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City Leaders Receive Open Forum, but Don’t Return Favor By Mike Thompson During an Oct. 12 meeting, Saginaw City Manager Darnell Earley stood in front of the City Council and waved a copy of the Oct. 8 edition of Review Magazine. He twice denounced the publication as “garbage” and said a “disservice” was done to the community. This was because he took issue with an opinion piece, authored by Greg Schmid and Review Publisher Bob Martin, that raised points in opposition to the November ballot proposal to remove Saginaw’s property tax caps. Earley’s wrath was not directed toward anything that I myself had written, but still I took offense. In the same Oct. 8 edition of Review Magazine, this publication paid from the pockets of it’s own enterprise, so that a City Council Candidates Forum could be presented in full, compiled by yours truly. Five of the six candidates give virtually full support to Darnell Earley and lifting the tax cap. They are the incumbents Greg Branch, Larry Coulouris, Bill Scharffe and Andrew Wendt, along with former Councilman Dennis Browning. The only critic in the bunch is the youthful Armando Falcon. On Oct. 8, for each candidate, Review Magazine generously published 800 words apiece that came straight from their mouths or pens. These quotations were undiluted and unedited. If the words of candidates Branch, Coulouris, Scharffe, Wendt and Browning are added together, that’s 4,000 words of virtual support for current city policy, highly supportive of City Manager Earley. Does the manager recognize or appreciate this? Or, when it comes to media coverage, does he always have to have things 100 percent entirely his way? I was also disappointed that Branch and Coulouris and Scharffe and Wendt sat silently at the council table. Each had benefited with their 800 words having been transmitted via Review Magazine to thousands of citizens, but none of the four expressed appreciation or rebuked their foremost employee. No more elaboration is needed: Manager Earley’s “garbage” remarks were trash, and the lack of reaction from council members stinks as well. Editor & Publisher’s Response: It is highly telling that Darnell Earley de-evolves into childish and dismissive name calling rather than adopt a higher road of actually attempting to disavow the factual basis and reasoning behind the opinions published that he takes issue with pertaining to the tax cap & ballot proposals. This is the true ‘disservice’ to our community; but it is also highly revealing, for as my Momma always said, ‘the truth hurts’. Obviously, The Review did not earn a legislative honor from the State of Michigan, signed by the Governor and the Tri-City delegation for 30 years of quality reporting, by being sloppy. Is it any wonder Saginaw is in such dire straits when we have alleged leaders that will see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil? Seems Earley could take a clue from the comments of Dave Camp and Dale Kildee at the conclusion of their interviews in this edition about the importance of maintaining some semblance of decorum in public life. A delegation of ‘Yes Men’ to a childish bully is not exactly the recipe for success Saginaw needs to move forward. At least Review got all sides of the story behind the candidates and proposals in this upcoming election out in front of the public. Fortunately, on November 3rd it is the public and not the City Manager or Council that will decide the fate of our city. |
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