Commentary: Forget the fantasies Mr. Mayor

East Village Magazine does not have a "state-of-the-art" phone system. Like many of you, we rely on an old-fashioned rotary dial phone system that allows us to talk to human beings. Businesses may be able to get away with this high-tech method of "efficiently serving the public" by choosing to whom and when their employees will be available because they have the right to decide who they want to do business with — but not government.

As a reasonably well-educated and frequently lucid person I realize that there are times when public officials cannot answer their telephones because they are not at their desks or because they are busy doing whatever it is they get paid to do.

I appreciate it when there is a way to leave a message when these situations occur — as long as there is a human being on the other end of the line to take a message or refer my call to another number.

But I can see no public interest served by the city installing a system with a recorded voice telling you that, if you are not technically advanced (or wealthy enough) to have a touch-tone phone, you have to call again or change your telephone system.

Government officials can arrange all of the public relations extravaganzas they like, yet one phone call can create the image (fair or unfair) that city officials do not really care about city residents, or that they are incapable of doing even the simplest task — such as answering residents' telephone calls.

And, if the government cannot perform even the simplest task (answering a telephone call during business hours), how can we expect it to fulfill its commitments for the most elaborate proposal ever made by a Flint mayor — the empowerment zone proposal submitted to the federal government a few days ago?

If the federal government provides $100 million the city proposes to turn the north end of Flint and the southern part of Mt. Morris Township into a futuristic city within a city and a township.

According to a Flint Journal report, the zone would have a "World Technology and Research Center," which would contain "assessment and referral services, health care, day care, recreation and cultural services, and a for-profit corporation that would receive, manage and distribute all zone funds."

There would be four "empowerment malls" in the zone to provide "residents with information ranging from social services to business development advice," and include shopping centers and police mini-stations. There would be a regional distribution center to serve 24 supermarkets, an "industrial health center," a "technical center" to attract businesses and provide job training and an "University Technology Park" which would mix housing and industrial facilities.

Loft-style apartments would be built in vacant buildings on Saginaw Street, streets would be improved, housing would be repaired, more police mini-stations would be built and more cops hired. Schools would get money to pay for repairs and for programs to teach ethics. A program would be funded to get 100 people off welfare each year.

Zone residents would get a credit card entitling them to use the area services. Everyone would be linked with a government-owned and operated cable television system and computer network.

And the plan goes on and on — promising everything local politicians and contractors could possible want.

It is a cruel hoax even in a city that has seen countless cruel hoaxes that were supposed to revitalize the city — Urban Renewal, Model Cities, AutoWorld, Water Street Pavilion, the Neighborhood Service Representatives Program, the Neighborhood Foot Patrol, River Bank Park, cops on scooters, cops on horses, fireworks, and on and on and on.

It is unlikely that the empowerment zone plan will be funded — despite the more than $200,000 it cost just to put together a proposal.

But even if the Washington powers-that-be find some overwhelming political benefit in writing a $100 million check for the proposed zone, it boggles the mind of this 40-year Flint resident to hear that the current administration thinks it could overcome (with the help of the Mt. Morris Township's board) the countless jurisdictional and legal problems necessary to bring this pie-in-the-sky dream off.

And, if the administration is intelligent enough to agree, why did it raise the expectations of the thousands of Flint residents who have little or no hope beyond surviving until tomorrow?

Mayor Stanley, so far you have been a good mayor. Forget about the mega-jurisdictional fantasies. Fix the streets, collect the garbage, keep all Flint neighborhood streets safe and do something about the City Hall phone system.

GPC