit, so if you want to do business with the city you have to deal with Democratic leaders. And, he said, for all his other faults Kwame has been very pro-business.

  • ebrayton

    When I was researching a story last week about McCain's supporters, I came across the fact that Jim Nicholson, a lifelong Republican, had helped raise several hundred thousand dollars in 2006 to save Kwame's reelection campaign. I called a good friend of mine who is very well connected in Detroit politics and in the business community (he's a lobbyist for a powerful company in the Detroit area) and asked him why Nicholson would be supporting a Democratic mayor. His answer: there are no Republicans in Detroit. Republicans simply don't get elected in the city of Detroit, so if you want to do business with the city you have to deal with Democratic leaders. And, he said, for all his other faults Kwame has been very pro-business.

  • Shakespeare'sIdiot

    I don't think it's necessarily Kilpatrick that Big-Business is mum about, but the city itself. As the largest city in Michigan, it seems to be in corporations' collective best interests to not ostracize themselves from Kilpatrick because its hard to measure what influence he'll have when he leaves. Like him or not, the city is undoubtedly made up of “his people”, who are best to not be angered, but rather, allied. And since Detroit's city government is technically non-partisan (officials run on non-partisan tickets), its difficult for Big-Business to ride party lines as in other venues. So I think they're just playing it safe. I'm not sure what you mean about the mayor having GOP values but I don't think that forming positive relationships with large companies is an inherently republican move, just smart one. Out of curiousity, why do you say that the money from developers leaves the state? Certainly, the workers live in or around Michigan (its unlikely they are shipping laborers in) and they have to pay taxes to conduct business in Michigan. Mostly all of Michigan's major retailers are “based” somewhere else, but they still create jobs and economy for Michiganders so the fact that companies are the developers are “based” somewhere else seems negligible.

  • ebrayton

    When I was researching a story last week about McCain's supporters, I came across the fact that Jim Nicholson, a lifelong Republican, had helped raise several hundred thousand dollars in 2006 to save Kwame's reelection campaign. I called a good friend of mine who is very well connected in Detroit politics and in the business community (he's a lobbyist for a powerful company in the Detroit area) and asked him why Nicholson would be supporting a Democratic mayor. His answer: there are no Republicans in Detroit. Republicans simply don't get elected in the city of Detroit, so if you want to do business with the city you have to deal with Democratic leaders. And, he said, for all his other faults Kwame has been very pro-business.

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