The Associated Press reports federal officials are evaluating a prison in rural Standish, Michigan, as a possible site to hold Gitmo prisoners.
It’s not surprising to me that officials would head to an economically depressed state to try to do this.
Youngstown famously became associated with prisons, some of which were privately run, moving into town in the wake of the loss of steel jobs.
Opinion amongst locals on the prison is mixed, the AP reports.
Some think it would make the area a terrorist target. And surprisingly, union workers at the prison don’t …

People in Youngstown are planning parties and hosting special events to honor the return of disgraced congressman Jim Traficant, who will be released from prison next month.
This comes at a embarrassment and disappointment to supporters of the movement to revitalize the once-prosperous steel town.
The Vindicator is carrying an opinion piece by Rust Wire contributor Tyler Clark deploring Traficant supporters. Traficiant has been in a federal prison since 2002, when he was convicted on 10 counts including racketeering, bribery and tax evasion.
It’s a clash of new gaurd verses old guard. Supporters …

Slate is running an awesome, awesome, story about the mayoral race in Flint, Michigan, where a 35-year-old Rhodes Scholar is battling a 64-year-old grandmother and state representative for the city’s highest office.

Why would anyone want to be mayor of a city with so many problems, Slate wonders.

As most everyone knows, Detroit is a city with a lot of problems.
Metro Times writes,
“The auto industry that formed its economic bedrock for most of the past century teeters precariously as two of what used to be known as the Big Three emerge from bankruptcy reorganization. The consensus opinion from President Barack Obama on down is that even though every effort is being made to save the industry, many of the jobs lost are never coming back, and the city known as Motown is in for a long and perilous …

The good people at Great Lakes Urban Exchange convened more than 200 people in Buffalo last month to form a consensus about the best way to direct stimulus money in Great Lakes cities.
The result is summarizied in a letter to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan on the GLUE web site.
Here’s a snippet:
“A specific concern of conferees is that the Obama Administration understand both the scale and the urgency of Great Lakes metros’ challenges.
Brownfields in our older, mainly small- and mid-sized metros are probably never going to become …

Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers has resigned after pleading guilty to bribery charges in a $45 million sludge handling deal.
Meanwhile in Cleveland, County Commissioner Jimmie Dimora and County Auditor Frank Russo have been implicated–although not by name–in a wide-ranging pay-to-play corruption scheme in which developers traded favors such as trips to Las Vegas in exchange for lucrative public contracts.
Dimora, for his part, has refused to step down, blaming the FBI probe on a vast Republican conspiracy. Last week he voted in a contract for a juvenile detention center he is accused …

My latest issue of the magazine Next American City arrived in the mail on Monday.
I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but so far I enjoyed two interesting articles:
one on the problems with publicly funded convention centers for cities;
and the cover story on Newark mayor Cory Booker.
I don’t think these articles are online – if they are I haven’t found them – so you may have to step away from your computers for a minute and buy the magazine.
-KG
Tweet

The general consensus is that this will be horrible for Cleveland.

Maybe it will be good because maybe they will hire better employees.
Tweet

National Public Radio had a piece over the weekend about community opposition in Detroit to tearing down this beautiful but crumbling landmark.
Detroit City Council has postponed the planned demolition in response.
“It is not an eyesore to us who live here,” one advocate for the building said. “We see what it was, what it is and what it could be.”
-KG
Tweet

The Buffalo News’ “The ‘Burbs” blog posed a question yesterday that has been asked by many a municipality: should public employees be required to live where they work?

(Sorry for this lame picture. I couldn’t think of any other way to illustrate this story.)
Their post dealt with the Buffalo suburb of Amherst, but it’s a question that has been asked throughout our region.
Typically, municipal leaders – and oftentimes voters as well – favor such rules, which are often opposed by police and firefighters unions.
This has been a hot topic in Ohio …