Michigan State Police Headquarters

My Dad, a retired 26-year veteran of the MSP, passed this along to me. I suspect it is from the MSP retiree listserv he is subscribed to. It was written by MSP retiree Earl James.

I’m retired from the Michigan State Police. My duties took me from Calumet in the north to Detroit in the South. I have donated thousands of man-hours to the people of the state and have shed my blood in hand to hand combat. I served in several different capacities including the Governor’s Authorized Representative for Communications with the United States President during both man made and natural disasters. So, in the light of the above: I believe I have earned the right to speak out on a vital matter of public concern regarding whether the Michigan State Police should move their headquarters to the so-called “Triangle Project” site in Lansing. Such a move is foolhardy and the majority members of the Michigan State Police are opposed to such a move. Below are some of the reasons why most State Police are opposed to the move, most reasons correspond to the old adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

1) The annual cost for maintaining the new building would far exceed current expenses.

2) The new building would ignore the Michigan State Police rich history. One of the main buildings on the compound is known by all state police officers as “Mapes Hall”. Corporal Mapes was shot to death outside Sturgis, Michigan when he tried to arrest a dope runner.

3) For decades recruits were trained to become troopers at the Michigan State Police compound.

4) For decades, the Operations Division on the compound controlled the State Blockade System to apprehend kidnappers, prison escapees, bank robbers and other felons.

5) I have not talked with a single former trooper who believes this move by the state police to downtown Lansing will better serve the people. Most believe the supporters of this plan have little or no concern for the troopers who must work in this building. For example, current personnel working at the headquarters can park at the compound free of charge. In addition, they do not have to pay Lansing City Income Tax. So this means that personnel assigned to the new building would actually receive a cut in take home pay if forced to move to the new headquarters building.

Employees have to be concerned about where records are stored in the new building because the building will be in a flood plain. This has happened before when the Court of Appeal records were damaged in the same area.

The supporters of this project claim it will provide jobs for 500 people. Are taxpayers being asked to support a version of the old WPA project? (The WPA stands for Works Progress Administration established under President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1930’s depression)

Let us remember these 500 jobs would be short term at best.

In the final analysis, we must ask ourselves, who really benefits from this move? It certainly is not the people of the State of Michigan. It isn’t the Michigan State Police, but it is obvious the Land developers stand to pocket the most by ridding themselves of property of questionable value during a time period of economic down turn in Michigan.

Since it appears some politicians, Representative Jones and Senator Brown are notable exceptions, are thumbing their noses at the citizenry of Michigan and are disregarding the wishes of the vast majority of Michigan citizens who are opposed to building the new state police headquarters in Lansing during these hard uncertain times.

Perhaps this is the appropriate time for a federal investigation into possible corruption

Earl James Lansing, MI

This is something the Governess has been proposing for a while, and I never understood the need for it, just like I never understood the need to move people out of the State Secondary Complex south of town into downtown Lansing. The tax angle makes it very plain, as a typical Democrat loves to make people pay more taxes. This is one they can impose without increasing rates. I'm sure Mayor Bernaro has his hands in this cookie jar!

Working in Information Technology as I do, we have to do a lot of planning for what is called "Disaster Recovery", that is, what to do when things break, fail, or are destroyed. Everything from recovering a deleted file to restoring you operations and systems in case of some natural disaster like a tornado or a flood which destroys your primary site. Think New Orleans and you'll understand the scope of things that need to be planned for because if you don't, your operation is dead.

It seems to me that in addition to the reasons Mr. James lists, having important command, control, and communication facilities scattered ("distributed" is the IT term we use) makes a lot more sense than having them concentrated as the Governess proposes. This goes to the point about the flood plain that Mr. James made - it's a single point of failure. That means that a single event can incapacitate or take out all of the facilities you might need to respond to a disaster.

So, it seems that once again, the Governess is looking for political points at the expense of prudent planning. The new headquarters, if built, will probably be named the Granholm Headquarters Complex.

Does she know Robert Byrd?

It's getting positively Nagin-esqe here in Michigan! Like we need that...