The spies who would like you to sponsor them

Ever since Michael Moore's movie Roger and Me, Flint, Michigan has not registered on the list of America's Joyous Top Ten.

So it's not strange, then, that the city of Flint is trying to find sponsors for its surveillance cameras.

Well, not very strange.

City officials have become somewhat excited by the success of a surveillance camera at a significant junction, on the corner of Cecil Drive and Jewel Drive. Now they want more.

(Credit: CC Glutnix)

But they claim they don't have enough money, even with the cash they seem to have accumulated from successful drug busts.

So they have hit on the notion that companies will want to have their logos or, who knows, even their messages ("Nike. Just Do It. 'Cept When You Shouldn't") on the outside of the surveillance cameras.

I am all for catching bad people. Or even good people who do bad things. But would I want one of my client companies so closely associated with the catching?

You see, the thought is open to all sorts of controversy and misinterpretation.

Marketing managers might want to choose which cameras they will sponsor. They might only want to be seen in the nicer areas. Which might mean that the nicer areas get all the cameras and the less nice areas get all their cameras stolen from their bedrooms.

And what if you're, say, Carl's Jr. and you sponsor a camera and then one of your restaurants gets held up by bad people? Won't you feel even worse than you would if someone found a human finger in one of your burgers?

It's one thing promising to quench a thirst, fill a craving or rush you with superhuman amounts of sugar so that you believe you're a helicopter. But putting your logo on a surveillance camera promises a rather higher level of success and security.

I am not sure any brand would feel it could really live up to that. And, at the time of writing, no one has yet taken up a sponsorship.

Maybe the folks at Enron would have done it once upon a time.

[Flint Expatriate]

You have to admit that Flint Mayor Don Williamson can be pretty entertaining. If only he were an oddball character on a sitcom, or a colorfully corrupt small-town mayor on The Sopranos or something. Sadly, he's in charge of a city that desperately needs competent leadership.

Flint has made the national news recently for all the wrong reasons. First there was the baggy pants "crack down." Then there was this adopt-a-surveillance camera debacle. You may be asking yourself what Williamson can do next to maintain his lofty status as Clown Prince of American Mayors?

Well, how about if the leader of a city with the worst economy in the nation issues a press release offering advice on how to eliminate high gas prices and save the entire the U.S. economy?

"Mayor Don Williamson today urged Gov. Jennifer Granholm to 'declare a state emergency' and eliminate state gasoline taxes," reports Joe Lawlor of The Flint Journal.

"Williamson, in a news release, also said the federal government should eliminate federal gasoline taxes, drill for oil in Alaska and offshore and create more oil refineries. Williamson said he believes gas prices will be reduced to $2.75 per gallon if those measure are taken, and the economy will improve."

Apparently, the mayor is unaware of just how much state and federal money from these gas taxes flows into Flint. Or that a chorus of economists has already determined that these measures wouldn't do much to lower prices and would probably hurt the economy in the long run.

But hey, given President Bush's track record, Williamson just might find a sympathetic ear in the White House.

For more on the mayor's hyjinks and a look at Flint as it battles deindustrialization, visit Flint Expatriates: a blog for the long-lost residents of Flint.
www.flintexpats.com

[ChrisMatyszczyk]

Thank you, Mr. Expatriate,
You have enlightened us. And it is instructive to know that those who leave Flint still somehow maintain their flinty solidarity.
I trust you emigrated to somewhere a little more sunny, but equally entertaining.

Chris

[eosjenna]

I don't think the business owners should be asked to pay for these cameras. If business owners are concerned with their security, they can get their own camera systems to monitor inside AND outside their business for much much cheaper than $30,000.