Can you hear it? I can.
PONTIAC -- Thirteen years after sweeping into power, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson's ironclad grip on county politics may be loosening.
A vocal, determined group of Democrats on the Oakland County Board of Commissioners has been making life difficult these days for the outspoken executive, who is accustomed to getting his way with the GOP-controlled board. The Democrats held up a school contract for kids at the county's juvenile detention center in June, pushed for a county park in Oakland's southeast end, and are girding for a fight over plans to possibly close or privatize the county's nursing home.
"Our responsibility is to ask questions," said Commissioner Mattie Hatchett, D-Pontiac, during a heated committee meeting in June. "We are supposed to be a checks and balance for the executive branch and not rubber stamp things."
Patterson dismisses the faction as political grandstanders.
Some Democrats "will challenge, ridicule, undermine any proposal put forth by this administration," he said. "Not because it isn't a quality proposal, but because this is a Republican administration. And I resent it."
Karma is a bitch. Poor Brooks.