Free Republic

A German shepherd suspected in a series of vicious and unprovoked attacks on people in Pontiac this week died in a face-off with Oakland County Sheriff’s deputies in Auburn Hills early Friday, Eric D. Lawrence reports in the Free Press. The dog was one of two now-dead German shepherds that authorities said had terrorized residents and emergency workers Wednesday and Thursday. In one attack Thursday morning, the dogs bit and dragged a 56-year-old Pontiac woman down a city street. She was rescued by a passing motorist. The Oakland Press reports a sheriff’s deputy shot one of the dogs when both...

When General Motors shut down Pontiac, it left a lot of enthusiasts wondering why. It was primed with a lineup of powerful, rear-wheel drive models, and seemed like it had a bright future ahead of it. It turns out that GM killed it on government orders, according to former GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz.

The Michigan Education Association is demanding that the Pontiac School District pay in full $7.8 million it owes the Michigan Education Special Services Association by the end of July despite a judge ruling the district has 10 years to pay off the debt. This comes as the state reviews the finances of the Pontiac School District to see if an emergency manager should be put in charge because the district has seen its deficit quadruple to $37.7 million since 2009. According to a Michigan Department of Education memo dated May 20, Pontiac’s state aid was threatened to be withheld because...

Shortly after Barack Obama won reelection in November, New Jersey governor Chris Christie pointed out that Republicans’ cloudy political prospects had a bright silver lining. “One of the reasons you have 30 Republican governors in America, and why we’re the only organization to add Republican strength,” Christie said, “is because people see us getting things done.” Christie’s stance countered most of the elite postelection commentary, which gleefully pronounced the Republican Party’s political irrelevance. But the governor was right. Since Obama first took office in 2008, Republicans have picked up a net nine governorships, bringing their total to 30 states,...

Video 25:46 First half: discussion about Governor Jennifer Granholm and her connection to tax funded Hollywood film studio scam in Pontiac MI Second half: Matt Taibbi

PONTIAC, Mich. — Even the great and powerful Oz could not save the film studio that was supposed to save this town. The studio, a state-of-the-art facility fit for Hollywood blockbusters, had risen from the ruins of a General Motors complex here. It was the brainchild of a small group of investors with big plans: the studio would attract prestigious filmmakers, and the movie productions would create jobs and pump money into the local economy. A glamorous sheen would rub off on this down-on-its-luck town. But in Pontiac, happy endings do not usually come Hollywood-style. The tale behind the studio,...

Talk about bureaucratic red tape. Try dealing with 87 different government union health insurance plans. That was one of the headaches Lou Schimmel faced when he became emergency manager for the city of Pontiac. The city now has one plan and will save millions by consolidating, which would have been nearly impossible without the state's emergency manager law. "Every union had their own negotiated health plan with either no or low deductibles and co-pays,” said John Naglick, Pontiac's finance director. "These plans had been negotiated over the years. An employee who retired under a certain health plan expected to be...

Gerald McEntee had Michigan on his mind in June when he delivered his final address as president of the nation’s largest public employee union. “Our sisters and brothers in Michigan are on the front lines in the next critical battle,” McEntee told the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. He declared that the imperative was “defeating Governor Rick Snyder's anti-worker and anti-American emergency manager’s bill. These managers are local dictators who rip up union contracts.” Focusing on an emergency manager bill in one state might seem an unlikely valedictory for a legendary labor leader who has served his...

It’s been called the Woodward Loop and Wide Track Drive. It’s also been cited as the reason for downtown Pontiac’s struggle to survive, circling traffic around local merchants and restaurants. Oakland County planners are trying to figure out ways to attract traffic into downtown Pontiac, rather than have traffic diverted around the downtown district. The public is invited to attend a meeting with local government officials, planners, residents and business owners to discuss how to fix what many argue has become a barrier for the neighborhoods and surrounding communities. Funding for the effort was through a $300,000 Sustainable Communities Challenge...

According to The Detroit News, former Gov. Jennifer Granholm made a deal with a group of wealthy and politically connected individuals in Oakland County to use state pension funds to guarantee $18 million they borrowed to set up a film studio in Pontiac, essentially making the pension fund the “co-signer” on the loan. The “business model” for this studio was completely dependent on another of Gov. Granholm’s corporate welfare schemes, a subsidy program that paid up to 42 percent of film producers’ Michigan expenses. No reputable economist has ever defended these subsidies, which are pure “political development” programs, not economic...

To get to city hall, you drive up I-75, past the empty Silverdome where the Detroit Lions used to play, and into a nondescript concrete municipal building. The city clerk was laid off a few days ago, but the door to her office hangs open. The mayor, Leon Jukowski, gives me a brief tour of the desks where people no longer work. Cubicles sit empty, little tchotkes and calendars left behind when their owners were laid off. “At one time we had 800, 900 city employees,” says Jukowski. “We have 150 now. And we have the same services that we...

Federal bailout funding may have prevented General Motors from going through a normal bankruptcy process, but it has come at a significant price in terms of reputation and potential buyers. Fifty percent (50%) of American adults are less likely to buy a GM car because of the bailout. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds just four percent (4%) are more likely to buy from the company that critics refer to as Government Motors. Forty-two percent (42%) say the bailout has had no impact on their buying plans one way or the other. The flip side of the data...

The great recession hit the automotive industry hard — so hard in fact — five famous auto brands ceased to introduce any more cars. Most of these brands were axed after Rick Wagoner, then CEO of GM, was asked to step down at the behest of the Obama administration (See: Government Forces Out Wagoner at GM). For many brand-loyalists, the fall of these brands represent a sad day — watch the videos for first hand testimony and interviews. VIEW THE FIVE CAR BRANDS...

DETROIT – Pontiac, whose muscle cars drag-raced down boulevards, parked at drive-ins and roared across movie screens, is going out of business on Sunday. The 84-year-old brand, moribund since General Motors decided to kill it last year as it collapsed into bankruptcy, had been in decline for years. It was undone by a combination of poor corporate strategy and changing driver tastes. On Oct. 31, GM's agreements with Pontiac dealers expire.

After 84 years, General Motors officially says goodbye forever today to Pontiac. No more Bonnevilles. No more Firebird Trans Ams. No more GTOs.

DETROIT — Pontiac, the brand that invented the muscle car under its flamboyant engineer John Z. DeLorean, helped Burt Reynolds elude Sheriff Justice in “Smokey and the Bandit” and taught baby boomers to salivate over horsepower, but produced mostly forgettable cars for their children, will endure a lonely death on Sunday after about 40 million in sales. It was 84 years old. The cause of death was in dispute. Fans said Pontiac’s wounds were self-inflicted, while General Motors blamed a terminal illness contracted during last year’s bankruptcy. Pontiac built its last car nearly a year ago, but the official end...

If there’s one constant in this world, it’s this: We live in a world of constant flux. In the automotive world, however, we’ve all grown accustomed to seeing the same group of manufacturers introduce new models each year. You know the names. But for the 2011 model year—thanks largely to the huge economic downturn that began in late 2008—four well-known American nameplates have gone the way of the Edsel, so to speak...

1. 2009 G8 GXP 2. 1964 GTO 3. 2010 G8 ST 4. 2009 Solstice GXP Coupe 5. Bonneville 6. 1969 GTO "Judge" 7. 1978 Trans Am 8. 2002 Trans Am WS6 9. 1956 Star Chief 10. 1988 Fiero GT

G.M. to Close Hummer After Sale Collapses NICK BUNKLEY February 24, 2010 DETROIT — Hummer, the brand of big sport-utility vehicles that became synonymous with the term “gas guzzler,” is being shut down after a deal to sell it to a Chinese manufacturer fell apart, General Motors said Wednesday. G.M. said only that its planned sale of Hummer to the Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machines Company “cannot be completed,” without giving a reason, but the $150 million deal had been stalled as the companies awaited approval from the Chinese government. G.M. had been trying to sell Hummer for a year,...

PONTIAC, Mich., Feb. 2 (UPI) -- Authorities in Michigan said a man was hospitalized with second-degree burns when his homemade sledding rocket pack exploded. The Oakland County Sheriff's Office said the 62-year-old Independence Township man constructed a backpack from a motorcycle muffler filled with gasoline and gunpowder and put on a motorcycle helmet before sledding down his back yard hill with the fuse lit, the Detroit Free Press reported Tuesday. "At some point during the ride, the device exploded," Undersheriff Mike McCabe told The Detroit News. "Apparently, he has this sledding party every year, and he always does outrageous things...