Confusion City

This might surprise some who know me as the “Hippie Mr. Rogers” of Downtown Bay City, but I once had a corporate career where there were only a couple of people between me and the top of British Petroleum.  I was an engineer who worked his way into management on the back of an ability to deal with what might be called “confusing situations,” where technology, business practices, personalities and cultures all came into play.

Those same skills helped the couple of times I’ve stepped out into the rough & tumble life of an entrepreneur.  They certainly came into play when I taught people the basic skills necessary to qualify for a chemical industry job when I was at Delta College.   To some degree, that is one of the things I have tried to do with my topical columns in the REVIEW - clear up a confusing situation.  Today, as I look around the local landscape, that’s exactly what we have on our hands.

Take, for example, an opinion I see regularly expressed on social media that the decision to lease the two City owned bridges to a private company was made by the “libtards” in CIty Hall or an example of  “Bidenomics.”  Let’s be clear:  There is nothing liberal, Democratic, progressive, Green, Socialist or Communist about giving control of a public asset to a private company.  It’s not even a Republican idea. This is straight out of the Libertarian playbook. Seriously, I wonder how many people that have been calling themselves Libertarians the last few years are now upset about the bridges.  They are confused.

There are all sorts of axioms that could come into play here.  “Be careful what you wish for.”  “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes”  “F**k around and find out.”   I’m going to go with “You get the government you deserve.”

You see, the voters at large aren’t alone in their confusion.  You have City Leadership that thinks of themselves as the local Economic Development Committee or the Tourism Bureau, all while shirking their responsibilities for infrastructure and services for decades.

You have local non-profits that are trying to be banks and concert promoters.  We have plenty of these in town that don’t need public money to get it done. 

You have people running these non-profits who see them mainly as a well-paying job for themselves, which is a long way from what was envisioned when the concept was put into the tax code.  But who could blame them in a world where the head of a non-profit like Blue Cross / Blue Shield of Michigan makes in the range of $20 million dollars a year?

Over the years I learned there are a few different reasons you can be confused.   One of these is you could be dealing with a partial set of facts.  Maybe your research was incomplete,  Maybe you have been duped.  Maybe you are just wrong.  But suddenly, when things don’t go the way you predicted, it’s confusing.  It happens to all of us sometimes..

You can also simply be in over your head.  Maybe you are more inexperienced than you realized.   Maybe the Peter Principle finally caught up with you and you are, in fact, incompetent in your role. Maybe you made your first big mistake and your corrective actions made it worse.

Understand that, as I write this, I have been all of those things myself at one time or another.

If I was in the current leadership group in Bay City, I honestly would quickly cop to one of those.  It’s probably the truth and the quickest path to redemption.  You have to realize that the other explanations for some of the most newsworthy events in the City over the last few years could just as easily be explained by other “C” words, among them things like “coziness” or “corruption.”

As someone who did nearly a billion dollars in deals in 35 countries, has been covering the area now for 20 years and someone who simply has their eyes open: you only get these types of results when you are bad at math, bad with money or bad at morals.  Pick one.

Here is the thing about being in leadership.  You are going to get constant criticism.  Stupid people are going to call you stupid, because they don’t know any better.  Thing is, smart people are probably going to call you stupid, too.  A good leader can figure out who is who.

When you are in charge, the best thing is you don’t have to be the smartest or most experienced person in the room. You need to learn to tap in to them. This, to me, seems to be the biggest failing in the elected and appointed group running the City right now.  City Hall looks like a Palace, but they run it like a bunker.

For instance, I attended quite a few of the meetings on the bridges over the years. I wasn’t the only one at those meetings.  What the Commission and City Management failed to pick up on is some of those white haired old coots in the audience used to be heavy hitters in industry -  Former Dow, Dow Corning, GM managers and engineers.  People good at math, good with money and with experience signing off on $100 million dollar projects.

Instead they hunkered down and gave us the situation we have now.

Please do not take this as anti-Bay City.  I am just calling it like I see it on a relatively small group of people that has managed to gain influence over City affairs. When I moved here around 20 years ago, I told many people that it reminded me of Royal Oak / Ferndale in the 80’s, where artsy people took over a dying town and made it a place more mainstream personalities, including the coveted families and young professionals wanted to live.  That’s what happened.

Unfortunately, as that metaphoric river has risen, we have a group of people floating on top of it like ducks thinking they got taller.  They are confused and it is time to start clearing some things up for them.