The statists of Grand Rapids get all sad over their portrayal

Courtesy the Grand Rapids Press

Last week the Grand Rapids Press ran a story about how the city of Grand Rapids is looking to hire a parks director at the rate of around $50 per hour, pursuant to the $4.4 million annual tax increase passed earlier this month for parks. The story was accompanied by several photos of the tax increase's supporters partying it up at an election-night party after they learned the tax increase passed. They were so excited to be extracting an additional $4.4 million from the residents of Grand Rapids, to cover the fact that they gave away the farm over pensions decades ago, that they broke out the champagne.

The local statists of Grand Rapids weren't so pleased that they were portrayed as getting all excited about raising taxes and spending other people's money on overpaid bureaucrats. So they complained bitterly about it on facebook.

Wah wah!

Keep in mind that these are the same folks who were very upset earlier in the year when another of their facebook conversations was exposed as they were gloating about how they were successful in preventing a private landowner and job creator from expanding his business. The business owner didn't fit within their "plan" for the city:

“Ain't nobody tearing down buildings on Lyon! Martha's request is denied!” Josh Leffingwell posted on the salon urbanist meetup page after the Thursday, July 12, vote.

Anyways, back to the story. Apparently these folks have enough pull at the "conservative" Grand Rapids Press that they were successful in getting the party photos removed from the original parks director article! You'll notice that the article now features lovely generic photos of children playing on park equipment. For your reference, we saved a screenshot of the original article here.

We're not really surprised. The Grand Rapids Press hasn't met a tax increase it didn't love and consistently supports the political establishment elite of Grand Rapids whenever they want to increase spending, taxes, or bigger government. But hey, when these local statists get called out by the rare article showing who they are, they go crazy and claim that the GR Press is "conservative." LOL.