Hubris: Outgoing suburban Detroit city council votes itself free lifetime health care

Here is a lesson in hubris.

From the Detroit Free Press:

It's the kind of last-second, secretive move that politicians weren't supposed to do anymore — not with demands everywhere for government transparency.
Yet, old-time politicking seems alive and well in Warren.

The seven members of the Warren City Council on Sept. 10 voted themselves lifetime health care benefits, just before several members were to be term-limited off the board. The unanimous vote, for what critics call a golden parachute, would saddle taxpayers with untold future costs. But it wasn’t even on the night’s agenda.

And it was kept under wraps long enough to exceed the 72-hour limit for a mayoral veto, Mayor Jim Fouts declared Monday. The costly benefit was worded so as to apply to anyone who'd ever served on the City Council. That includes Fouts, who served 26 years on the council before being elected mayor, although he said he was adamantly opposed to the plan.

"I'm absolutely not going to implement this," Fouts said, almost shouting into the phone.