Tree Huggers .................................... 5
Economic Development .................. 4
City Taxpayers ................................. 0
above Ironwood Economic Scoreboard after Zoning Board Decision
photo above -same faces different table. Same controlling clique at every board
Ironwood - November 7, 2008

Wednesday evening there was a meeting of the Ironwood Zoning and Planning Board. The main object of the meeting was to vote on rezoning a parcel of land from open (no zoning) to Industrial. Local businessman Jerry Pisani has pursued 4 acres of land on the corner of Ayer and Bonnie where he wanted to build some storage buildings. Almost 2 years ago Mr. Pasani approached then Economic Development Director Pat Merrill buying some surplus land to build storage buildings. Mr. Merrill led Pasani to the parcel of land that was part of the land in question at Wednesday evening's meeting.
Unlike the Hovey speculators from down state, local businessman Pisani played by the rules and went through all the hoops and red tape required to buy the land. Month after month, Mr. Pisani came before the city council or the zoning board, only to be stonewalled.

It became very clear several months ago that Mr. Pisani who has already invested heavily in our community would never get the land. At that time Bruce Noren made it clear that he had a different vision for that acreage. Anyone who knows Noren knows he will get his way no matter how detrimental it could or would be to the city or it's taxpayers.

Now Bruce is obviously not the brightest light bulb in the room, but he is a very clever politician and a master parliamentarian. He has used every trick in the "Politician's Handbook of Dirty Tricks" when trying to kill the vote on the Civic Center Millage Issue. He also tried to stifle me at a Library Board Meeting. Bruce however, had forgotten which hat he was wearing that day. He tried to run the discussion as if he were the mayor wearing his all to familiar Tiara, but, he does not chair the board and cannot shut off debate. Failing to do shut me off he threaten the board with a loss of city tax revenue. When all was said and done, Noren wound up wearing his "Dunce Cap".

Mr. Pisani only requested the four acres on the southeast corner of the Ayer/ Bonnie Street intersections. Noren however had his puppets include many additional acres across the street from the land Pisani wanted. A clever parliamentary maneuver . It was there that the irrelevant walking trail would take on relevance.

Had the vote had been on the Pisani proposal the Tree Huggers would have a much harder time trying to use the trail as an excuse to vote down Mr. Pisani.

As, we all know, in spite of his poor showing as mayor, Noren was returned to office by the Unfriendly Friend$ of the Library. It was that same clique that he controls that did in poor Mr. Pisani Wednesday Night. The audience was packed with the scoundrels who do everything in their power to impose Noren rule on the rezoning vote.

The tree huggers used a proposed hiking trail to kill the Pisani project.

First speaker to bee heard was Kenneth S. Hazel who resides at 164 East Michigan. Told the board that he has resided in Ironwood for three years. He told the board that if they vote down Pisani's request and build the trail system instead, that hikers from all over the mid west will come Ironwood, fix up the blighted housing and that everyone's house values would rise we will all make money on our homes.
Let us hope that somewhere along the way, they will also fix the streets
Unfortunately, neither is likely if they keep killing off tax producing projects such as Mr. Pisani.

Perhaps because he's a Johnny-come-lately, Mr. Hazel doesn't realize that Ironwood Taxpayers have heard the "Build it and They Will Come" anthem many times. Many, many times.

Also speaking for the proposed 2000 mile trail system was Coleman Engineering employee, Lilly Palmer told the board that she moved here four years ago and now resides at 821 Cecilia Street. Lillie suggested that the board not to limit the parcels to one specific use, but to maintain the green space.

She told the board that in her opinion "Trail systems attract young people". She did not mention however, how those young people would find jobs, so they could pay the high taxes imposed by the city. Especially when businessmen such as Jerry Pisani who bring "Tax Paying" projects to the commission only to be turned away after two years of being jerked around by the idiots on the zoning board.

Also speaking out against Pisani was Tom Bergman who also came to Ironwood four years ago and now resides at 821 Celia Street.

Annette Burchell, who is chair person of the unfriendly friend$ of the library is also a member of the Parks and Recreation Committee, pointed out the beauty of the area.

She told the board that very few municipal areas are as lucky as Ironwood to have such a vast green space.

Mrs. Burchell is the wife of Bob Burchell a member of the city council. (same faces different table) Mr. Burchell is also the ex-officio council member to the zoning board. Prior to that he was a member of the zoning board doing Noren's dirty work. First allowing the Hovey down state speculators to build a tax free low-income housing development just down the street from where Pisani wanted to build his TAX PAYING storage facility! The Burchell's didn't care much about green space when it came to the Hovey speculators. In fact the Burchells who were foot soldiers for the "Consolidation" ballot issue didn't care about a shortage of school funding when their soulmates at the school board signed away their rights to school taxes. Yes, not only will Hovey pay no city taxes but they will also pay no school or county taxes.

Mr. And Mrs. Burchell used his position on the board to build another city tennis court on the tax free Hovey low income property. The $200,00 tennis courts would have been free to hovey but not the Ironwood Taxpayers would have had to ante up of more than $50,000 from taxes. Help! Where's Mr. Pisani? Paying taxes somewhere else.

This time around Jerry Pisani lost his attempt at investing in a rare Tax Paying project for Ironwood. The big losers Wednesday evening were the Ironwood Taxpayers.
 
 

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