You're more than welcome to build your own water & sewerage system.
Guess how much that'll cost you? Hint: $2 Billion over 40 years is a bargain in comparison.
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Patterson was elected County Executive in 1992. It's not hard to balance the budget with the situation he inherited. But what has his leadership brought to Oakland County? It's status in absolute terms is still fine, but relative to the region, the country, and the world, it's gotten worse, not better.
Macomb County didn't have a County Executive until recently, but you can't say its trajectory has changed. In 25 years Shelby Township is going to look like Eastpointe, which the RTA would help resist. He has no vision or constructive contributions to what the RTA should be or how it could best benefit his constituents, he's only offered moving goalposts and consternation. If he had a real primary opponent I would be voting for them.
That's quite obviously untrue. Oakland County, right now, has its highest share of regional population and wealth. There has never been a larger gap between Oakland and the rest of the region.
Patterson is an ass, but deserves credit for his county's outperformance. Macomb, and especially Wayne, fall further behind every year.
With ALL party politics aside.
It can honestly be stated that Michigan and Metro Detroit have really failed to produce ANY leaders of quality for as long as a majority on this board has been alive.
It has been a state and region at war with itself, rapidly out competed on the national level for half a century and constantly playing a half assed game of catch-up.
An asterisk should be put in for Mayor Duggan who has presided over major improvements. But realistically, the bankruptcy and Kevyn Orr swept so much garbage overboard, setting the table for a higher probability for success. It was fairly unprecedented in American politics. Judgement should be withheld for another term.
The same leaders keep getting elected and re-elected. So I guess all the voters north of 8 Mile are idiots too, according to the OP rationale.
No it's very much true. It doesn't take a genius to realize how wealthy your county is and make sure the budget is balanced. But he didn't do just that, he is also greedy and has an ego, so he took all the marbles, built a wall around Oakland County, said to the rest of the region, " We got yours thanks to you, now you get yours but leave us alone!" Instead of trying to be a regional leader, he became an isolationist and lead us to the fights we are fighting today.
He built himself an urban sprawl empire, brainwashed a white constituency that believed only he could balance budgets and save them from any "urban" encroachment, and voila, the present.
Now he's old, we see right through him, and he needs to go.