MSU is my alma mater. The Nassar thing was disgusting, horrifying, embarassing. Putting this POS at the top of the university doesn’t improve things. I still hate Engler for all of the shit stuff he did while gov and was overjoyed that he was term-limited out of office (particularly satisfying because he wrote a thesis about why the job should be term-limited and then was too embarassed to fight his own words).
On behalf of many other alumni/alumnae I apologize for them both.
Engler was a horrible Governor. He took a healthy economic environment under Blanchard and like all Republicans, emptied our rainy day funds in the state to virtually nothing and began privatizing anything that couldn’t be nailed down. He also tried to thwart the unions. I see someone’s been updating his Wikipedia page mighty quick now that he’s been selected. Not much is written under his Governorship for someone who was in office for three lousy terms. Granholm spent years trying to get the legislature to fund public works projects following Engler’s tenure but was stymied by the Republicans in the legislature at every turn.
There is this entry in Wikipedia though they haven’t yet scrubbed:
At the end of his final term, Engler and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality allowed DOW Chemical to dump ten-times the legal limit of Dioxin in the Tittabawassee River, creating an environmental disaster that allowed massive amounts of Dioxin to seep into the Tittabawassee River flood plane, the river itself, the Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay, with the contaninent marching towards Lake Huron. Saginaw River sampling in 2007 revealed levels as high as 1,600,000 ppt TEQ. There was never an oversight hearing prior to the Dioxin dump and no legal action against former or current Michigan government officials has been brought up.
MSU is a premiere place for agricultural studies and the environment. Shame to have such an environmental disaster such as Engler in charge running the place, polluting up space that could be given to someone a lot more qualified. He has no background in education either.
Well, I see they’re off to good start too…
https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2018/01/30/faculty-leaders-threaten-no-confidence-vote-if-engler-appointed-interim-president/1081250001/
Yeah, he sucks.
There was an old quarry on the Little Traverse Bay near Petoskey that many (including my brother who’s a fisheries biologies with the DNR) wanted to have declared a state lakeshore as it provided good habitat for fish. Engler privatized all five miles of lakeshore and sold it for peanuts to a bunch of cronies. They started a “luxury” resort, which never really took off like it should have, and then it turns out that the condos are built on some “cliffs” left from the quarrying, which are now subsiding. Wrecked the environment and didn’t even live up to expectations. Suckered a lot of folks in, though.
I mentally spit on Engler every time I drive by when I am back visiting my folks who live in the area.
I love it up there. Petoskey State Park is one of my all time favorite State Parks. Collected a lot of petoskey stones along that lakeshore over the years. Shame to hear they screwed another area for private profit only to go bust.
If you’ve been up there in the past 20-some years, you’ve driven by the place I mean (south shore of Little Traverse). Hasn’t really gone bust, but there are many, many, many empty lots even today. More limping than successful.