Marty Knollenberg for Troy Mayor

In the first article in this series, I posed a set of questions to each candidate in the May 7 Special Election for Troy Mayor. The answers were published in the order received from the candidates.

City benchmarking (Governor Snyder's dashboard) is posted on the city website. Question 2 had to do with improving it. 

Slater for retirement; Welborn for council candidate 

My previous article analyzed the race and made recommendations for two of the three candidates who should not be mayor of Troy.

I recommended that Scott Welborn serve on the next mayor’s commission to improve the city’s dashboard and run for council in November. Serving as Troy mayor would send the wrong message to his Ferndale students who would be taught by substitutes when the mayor’s job required him during the day.

I also recommended that Mayor Slater be allowed to stick to his original plan to retire from politics before his supporters urged him to run. Their unethical campaign tactics were the tipping point in my decision to choose Marty Knollenberg over another well-qualified candidate. 

The experienced, well qualified Dane Slater does not listen respectfully to all points of view, having demonstrated this clearly while on council, during his initial meeting as mayor, and ever since. Unlike other liberal council members, he has never returned an email or even sent a form letter.

Endorsement  - Marty Knollenberg for Mayor

Marty Knollenberg is the best qualified candidate for Troy Mayor. Unlike the current appointed mayor, he listens to and respects all points of view.

Knollenberg served Troy and Clawson well as State Representative for six years and will serve the people of Troy well as mayor. The current mayor is more partisan, and the other candidates lack Knollenberg’s experience.

He set four specific, measurable goals in response to my questions not asked during the LWV candidate forum. Three other candidates also replied with good ideas; I recommend they all serve on Mayor Knollenberg’s non-partisan commission to improve the city benchmarking dashboard by comparing it to other cities, and run for city council in November.

Dane Slater did not reply after multiple emails to him and his media contact person. I recommend he be allowed to retire from politics as originally planned before his supporters urged him to run.

Ghost-Written Letters for Partisan Political Purposes

These supporters have used questionable tactics. The second letter in their “Supporting Dane Slater for Mayor” series (April 12, April 13 or 14, April 18) appears to have been ghost written, which I pointed out on April 15 & 16.

My April 15 & 16 comments were taken down when the date was changed to April 17, as was Cathy Fucinari’s original comment:

 “This is my name. Not my words. Glad I agree with her!!!” Cathy Fucinari, April 14, 2013

Brad’s original comment from April 14 remains, as does Cathy’s from April 17 referring to a “conspiracy theory.”

I corresponded privately with the editor after he closed the comments, and he agreed that Toby Gosselin’s contents are different from Cathy Fucinari’s.

So it appears that my original ghost-writing charges are true, since the letter did not change, only the date of publication.

I have additional evidence, which I am not sharing at this time to protect the guilty. My beef is not with the editor. He’ll stand up fine in court if Cathy Fucinari sues me for slander as threatened; how about the rest of the people who will be subpoenaed?

A shift in format and in tone

The letters stopped after the third one and were replaced by negative campaigning written by the Keep Troy Strong blog (author will identify only as the composite superhuman “I am TROY”), with FOIA information from December emails that was known by early March, timed for pre-election release.

The blog posts (five so far) criticize Councilman Doug Tietz for his support of state election law and mayoral candidate Marty Knollenberg.

In these articles and comments, KTS members decry the negative campaign tactics used by others.

You can contrast the biased KTS opinions with the balanced coverage in the Oakland Press, where Doug Tietz and Oakland County Commissioner Bob Gosselin tell their side of the story.

Positive vs. Negative Campaigning

Knollenberg and the other candidates all declined to name any of their opponents’ endorsements, saying they would run positive campaigns on the issues. Dane Slater’s supporters obviously think differently.

These negative campaign tactics attacking Knollenberg and supporting the appointed incumbent were the tipping factor in my decision to choose him over another well qualified candidate. 

Hardy Perennial – the Controversial Troy Transit Center

Finally, the campaign issue that will not die. The conservative majority that was elected in November 2011 campaigned against this wasteful $8.5M spending on unnecessary infrastructure, which would move the Birmingham station a quarter mile with no improvement in service.

The shopping center which owns the property where the new train / bus station is located sued the city after Dane Slater worked past the deadline to make sure the project went through.

Recently an appellate court overturned the lower court’s ruling. This leaves Troy in a precarious position legally. Unless the Michigan Supreme Court takes the case (doubtful) or overrules the Appeals Court in the city’s favor (even more doubtful), Troy may face an expensive settlement with the shopping center owner, or be forced to halt construction completely.

Good input and not-so-strange silence

Retired policeman Dane Slater had good input during the council discussion about people cutting through neighborhoods during the Flagstar Bank shopping center development on Big Beaver. I sympathized with the homeowner’s group and thought the traffic flow could have been improved with little redesign cost (using modern CAD systems) if the bank location had been flipped to the other end of the property.

However, Slater was curiously quiet about the extra money required to patrol the empty Transit Center building at night and on weekends when no buses are running.

Outrageous statement or just myopic?

At the mayoral candidate forum Mayor Slater said “This Transit Center will not cost the citizens one dime.” Really? The excellent police services Troy enjoys are free?

“The citizens” are not American taxpayers? He and other council members were reminded several times how much the annual mortgage payments would be.

“Then the U.S. taxpayers pay $450,000 per year for the rest of the 30 year mortgage at 4%.” (That's for the scaled back $6.3M project, before the cost of the concrete safety wall was added back in.)

Maybe Dane Slater had his mind made up beforehand and did not want to listen to the many people recommending that the project be scrapped in favor of more creative alternatives. See pictures of the proposal to remodel the existing station, proposed last year before the December deadline he angered many residents by working past when they thought the project had been stopped.

"Non-Partisan" Act of Public Service?

Opposition to the "free" money for the Transit Center was one of the main issues Mayor Daniels was criticized for - half the reason she "embarrassed" Troy in national media. Of course, she and the other newly-elected conservatives had campaigned against it.

Dane Slater was the only council member to sign the biased recall petition - here are some more comments about the Transit Center from Recall Mayor Daniels supporters.

This may have been legal (a judge said they could rule only on clarity of language, not the truthfulness of the claims), but it was certainly not wise or discreet. None of the other council members followed his wise leadership on this issue.

48% of Troy voters backed Mayor Daniels' right to complete her term, so at best he only represents the 52% majority who thought she should be recalled. A wiser leader would have left the recall decision to the voters. They had plenty of petition signatures without his.

Negative Campaigning against Mayor Slater

Recently TCU has been criticized for a mailing with an offensive cartoon image. I’m not part of this group and haven’t seen it, so I can’t comment. It may be that they should have had more peer review of the piece before mailing it.

I don’t agree with any racist ads, particularly those directed against family members of candidates like the infamous Michigan Citizens for a Brighter Tomorrow mailing that drew my criticism of Mayor Slater for his mild, “there, there, now, politics is a rough game” attitude at his first meeting as mayor.

And I condemned the deceptive robo-call ad about the $175 per month council pay in my last article. I thought it was ridiculous when someone suggested that council members donate their pay to the city, saving the city $14,000 per year. Expecting people to serve at below minimum wage is a bit much.

Those two ads (the first in poor taste, the second is technically true but deceptive) pale in comparison with the negative campaigning done from the Keep Mayor Slater team, however.

Good old-fashion muck-raking and ghost writing from the Left is a bit more serious.

Recommendations: one for mayor, three for council candidate, one for retirement

I encourage you to join me in voting for Marty Knollenberg in the May 7 Special Election.

I encourage Scott Welborn, David Elsas and Faris Alami to run for city council in November if their mayoral candidacies are unsuccessful. 

I encourage Dane Slater to retire from politics as he had originally planned.

For More Reading

Conservative columnist Dale Murrish volunteers his time to write articles on history, travel, technology, politics and religion for the Troy Patch. You can read more by clicking on the links under topics.