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This week, Slash Detroit cans you with a hockey stick, scraps the East Side, and takes a shower with a gubernatorial candidate! Produced by our friends at PishPosh.Tv.
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Welcome to Slash Detroit for Friday, April 25th, 2014. Today's episode is brought to you by Milan Lucic, and his Slash to Detroit Red Wings defenseman Danny DeKeyser.
The Nut shot Heard around the World (Yahoo Sports)
The oldest, but apparently not wisest, suspect in the beating of Steve Utesh isn't looking to get on the public's good side any time soon. Wonzey Saffold, whose birth certificate says he's 30, but whose behavior says he's stupid, gave cameras covering his court proceedings the double-finger salute. He is charged with Assault with Intent to Murder, and Assault with Intent to do Great Bodily Harm. For more analysis of his public relations tactics, let's send the camera's to ESPN Ocho's Pepper Brooks.
Suspect in Utash Beating is a Jerk (WXYZ.com)
Thirty-three former and current Detroit city workers have been charged with wrongly collecting almost 400 thousand dollars in unemployment benefits. Among those charged are 18 current full- time employees, who told the state they had been laid off. Detroit Inspector General James Heath said this hurts the city because the city reimburses the state for payments to laid-off workers. More charges could be coming, and the Inspector General recommends that any guilty workers be fired, and banned from working for the city forever.
City Workers Lie for Unemployment Benefits (Free Press)
Mark Schauer, the Democratic candidate for governor running against Rick Snyder, is in trouble for a vote he took way back in 2002. The Republican Governor's Association, led by Chairman Chris Christie, released the following ad, scathing Schauer for his liberal tax and spend ways.
In case your bullshit detector isn't already vigorously beeping, let me give you a little background info on the ad you just saw. The tax on nursing home beds was a bipartisan effort to get matching funds for Medicare from the federal government. In fact, the state receives more in matching funds than the nursing homes pay, and the funds go back to the nursing homes anyway. The bill also required that nursing home employees have criminal background checks conducted, so that, you know, there isn't a rapist or murderer giving grandma her sponge bath.
But here's the bigger problem with the ad. The bill that created the tax was supported by both Democrats and Republicans, and was signed into law by Republican Governor John Mathias Engler. Worse yet, it didn't even come up for renewal under Jennifer Granholm. In 2011, this dude, Republican Matt Lori, sponsored the bill that brought the law up for renewal! And you know who signed that renewal? None other than Governor Rick Snyder. Here's a press release put out by his office, stating that, "Delaying the sunset (of the law) was included as part of the governor's Fiscal Year 2012-13 budget proposal."
Are you kidding me? For a vote Mark Schauer took 12 years ago, the Republican Governor's Association tags him as the spend-thrift liberal coming to dig the change out of grandpa's pockets, and it turns out that extending the law was in Rick Snyder's budget, then a Republican sponsored the bill, the extension had bipartisan support in the House and Senate, and Rick Snyder signed it.
If you watch the end of the ad closely, the young lady even sounds like her bullshit detector is going off.
More Information on Nursing Home ad (Mlive.com)
More opionion on Nursing Home AD (electablog.com)
When I think of Oakland County, I think Pistons play there, L Brooks Patterson rules there, and affluent people live there. But according to the social service agency Lighthouse of Oakland County, there is an increasing number of poor people in the county as well.
From 2005 to 2012, there has been a 77 percent increase in poverty. This strikes communities beyond the inner city of Pontiac, which are unaccustomed to dealing with the strains that poverty places on the social safety net, with inadequacies in areas like public transportation being exposed.
Oakland County Poverty Rate Increases (Freep.com)
If you see this man with a hammer or torch in his hand, please, call the police. His name... is Bill Hults. You may remember Bill as the Chicago developer who couldn't pay for his bid for the Packard Plant at last year's Tax Foreclosure Auction. Although he didn't get the auction's biggest prize, he did get 17 other East-side properties, including the old Cadillac Stamping Plant. And now, he's been illegally scrapping the hell out of them.
Steve Neavling at Motor City Muckraker has been keeping tabs on the action. So far, Steve has documented the scrappers brazenly using torches on a hydraulic lift to pull metal out of the plant, and they've even been propping up the unstable ceiling with chemical barrels. Bill and his merry band of building destroyers have not pulled permits to make sure that they aren't poisoning the neighborhood with asbestos and industrial toxins, and they haven't even been paying the taxes on these properties.
Bill, we have enough problems with local scrappers to keep us busy. But we have a new mayor who doesn't play, and we have a new police chief who doesn't play, and we have a long-time prosecutor, who also, doesn't play. Please, take your scavenging ass back to Chicago, and don't come back unless it's to see the Red Wings beat the Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup Finals.
Chicago Investor forced to Stop Scavenging buildings (Motorcitymuckracker.com)
City Does Nothing about Scrappers (Motorcitymuckraker.com)
Packard Plant Investor wont Pay Taxes (Freep.com)
Speaking of home grown scrappers, Councilman George Cushingberry's old credit union is suing him and his wife for "willfully and maliciously" damaging their home. According to the Public Service Credit Union, the couple removed the kitchen cabinets and fixtures from the home on the north side of town, before strolling away from the mortgage.
The house is now being targeted in Mayor Duggan's anti blight lawsuits, but Cushingberry says he wasn't the one who damaged the property.
Cushingberry: The News Gift that Keeps On Giving (Detroit News)
Announcing, the triumphant return of the 313 Happy Hour! For our 24th outing, we'll head to the brand spanking new Louie's Lounge in Downtown Detroit, this Tuesday, April 29th from 8:30 to 11:00.
Coincidentally, the relaunch of the 313 Happy Hour is on the same day that we celebrate my 30th trip around the sun.
The special will be two bucks off draft beers. Make sure you join the facebook group to find out about next month's 313 Happy Hour.
The 313HappyHour is back, baby! (facebook.com/groups/313happyhour)
