I am not sure how old the commenter’s are on this thread,but it is obvious that no one was around or paying attention to what washappening when Ed McNamara started his long and storied career as the mayor ofthe city of Livonia. Either people have short memories or they simply weren’tpaying attention from the late 60’s thru the early 80’s. McNamara was asnon-progressive and racist towards Livonia as Orville Hubbard was in histerroristic reign of Dearborn. I would speculate that Livonia’s withdrawal fromSEMTA and refusal to allow “those people” free access to “his” city was begunby and due directly to McNamara and his cronies [[yes, including Ficano, who wasWayne County Sheriff at the time!). His continual denial of unified bus routeswas the beginning of the end for Livonia as far as becoming an integratedwestern suburb throughout the 70’s and 80’s.
In my opinion, he was the democratic version of LBP.
Later, McNamara was also responsible for the decline of thecounty park system, as bodies and drugs ruled both Hines Drive and Rouge Parkat the time. Additionally, McNamara was the County Executive during theconstruction and expansion of the ever-growing Detroit Metropolitan Airport,and there were several instances that I remember specifically where there wereserious questions regarding awards for construction projects and cronyism inthe awarding of those contracts that were never pursued as McNamara was a well-feared[[retribution) and very connected person at the time. He also oversaw many otherquestionable construction efforts [[Allen Park Drainage/Storm Water AbatementProject, etc.) which stunk to high heaven, but because of his stature in thepolitical community never were investigated thoroughly and slowly but surelyfaded out of memory.
Most inexcusable, as I remember, was his lack of interactionwith the City of Detroit, which was in his direct control as County Executive.He virtually ignored the problems that existed there and did not offer anysolutions, rather, he shut down any communication with CAY and did as hepleased for his following in the western suburb enclave.
My guess is that if all the dots were connected in today’smedia driven environment, McNamara would have ultimately been indicted on acouple of serious items, but, again, he was the “Teflon-Don” of the 70’s and 80’s.Many forget that the Duggans, Ficanos and Kwame’s of the world were molded andshaped by McNamara’s own hands.
Just because someone isn’t investigated for allegationsdoesn’t mean they are clean. Indeed, there were many things that simply gotswept under the rug as there was no real opposition to his actions throughouthis entire reign.
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