They can't really do that. In a sense, these follow the pattern of management retreats, which are often held away from work sites [[or here, peoples' home turf) to prevent distractions. If you held this in Metro Detroit, no one would come. And if they did, people would be ducking out to answer phone calls or go to "emergency" meetings. Getting people a few hours from work and home is an easy way to make sure they stay on task [[whatever it is supposed to be).
Mackinac is not Monaco [[or Scottsdale) - no one has to fly there, many people do it on their own dime, and smaller organizations often go to double occupancy. People can rail about $400 a night hotel rooms, but this is a short conference, and many people don't even stay for the whole thing. And in the context of the relevant budgets, it's not even a blip.
This type of thing only gets attention because it superficially resembles super-abusive things like pension fund trips. Those trips are hugely expensive trips for "educational" purposes. Things like Mackinac serve a different purpose: getting a dialogue together between disparate interests. As a taxpayer, I am totally fine with local government paying a grand or so per person to go - our region is so dysfunctional that every little bit helps.
HB
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