The smartest thing Ms. Conyers said

[DetroitPlanner]

Term limits were a bust in state legislature. Too much posturing and political grandstanding are being done by people who have little to no experience in how government should work. Seconsly, campaigning becomes too important, bouncing from senate to house in order to keep a job.

I would think that the council would be better served by more reasonable salaries less benefits and staff. People who serve the public should not put themselves above those that they serve. This would weed out those that are there just for the money or the prestige [[?).

Outlet stores are typically found in destination locations. Sometimes they make it, other times they don't. I am thinking about the empty outlet mall near Cedar Point. Going after outlet stores specifically may not work, but going after them as part of a comprehensive program to bring more retail into the City makes sense. In addition, a lot of outlet stores are aready conentrated in the area in Auburn Hills, typically outlet stores do not want to be found in large urban areas because they draw business away from non-outlet stores. Having two outlet stores in a metropolitan area is pretty much unheard of, unless she is thinking of places like TJ Maxx or Burlington as outlet stores.

[iheartthed]

I could support reinstating term limits for mayor... Especially with a strong mayor system like Detroit.

I'm against term limits for city council. I'd rather see council members elected by district.

[Locke09]

No artificial term limits for anyone. If people aren't smart enough to elect the right leaders, term limits will not help. They'll just keep electing one bad leader after another.

[firstandten]

Term limits were a bust in state legislature. Too much posturing and political grandstanding are being done by people who have little to no experience in how government should work. Seconsly, campaigning becomes too important, bouncing from senate to house in order to keep a job.

I would think that the council would be better served by more reasonable salaries less benefits and staff. People who serve the public should not put themselves above those that they serve. This would weed out those that are there just for the money or the prestige [[?).

I thought term limits might work and was a supporter in the beginning, but like you said it seems that especially in the state legislature term limits have not worked at all.

However I don't completely buy the fact to just vote them out. Its not quite that easy. The political power of incumbency just cannot be overstated, that and money and key endorsements actually keep good people from running for office. You try to run a grass roots campaign to get your name out there you risk become a professional candidate and a joke in the community especially if you lose a few too many times

I could live with mayorial term limits. I think 12 years[[ 3 terms) is long enough for any politican. If they can't get there agenda thru in that amount of time then its time for someone else anyway. I wouldn't worry so much about council if we went to a district format since it becomes a very localized election and easier to get rid of someone not wanted.

[professorscott]

Term limits represent an abdication of personal responsibility. In this regard they serve the same function as "zero tolerance" regulations.

The idea of zero tolerance is: rather than law enforcement people and judges using their brains to decide how to handle situations one at a time, we'll put in this rule that takes away all of their judgement and discretion and simply compels them to do things by rule.

The idea of term limits is: rather than voters deciding who should hold office, we will have this machine in place that removes people whether the voters would like to keep them or not.

In each case, because of a perceived lack of sense on the part of humans, we decide to replace all human judgement with a machine. I might make a bad decision, so I will put in place an automaton that removes from me the responsibility to decide at all.

It astonishes me that anyone ever thought either of these two things would work well at all.

[firstandten]

Term limits represent an abdication of personal responsibility. In this regard they serve the same function as "zero tolerance" regulations..

I think there's a difference. Rather than a abdication of personal responsibility it was a realization for those that supported term limits that politics wasn't a level playing field and the difficulty of affecting change unless you have money or/and influence. Especially problematic in an at-large type of election.

The idea of zero tolerance is: rather than law enforcement people and judges using their brains to decide how to handle situations one at a time, we'll put in this rule that takes away all of their judgement and discretion and simply compels them to do things by rule..

I agree that zero tolerance is not for every situation but the problem we have is that as a society there are certain standards that must be maintained for us to function effectively. Such as sexual harassment, fighting in school and even in some criminal cases. Fair and well thought out zero tolerance policies sends an important message on acceptable behavior.

The idea of term limits is: rather than voters deciding who should hold office, we will have this machine in place that removes people whether the voters would like to keep them or not..

You hit the reason why term limits as they are presently constructed do not work, but the voters in many locales feel disinfranchised, and not represented due to the way elections are structured thus as a way of striking back term limits was thought to work.

[Reality_Check]

We interrupt this policy discussion for a juicier observation from a Pancakes and Politics attendee this morning:

"Monica Conyers was on her best behavior. . . . Interestingly, four people -- black and white -- told me during and after the forum they thought Conyers 'must have taken her medication' today. Two who were close to the stage claimed her eyes were hugely dilated."

-- Mary Kramer,
Crain's Det Biz publisher

She reports. You decide.
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/section...insdetroit.com

[Ravine]

Firmly against term limits. It would Really Suck, if we get somebody worthwhile in there, and then have to bounce them because of a law having nothing to do with their performance or achievements.

[professorscott]

Zero tolerance on sexual harassment is what has given us six year old kids being suspended from school for kissing another six year old on the cheek. Zero tolerance on violence gets a farm child expelled from school because they forgot to put the hay knife away before they ran out front to catch the bus. I could write fifteen other examples, but why bother?

It is never appropriate to substitute an unthinking machine for human judgment. We simply must accept that the human will sometimes get it wrong, and then must be accountable for the wrong call.

I have very little tolerance [[but not zero) for Zero Tolerance.

[firstandten]

Zero tolerance on sexual harassment is what has given us six year old kids being suspended from school for kissing another six year old on the cheek. Zero tolerance on violence gets a farm child expelled from school because they forgot to put the hay knife away before they ran out front to catch the bus. I could write fifteen other examples, but why bother?

It is never appropriate to substitute an unthinking machine for human judgment. We simply must accept that the human will sometimes get it wrong, and then must be accountable for the wrong call.

I have very little tolerance [[but not zero) for Zero Tolerance.

Professor , there are many examples of zero tolerance gone insane like you mentioned. I think that because we have such a lack of leadership and common thinking skills by people running our public institions. Some of the common sense has been taken away because we are such a litigious society and a lot of it is because we are such ideologs [[left and right) that many times that overides common sense. Thus appropiate, well thought out zero tolerance policies are sometimes needed.

For example take the case of the 6 year old kissing the girl. I don't know the particulars of the case and on the surface it seems harmless and zero tolerance gone bad. But what if the girls parents had a thing about a boy touching their girl in any matter and hold the school responsible for that happening. We can talk all day about how silly that is, but she is there child , she's in a public institution and they can sue as a result. Now as a result we have no PDA's [[public displays of affection) in some schools in a zero tolerance fashion .


Thats why we see zero tolerance and I would agree that in many cases it is not needed but based on how our society is structured in many cases it is.


Back to MonCon

Its getting to be election time, from this point on she will seem like the reasonable politican, but I think there's too much history for that to work and the voters will look at her entire body of work this time, name recognition will not work for her now.