Notorious Brooks Patterson?

[mwilbert]

Is there some connection between LBP and Duggan that I don't know about? Not that it would be disqualifying, especially considering that the alternative is Napoleon.

LBP has his distasteful aspects, and I agree that his vision of the region is short-sighted, but give the guy some credit--he's been running his game for several decades and it's worked out for him pretty well, and not so badly for Oakland County up until recently. I think that the jig is pretty much up, but I could be wrong.

Nor do I think he is an inappropriate representative of his constituents, who have [[on average) no more vision than he does, and from what I can see, no greater desire to eliminate regional divides. Oakland county could do worse, and someday soon it may.

[DetroitPlanner]

That sounds all good and well.

My thing is, you seemed to be justifying L. Brook Patterson's and his constituents' divisiveness in your original response.

I understand his position. I am not justifying anything. What I don't like is putting up additional walls. There are already too many that separate the governmental units be they counties, cities, suburbs. The strong local government system brings many issues that put cities or townships in competition with each other for jobs, population, or sales. This is the root of sprawl, not L Brooks.

[iheartthed]

LBP has his distasteful aspects, and I agree that his vision of the region is short-sighted, but give the guy some credit--he's been running his game for several decades and it's worked out for him pretty well, and not so badly for Oakland County up until recently.

What credit does he deserve? How hard is it exactly to manage "the fourth richest county in the country?" That sounds like a job you have to try pretty hard to fuck up. Oakland County was never dealing with declining population, property values, tax coffers or pretty much any type of adversity. OTOH, his anti-Detroit rhetoric has been pretty detrimental to Metro Detroit as a whole, even if Oakland County remained rich.

[noise]

What credit does he deserve? How hard is it exactly to manage "the fourth richest county in the country?" That sounds like a job you have to try pretty hard to fuck up. Oakland County was never dealing with declining population, property values, tax coffers or pretty much any type of adversity. OTOH, his anti-Detroit rhetoric has been pretty detrimental to Metro Detroit as a whole, even if Oakland County remained rich.

Keeping his constituents happy?

[iheartthed]

Keeping his constituents happy?

I don't think that's an extraordinary characteristic of a politician.

[313WX]

I understand his position.

I "understand" his position as well. That doesn't mean his position should be free from criticism.

[detlump]

I would never associate Duggan with Patterson. I do associate Duggan with McNamara. I don't think Brooks and McNamara have much in common.

[noise]

I don't think that's an extraordinary characteristic of a politician.

I wish I agreed.

[mwilbert]

What credit does he deserve? How hard is it exactly to manage "the fourth richest county in the country?" That sounds like a job you have to try pretty hard to fuck up. Oakland County was never dealing with declining population, property values, tax coffers or pretty much any type of adversity. OTOH, his anti-Detroit rhetoric has been pretty detrimental to Metro Detroit as a whole, even if Oakland County remained rich.

Oakland county is nothing close to the fourth richest county in the country. Arguably, that is one of the things that he screwed up, as it used to rank considerably higher, partly because his notion that Oakland was or could be insulated from the region's problems was mistaken. And I agree that his rhetoric has not been helpful. At all.

In my view, it is an accomplishment to remain Oakland County's leading political figure for 40 years, and even though he and I would agree on basically nothing. I give him credit for that. And he appears to have managed the county government quite well since he became county executive. I agree that the degree of difficulty isn't the highest, but compare him to the people running Wayne county during the same period and his virtues become rather apparent.