No way to cut a budget

Apparently, only the Associated Press (AP) was looking earlier this week when Lansing lawmakers on Tuesday approved a $55 billion plan for roads and colleges. The story was published Tuesday by Crain’s Detroit Business.

With the Mackinaw conference coverage taking top priority this week, this plan slipped through with little examination by anyone.

The plan, put together in a span of hours according to AP (amazing what our legislators can do when their summer vacation is at risk), has already passed out of House/Senate conference panels and is set for a vote in the House this coming week.

There’s one specific part of the multibillion dollar plan that is just wrong. There may be others, but this one caught my eye.

To save money and use it to fix roads, the Lansing legislators will close the W.J. Maxey Boys Training School in Whitmore Lake, which is just north of Ann Arbor. Closing the school will save $7.5 million.

The Maxey Boys Training School is where boys 12-21 year olds are sent, instead of prison. It’s a 60-bed facility with about 50 boys housed there right now. The boys sent to Maxey require specialized, intensive rehabilitation treatment and a high level of security to provide personal and community safety.

Maxey’s staff is made up of clinical professionals such as psychiatrists, psychologists and certified social workers. Individual, group and family approaches are used to stabilize behavior in areas such as sex offender treatment, substance abuse, criminal behavior and behavioral health (mental health).

I’ve been to Maxey. Once. A kind-hearted guy I used to work with, Lou, used to make a monthly run to Maxey to donate blankets and other supplies. I went with him one month.

Maxey is better than prison, but it’s difficult to go there and see what’s going on. The thing to remember is that it isn’t prison. Yes, it’s a lockdown facility and should be. No, there are no hardened adult inmates there who can move these boys further along a criminal path.

Maxey is there for a reason. As bad as it may be in the eyes of some, Maxey offers a better chance at some level of rehabilitation than prison. Health and Human services spokesman Bob Wheaton was quoted in the AP story as saying his agency will give judges viable alternatives on where to send those housed at Maxey once it closes.

The last time I heard something like that was from Gov. John Engler, known for closing 11 clinics for the mentally ill, including the Lafayette Clinic in downtown Detroit. The ill were just turned out into the street when the closing bell rang. Most of them ended up in prison.

If we’re talking an overall $55 BILLION here, then $7.5 million is next to nothing to keep the Maxey boys out of Jackson Prison and others like it. Think about it – where are the judges going to send these boys?

You know as well as I do.

Tall fences make great neighbors

If good fences make good neighbors, then these builders need to erect a fence high enough to blot out the sun.

Royal Oak has an ordinance stating when construction work on a house can commence. The ordinance says work can start at 7 a.m. weekdays, 8 a.m. Saturdays and 10 a.m. Sundays.

On Mother’s Day, work started on this oversize house, which is two doors west of our home, at 7:10 a.m. That was the time the electric saw cranked up and it stayed that way until 8:35 a.m.  After that, the workers took off in a car and didn't return for the rest of the day

Which leads me to the whodunit part of the program. I’m not going to go ask the construction workers about this because I don’t want a drill bit up my nose. (This is where women have it all over men. If I go tell them to quiet down, it’s open season on me. If, as Suzy did, goes and tells them to quiet down, they aren't

 going to lay a glove on her).

Anyway, take a good look at the picture. You don’t see a generator. This picture was taken while the workers were still there. You can see them on the roof.

 So what was the electric saw connected to?

Our neighbors immediately west of us had the answer. They came home one day and found that, without their permission “someone” had plugged into the utility outlet on their garage. After unplugging the cord, they taped the outlet to register their displeasure.

Then, Monday morning, the landlord of the house came over at the behest of his tenants who thought their troubles were over after taping the outlet. It seems they had called the landlord because the air conditioning wasn't working.

On closer examination of the outside air conditioning unit, the landlord found that “someone” had plugged into the air unit and when they were through, had failed to reassemble the unit correctly.

Nice, eh? After another round of complaining, a generator finally appeared on the site.

From time to time, a few of our neighbors, including us, gather on the sidewalk and grumble about this new construction. We think it’s way too big for the lot and isn't going to fit in with the rest of our homes, design wise. Oh – I think it’s safe to assume that our house and our neighbors’ houses were purchased for under $200,000.

The new house is going to be put on the market for more than $500,000.

I hope the eventual owners of this new house have a $200,000 attitude, to match the neighborhood. No one is looking forward to the potential of having someone move in with a $500,000 attitude.

Then again, that’s what fences are for.