European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 19, 1978, Darmstadt, Hesse Poge 12 the stars and stripes saturday August 19, "78 James j. Kilpatrick Muskegon has its share of bureaucratic by i met a Man from Michigan the other Day. He had a melancholy tale to Tell of the City of Muskegon and the . Department of housing and Urban development. I have checked it Here and checked it there and 1pass the tale along. It Speaks with certain sad eloquence of the bureaucratic mind artwork. Muskegon is an Industrial town on the Eastern Shore of Lake Michigan. It s a Beautiful area now and once it must have been altogether Lovely but the area s huge dunes were stripped of their Timber some generations ago. World War i brought a few heavy industries to the City world War ii saw More industries and with it the migration of Many hundreds of unskilled Lack labourers from the South. Things went along real Well through the korean said my Friend and then plop the town went on its ear. Down town Muskegon began to shrivel like a dried Apple. Our plants were obsolete. New capital could t be found. Census figures Tell the Story. In 1970 we had 2,000 fewer people than we had in 1960 in 1960 we had 2,000 fewer than in 1950. We re supposed Mohave about 44,000 residents now maybe 3, 000 More than we had in 1930. And probably8 percent of them Are unemployed. This is growing developments have brought some cheer. A few years ago several imaginative industrialists assisted by Congress Man Guy Vander Jagt and some effective county commissioners came up with a system of spraying partially treated sew age on nearby agricultural land. The sys tem has worked. Instead of putting Thi Glup in Lake Michigan to feed the algae the Spray irrigation scheme is growing animal feed and adding an agricultural dimension to the Economy. The improving Quality of the Lake is attracting both tourists and a budding chemical second Good thing said my Friend is that a few enterprising business Leader got together and built one of the few Down town malls in the country that really of the principals made a dime on the project. They worked for three years out Ofa moral commitment to revitalize their Community. After the mall got going Hopes began to Flicker that maybe Muske gon could pull off a comeback. So the same civic leaders the move Sand shakers in the town worked up a new and exciting project a downtown convention hotel. This was t anything to rival Renaissance Center in Detroit mind you but it carried the immediate Prospect of jobs for construction workers and the eventual Prospect of jobs for Cooks wait ers busboys maids and other hotel employees. It was to be an $8 million project $6 million in private capital plus $2 Mil lion to be obtained from Hud in an Urban development action Grant. With great anticipation Muskegon sen tin its application. On May 11, the application was rejected. I checked with an assist ant Secretary of Hud. The City of Muske gon he said has not demonstrate reasonable results in providing equal Opportunity in employment for members of minority As evidence of this Hud spoke Man coldly reminded mayor John e. Mid Endara that in june 1977 the City employed410 persons of whom 32 were Black. By september 1977, because of layoffs the City employed Only 376 persons of whom 28 were Black. The six Blacks who had Bee Laid off constituted a 19 percent reduction rate compared to an 8.2 reduction rate for Whites Laid off. The bureaucrats of Hud therefore ruled Muskegon ineligible for inaction Grant but if the City reforms its ways maybe some time in the future anew application could be considered. I telephoned Muskegon and got Cit manager Paul Frederick. He said there was nothing wrong with Hud s figures Only with Hud s understanding the Laid to of Mimoni t or Ujj in in Cmunt n4 ctr Toni on thu m9 a Ort tent that Al in it Wrt and Ati in nov to m Cabatit Efad a printing tit it of to sum 4fdmrtpt to United strs8o��rrtmn� off workers under Union seniority con tracts were the last hired first fired. The City is having a hard time just paying its ills. It in t hiring anybody. He had tried to explain this to Hud s equal Opportunity people in Detroit but heh adn t got through to them. Muskegon he said had done everything within reason to satisfy Hud it had adopted a fair housing ordinance at Hud s insistence but the racial Decimal Points they were a year ago. It melted the convention a did t sound very Hope Ute Jaap Wun. Cwj.im5, William f. Buckley gop Fory hails Liberal demo i in the silk stocking District of new York City the ganglion of so Many miseries of the Republic and not a few fits glories the congressional race for the seat once occupied by mayor de Koch an former mayor John Lindsay goes largely is Odd because the two democrats contending for the nomination Are interest ing to write about and the District one of them will represent if he defeats the incumbent Republican who last january in a special election Defeated Bella Abzug thus qualifying Tor National gratitude and relieving him of any future obligation to the re Public is the most vibrant in the United states. I came close to granting a plenary Indus Pax gence to John Lindsay for All his sin when As congressman from the District he replied years ago to a reporter who asked Why he had on that Day voted both against an anti obscenity Bill and an anti subversion Bill that subversion and obscenity were the principal industries of his constituency. That is hyperbolic but so is everything in Manhattan from the sky scrapers to the lifestyle and it is fitting that the District should be represented i Congress by one of the outstanding Young men in the country auard in seasons gone by i have written about Lowenstein infuriating Many of my friends because you see Lowenstein is a Liberal Democrat. Why should a conserva Tive Republican advocate the election to Congress of a Liberal Democrat in the past pressed on the matter i have permitted myself out of polemical fatigue to reply simply it is a personal Indus one should try to do is Independent thoughtful in respect of not a few matters an Psi math whose belated recognition of for in stance the inherent rights of parents to select the schools their children my attend could1 lose him the editorial support of the but most appealing is Lowenstein s Abil i ii Sople Wal Alsa ree with him without inducing a shouting contest. As representative in Geneva to the humanity Gas commission two years ago he Actu ally caused that commission to wide however b Efy the question of human rights m the soviet Union. More exactly he induced in to consider considering human rights in the soviet Union this May sound like a trivial Why has no one else i Deavor there is in Lowenstein i cent Good will that makes i defense appear faustian i gently having been hither for 20 years in ing an unfavourable Laws Lowenstein was t , Over the i ply and eloquently about operative and to High c african government ii other Way and shooing Luff f to return on the would be free to against apartheid palpable integrity d the fanatics who desm Lithe restoration of Black shedding of White is in la ism which it is moved by. There democrats in the next Inot one whose integrity l least reprint Nate a Nucal. Bureaucratic and f. The liberalism of to Ament is grown hoary i idealistic vision filth native forms would be the existing situation out the crucifixion once meditated i Lowenstein belongs in so rally As Nureyev t
