SOUTH HAVENBurr ousts Appleyard in mayoral race

Beware all ye who enter South Haven. The angry real estate developers are taking over the town. They had a tantrum when the recession occured, and Dorothy was the scapegoat. They are angry because they cannot behave like drunken pirates on a spending spree. I , for one, will enjoy watching them go down in flames when the promises they made will not come to pass. Fix the roads? there is no money. Create huge ugly waterparks? there is no money and no one will come.(Do the research, you fools.)
The state is cutting funds to South Haven and many other communities, i.e., the state is Broke.
Dorothy was honest. People dont like honesty, they prefer listening to empty promises like the ones that Burr pulled out of thin air.
Has he ever written a grant? does he even know what a grant is?
He made a lot of promises. He wont be able to keep them. Money does not grow on trees.
We have been thru lousy mayors before. we will survive this one. luckily, the recession will keep the developers from doing any more really huge damage. That is the blessing in disguise.
We will be watching you, Burr, and keeping you from harming this town .

Wasn't Burr the guy who complained because SH had a bad track record for getting grants? And yet isn't Burr the guy who wants to "develop" SH real estate all over the place (I hadn't heard about the water park...how ugly; and for whom?). Hmmmm....sounds hypocritical to ask for hand-outs in the form of grants and then turn around and expect natives to cough up $$ for real estate developers to build more big ugly McMansions that natives cannot afford to buy. I will be watching from afar with great interest as SH goes down in flames because of this guy and his cronies.

KyObserver wrote:

Wasn't Burr the guy who complained because SH had a bad track record for getting grants? And yet isn't Burr the guy who wants to "develop" SH real estate all over the place (I hadn't heard about the water park...how ugly; and for whom?). Hmmmm....sounds hypocritical to ask for hand-outs in the form of grants and then turn around and expect natives to cough up $$ for real estate developers to build more big ugly McMansions that natives cannot afford to buy. I will be watching from afar with great interest as SH goes down in flames because of this guy and his cronies.

I truly doubt he has EVER written a grant. its a very hard thing to do. I know of one person he contracted who told me his office NEVER sent her a 1099 form. Not very efficient, it seems.
Someone else told me he is planning on 'just asphalting the roads without fixing the sewers underneath , to save money...'

THAT would be a huge mistake, we have an antiquated sewer system and when Dorothy was in office she might have slowly fixed the roads, but she always made sure the infrastructure was in place (fixing the old sewer pipes by replacing them with new ones), so that future generations wouldnt be stuck with the problem.

Now, if he asphalts the roads and ignores the ageing pipes, he will only create MORE problems down the road (no pun intended).
Its the cheap way out and doesnt work.

He is also one of those responsible for our soaring utility bills now..20 percent increase to build a new water treatment plant! why?? because he and his cronies were not smart enough to figure out that all this development they are pushing and have been pushing would put a strain on the old plant. They could have foreseen this yrs ago and accomodated it, but no, they wait til its too late and then hurry up and raise our rates..he IS the head of the utility dept..

Yes, he's not too bright.

Did you two vote for Appleyard on Tuesday? Are you even residents of SH?

I don't want to squish your right to free speech and naturally, all opinions are welcome here, but come on. The guy didn't cause the problems that SH has now. Just because he's in real estate you automatically think he's going to destroy the town? The guy hasn't even had a chance to do anything yet and you are already blaming him. Let's see what he can do first. Not much great happened under the Appleyard regime and much of what you are complaining about can be traced back to her administration. And the one before it, too!

Let's face it. Things suck in MI right now. We've been through this before and weathered it. We'll weather it again. Much of the SH you seem to admire is a result of those earlier rebuilds after the doom.

Complaining doesn't help at all. If you really want to see things improve then get off your collective asses and get involved. Stop your armchair management and join a town committee or volunteer in some capacity. Do something productive to help make change.

P.S. I don't know Burr nor do I have any connection to him. Just thought I'd throw that in before you headed in that direction.:)

yes I live in south haven. I already volunteer. I am not worried about uncontrolled development, because no one has any money anymore. The recession is a blessing in disguise. Lame duck.

I will admit to being out of SH for 30 years. But I still own property there and I pay my taxes every year. I don't know how the older infrastructure is holding up, but I've tried to read as much as I can (even though there is no real daily newpaper there). It's my duty as a taxpayer to keep up with what's happening. I'm not going in any direction. I'm just an observer from afar who visits once or twice a year. I can assure you that if I still lived there I'd be an active participant. To be "fair and balanced" I'd like to know how much of the recent real estate development in SH area has contributed to the improvement of infrastructure for the city and outlying areas. I don't know the stats, but I'd like to. As for the new water intake/purification project, couldn't it have been planned a little ahead? Did anyone foresee the extra strain on the system? If not, why not? Does everyone wait for disaster to happen before they do something about it? please enlighten me.....thanks....from afar.

Burr and his accomplises put signage in vacant lots, empty properties and even had signage in the center of the turnabout at Maple Grove. It is clearly evident that those with money in South Haven wanted this guy to be mayor and it's the same politics that you see on the bigger stage. It stinks because it isn't based upon the truth and what's best for the full time residents of this town. It's all about money, greed and putting high end development ahead of everything else here. The "money" got who they wanted. I hope that these two years go by quickly so that we can get somebody with substance back in the mayor's seat instead of the puppet that we are going to have to endure for now.

Just clarifying - the fuss is that he put campaign signs in vacant lots?

Again, I'm not taking sides - just trying to sort it all out. While I agree that the signs are a terrible nuisance, that's also the kind of thing that volunteers do. I wish everyone asked permission but they just don't - especially if there isn't anyone to ask. Most people don't seem to care and if they do, they simply pitch the sign or call in to complain. I've also heard of the opponent taking signs and putting them in places they aren't welcome to cause a fuss. It all becomes so juvenile.

I guess I'm looking for something more solid that putting signs up where they don't belong.

The South Havener wrote:

Burr and his accomplises put signage in vacant lots, empty properties and even had signage in the center of the turnabout at Maple Grove. It is clearly evident that those with money in South Haven wanted this guy to be mayor and it's the same politics that you see on the bigger stage. It stinks because it isn't based upon the truth and what's best for the full time residents of this town. It's all about money, greed and putting high end development ahead of everything else here. The "money" got who they wanted. I hope that these two years go by quickly so that we can get somebody with substance back in the mayor's seat instead of the puppet that we are going to have to endure for now.

I dont think the real estate barons of the town will get too far with him. There are empty condos here, empty tracts of unbuilt homes, mcmansions in foreclosure..the recession bit them all in the butt. the era of condomania seems to be ending, thank god.

I am worried about the destruction of celery pond and what might be done in that area where wildlife abounds.

in the meantime, however, the recession will keep these developers at bay. hopefully.

I think the sign issue is that it seemed very obvious that every vacant home in the city (and that's about 60%) had a Burr for Mayor sign. This showed his support among the realtors and developers and vacation renter investors. But he obviously got the votes of people who actually live/vote in SH, probably because of his shout out that he would create jobs. Of course, no mayor can create jobs, duh. I know the man, he's a pompous guy with a big opinion of himself, considering he doesn't actually "do" anything, like run a business. He's just a good ol boy, a local cronie, a man's man. The larger issue of Burr's conflict of interest is in his property holdings in the contentious Dunckley St. area, where infighting over development is ongoing for a decade or more. I do not know how he thinks he can vote for development on property he owns (conflict? hello?), but we'll see what comes of this. The new council people are also development types, so it feels like there will be a siege on building should money become available for development.

I saw the burr for mayor signs everywhere, in front of empty lots. we had a small small voter turnout, sadly, it seems to me. a mans man..a , a delusion , eh?
there are no jobs here, save an occasional min wage clerk or retail job if you are lucky.
good old boys are in every town, I find them amusing until they do damage, so it is up to the townspeople to reign them in and train them to behave .
we do have gail patterson, who is brilliant and wonderful, on the council, and don bemis, who is intelligent and thoughtful, so lets keep our fingers crossed.
pomposity is usually a cover for insecurity.:)

The rules seem to be, that a conflict of interest is only applied to a vote if the person voting will directly gain personal income from the vote. The council, including the mayor , have to vote, otherwise. otherwise they can recuse themselves.

He has plainly been asked about the celery pond area and evaded the question. we shall see. we have a lot of people who are strongly opposed to destroying the pond with ugly, moronic development.

One of the reasons tourists come here is because of our beauteous wildlife and natural areas. Lets hope the developers dont ruin anymore than they have, and keep them from doing it.

the beauty of the celery pond, where blue herons live and thrive with other wild animals

lets not let the developers destroy it with their mall mentality

http://www.shwatchdog.org/archives/images/blu...

shdweller wrote:

the beauty of the celery pond, where blue herons live and thrive with other wild animals
lets not let the developers destroy it with their mall mentality
http://www.shwatchdog.org/archives/images/blu...

Gorgeous picture. So glad you value your wildlife!!

shdweller wrote:

the beauty of the celery pond, where blue herons live and thrive with other wild animals
lets not let the developers destroy it with their mall mentality
http://www.shwatchdog.org/archives/images/blu...

Too much has already been destroyed by greed.

Bon Voyage Ms Appleyard!

Humpty Dumpty wrote:

Bon Voyage Ms Appleyard!

Hey pal, you sat on a wall and fell. Now you are worthlessly in pieces. Ms. Appleyard is still better off than you are.

All Burr's horses and all Burr's men, cannot put South Haven back together again

SHite wrote:

All Burr's horses and all Burr's men, cannot put South Haven back together again

amen.
he will be a lame duck. lots of hot air and no substance.
Hopefully we can keep him from doing too much damage to the natural beauty that we have left here.

How can you sit back and complain about someone who has not even taken office yet? How many city council meetings do you attend to see the same items tabled month after month. The last meeting, Mayor Appleyard stated herself it was finally time to wrap up some of the projects that have been tabled far too long. If she were re-elected would the items still be put off till ???? Before you judge someone.... think about it.

I have seen them all, business owner. Dorothy has put a lot of thought into her decision making in the past. She does not make decisions about the city without doing her research and listening to her constituents first.
She is also not easily led around by the nose by real estate developers and carpetbaggers.