You may recall city manager Jonathan Smith’s last-minute request for city council approval to apply for the 2024 GM on Main Street Grant. I wrote about that here. I posted Smith’s grant proposal and discussed the problems with it here. And, finally, I compared what Smith told the council and the public . . . with what he said on the grant application . . . with what the city said in response to my FOIA request. I wrote about that here.
The five $50,000 grant recipients were just announced yesterday. Clarkston did not receive one, though two Michigan cities – Pontiac and Holly – did. You can read the announcement here.
What happened can be summed up simply – Smith supposedly became aware of some “free” money and came up with a half-baked, last-minute plan to try to get it without regard to any cost to Clarkston residents and taxpayers.
Smith claimed to have only recently become aware of this grant opportunity, even though it’s not the first time it’s been offered. He presented it as a take it or leave it option to the council, suggesting that if council members didn’t immediately decide to allow him go ahead and apply for the grant based on the limited information Smith provided to them, the opportunity would slip away. (Gaslighting much?) In essence, Smith’s fire sale approach to a project he claimed to have been considering for years limited the ability of our elected representatives to make an informed decision and completely ignored public sentiment.
Bringing Smith’s latest pet project to fruition means the destruction of historic Mill Street. Is that why he kept the location a secret from the public and the council before announcing his plans at a city council meeting? When you have no notice of the plan, you can’t show up and object. You may or may not be in favor of this project personally, but don’t you think you should at least be able to express an opinion to the city council before it’s a done deal? (And if you think it wouldn’t have been a done deal if we had received the grant, then you haven’t been paying attention. Smith always manages to get everything he wants, whether it’s a private office in the outrageously expensive city hall/DPW expansion, more holidays than most public and private sector employees can only dream of, a four-day work week with a vacation entitlement based on a five-day work week, retirement savings plan matches, etc.)
By trying to get the money before the approval process, Smith would have been able to circumvent any reasoned consideration from the planning commission, historic district commission, city council, and the public. Since Smith told the city council the city could lose the grant if the project wasn’t completed by August 2024, the pressure to push it through the approval process would likely have been more than our volunteer citizen commission members could bear. After all, who wants to stand in the way of “progress”?
Smith had no flipping clue how much things would cost. He relied on some as-of-yet unknown magical concrete contractor to give the city a gift of reduced concrete costs. Smith gave complete veto power for the project to the two restaurant owners on either side of Mill Street and misrepresented facts on the grant application. He also secretly planned to use taxpayer dollars to complete the project – but did not reveal that fact to the public or the council.
And in the process of doing all that, Smith took a gratuitous swipe at people aged 60 and over, suggesting their opinions about the project didn’t count. He also managed to insult Clarkston residents of all ages by telling us that his pet project was intended only to benefit the patrons of restaurants holding a liquor license, not us – even though we would have to pay for part of it by giving up something else, like road and sidewalk repairs (because you can rest assured the money would not come from Smith’s annual salary increase).
Smith likes to tout his project management experience, but this isn’t how experienced project managers act. In the real world, we figure out how much things cost before committing to anything. We do research and talk to vendors. We decide if we can afford some of it, all of it, or none of it. Then we go through the process of getting approvals (which is quite an onerous thing in Clarkston, especially for those of us who are unfortunate enough to live in the historic district). Then, and only then, do we proceed. I doubt Smith treated the renovations on his own home the way he treated this project. Aren’t we entitled to have expenditures of tax dollars treated with equal respect?
Perhaps the General Motors grantors managed to read between the lines and were able to recognize obvious poor planning when they saw it. 🤔
If this project is something Clarkston residents want, then that’s what should happen, and Smith can take the time to do things the right way. But I think we’re entitled to complete transparency going forward regarding what this will cost and what we will have to give up to provide a space that is only intended for outsiders to sit in with their alcoholic beverages while waiting for a restaurant table.
It’s a matter of taxpayer respect – whether you are 60 years of age or older, or not.