12/31/2006

2006 brought some good, some bad, some very bad

If 2006 was the Year of Bush on the national scene (sorry, YouTube), in the Grand Traverse area it had to be the Year of Allen. Starting in January, state Sen. Jason Allen was in the middle of — and sometimes the focus of — a number of important news stories.

He was hardly alone; plenty of characters played key roles in last year's local news events, and some did star turns. Others didn't.

The stars:

• The National Cherry Festival got a shot in the arm when it hired Traverse City native Tom Menzel as executive director. He immediately launched a reorganization aimed at streamlining festival decison-making and took the festival's critical financial problems public.

• Circuit Court judges Philip Rodgers and Tom Power: In cases ranging from zoning wars in Acme to a polluting cherry processing plant they have consistently ruled in favor of citizen access and accountability.

• State Sen. Michelle McManus, R-Lake Leelanau, weighed in on campaign finance reform with a bill that would limit the use of so-called "corporate” and other accounts not open to public scrutiny.

• Traverse City Commissioner Deni Scrudato, the only commissioner to raise questions and concerns about the city's failed parking deck proposal. Scrudato showed an independent streak the commission sorely needs.

• Jim Carruthers, a local activist who organized the successful grass roots effort to defeat the parking deck bond proposal, rejected by more than 70 percent of city voters.

• The Northern Michigan Environmental Action Council for getting involved in efforts to force the Williamsburg Receiving Station to clean up its act. NMEAC joined some WRS neighbors who have been fighting the plant's foul emissions for years.

• Antrim County Prosecutor Charles Koop, who continues to take on tough issues in other jurisdictions as a special prosecutor.

• Michigan State Police trooper Kevin Hansz for helping a man pull his wife and her wheelchair from a burning van on I-75 in October.

The others:

• Record-Eagle reports that Sen. Jason Allen had stepped in to quash an alternative Traverse City parking deck proposal led to a series of stories that exposed not only Allen's involvement in the deck issue — apparently on behalf of Federated Properties, a downstate developer whose CEO contributed $20,000 to Allen's political accounts — but the senator's other behind-the-scenes fundraising efforts.

Allen, it turns out, had not only collected hundreds of thousands in campaign funds but had also created at least three so-called "corporate” accounts (the only northern Michigan lawmaker to do so). Those accounts are not open to public scrutiny and can accept contributions from firms that could not, by law, give to normal campaign accounts. The accounts included contributions from landfill, tobacco and casino interests, all of which had legislation percolating in state government at the time.

It was a disturbing lack of transparency at a time when voters were being rocked by news of outright bribery and lobbying excesses at the national level; it was made all the more disturbing by Allen's refusal to say who had given money to two of those accounts and how much they gave.

• The Emmet County Brownfield authority turned deaf, dumb and blind when it brushed off evidence that a brownfield application for the Petoskey Pointe project was based on bogus test data. The result: $4.5 million for the developers of a $60 million project.

Last week, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. finished an in-house review and declared everything hunky-dory. That's reassuring.

• After state trooper David Meder rolled his car, hit a utility pole and fled (leaving behind two loaded handguns, his badge and uniform), reportedly after a night of drinking, he got hit with a couple misdemeanors and was transferred to South Haven, another Lake Michigan resort town.

Meder wasn't the only player in this drama, though. Grand Traverse County prosecutor Alan Schneider didn't pursue drunk driving or fraud charges even though Meder told his insurance company the car had been stolen. Meder's superiors at the MSP did virtually nothing.

• Traverse City Police Capt. Steve Morgan allowed city commissioner Rick Csapo to go on his way the night Csapo slammed his wife's head into a plate-glass window downtown — despite reports by police and about 20 witnesses that Csapo was drunk. No breath test, no assault charge, no arrest. Csapo was later found guilty of domestic assault.

• Jan Gee. Joe Bartko. Noel Flohe. John Stanek. Donald Barrows. Ross Childs. Bill Clous.

So many willing candidates, so little space.