This was passing around the internet today....

Governor Snyder and the republican legislature are trying to pass a bill that would make it easier for emergency financial managers to take over cities and school districts. It seems to be going a little to far.

The bill allows not just cities and school districts to be taken over, but also townships and other small municipalities. Public utilities can also be taken over. [But wait theres more!] Any property or other entities owned by a city, twp, public utility, or school district is subject to being taken over by the appointed emergency financial manager.

There's 18 "valid" reasons to appoint an emergency financial manager, but the last "valid" reason is perhaps the most overreaching:

"The existence of other facts or circumstances indicative of financial stress, as
determined by the state treasurer [[for a municipal government) or by the state
school superintendent [[for a school district) [[new)."

Keep in mind that the state treasurer and state school superintendent are not elected positions. They are appointed by the Governor and State School Board [[respectively). The definition of an "emergency" would ultimately be up the whims of an unelected state official.

Once the emergency is declared the emergency financial manager can dissolve unions, the democratic councils that govern the city, township, school board or public utility, and paralyze elected officials from having any influence of the process.

Does this seem incredibly aggressive to anyone else? No mention of involving communities in the reshaping of themselves as they go through these changes. And even less talk of actually making an effort to raise revenue through smarter taxation. I understand the need to be able to swiftly manage the budgets of localities that go broke but this bill is totally anti-democratic.

See the bill here, esp. pages 6-8:

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/docume...HLA-4214-3.pdf