Sunday, January 17, 2010

WHERE WILL OUR $25 MILLION GO MR. MAYOR?

GOOD MORNING FLINT!
By Terry Bankert 1/17/2010

Within the last several days the Flint Mayor Walling Administration recieved a major infusion of Federal money.

Will 70-80% of the Blight in Flint be gone by 2013? http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2010/01/city_hall_prediction_saginaw_b.html

The process of how this 25 million is spent will be our best measure of this Walling Administration.

A Mayor is accountable for and gets positive or negative review for what happens on that Mayors term.

Mayor Walling gets the credit for winninging the 25 Million for Flint. Good Job.

The money is intended for specific purposes.

There will be Federal monitoring and deadlines.

How this money is allocated will demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the Walling Administration.
There are many other tests. He is doing a lot.

1.There are too many of us to be communicated with directly and its too hard run polls on every decision. I mean decisions like how the money is spent, where, and through what vendors or city departments. We elect a city council to stay on top of these issues.

I hope my city council person Weighill is fully engaged in monitoring for me how this money is spent. I assume many share this thought concerning their own councilperson.

2.I wonder how this $ infusion will fit in with the information from the community input meeting the Mayor conducted and a future Master Plan for the City.

3.Will part of this money be used to hire and get a master planner? Since there may be little time will the U of M study default to being treated like it is a master plan.

4.What will be the role of the landbank in this process? Does it hurt the process that we do not have a County Treasurer running the land bank board ? We need Lee Gonzales appointed to the County Treasurer position so the Land Bank can hit the ground running.

5. Will private sector Dan Kildee stay on that board until a new county treasurer is appointed? If yes is that a good thing?

6.Will these decisions be transparent when the landbank is involved.

7.Will this allocation of $25 Million dollars be a transparent process with the City of Flint?

8. If there are vendors will there be fair competative bidding?

There are a 100 other questions we could ask.

The Mayor and the Council can, will, and should be measured by how this 25 million dollars is spent.

The reader should get involved.

Ask questions.

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