Democrat Math - Spend Over $100 Million to save $50 Million

Our Democrat County Executive is touting his cunning plan to save $50 million in rehab expenses of existing county government buildings by buying some buildings in Pontiac, rehabbing them, doing some demolition, and moving County government officials there.

 The Detroit Free Press: Oakland County has ignored downtown Pontiac for too long. We're reinvesting in it.

Of course, it's going to end up costing a lot more than the claimed $100 Million. Count on it.

The more you dig into it, the more it appears to not just be an attempt to help out the City of Pontiac.  Sure, by moving government employees there and paying for locating them it will boost real estate prices and  increase occupancy in a blighted downtown.  It will also boost the Pontiac's coffers as the city has an income tax and those employees will have to pay it.  

But, it also looks like this is a way also to bail the city out its longstanding trouble with the Ottawa Towers/Phoenix Center area. Now the County will be responsible for tearing down the Phoenix Center rather than Pontiac, and all the cost of rehabbing buildings in the name of "reinvesting".

One interesting part of this deal is the Towers are being purchased by the County for $19.2 million from Tarik Dinha.

Mr. Dinha apparently purchased those towers back in March 2021 for $7.1 million from the city.

That's one heckuva nice return on his investment for him for holding them for a couple years, courtesy of not just County taxpayers, but State and Federal taxpayers through use of Covid funds as well. 

It is indeed a great bailout of the City Dems by the County Dems.

This deal also bails out the City from a $6 million dollar judgment - funny Coulter doesn't mention that.

Now instead of having all of County government in one complex, where the parking is very easy, you can find everything you need in one spot, it's going to be split with some of the operations moved to downtown Pontiac.

In short, this deal is a case of the County Democrats bailing out the City Democrats -- and using your money to do it and making it less convenient for the taxpayer to access county services conveniently, while claiming they are doing it for a more noble and glorious purpose.