Gene LaFave wants to establish a school for entrepreneurs, eliminate the Traverse City Fire Department, cut the city budget by 50 percent, and slash your taxes. When Traverse, Northern Michigan's Magazine Publisher Deborah Wyatt Fellows once said in a public forum that people relocate here for quality of life, LaFave quipped, "I actually moved here to get rich."

No, he's not crazy. And no, he's not a politician. LaFave is a successful local business owner and land developer with a point of view. He successfully redeveloped the Milliken's building in downtown TC, and has since purchased several properties. Last year, his proposal to redevelop The Whiting Hotel was voted down by the TC City Commission, prompting him to promise he'd never again attend a public meeting. The Ticker sat down with LaFave to hear more.

What happened with your Whiting proposal? The Downtown Development Authority, Michigan Land Use Institute and Homestretch were in favor of it, you had the money, and you weren't asking for any local dollars. What went wrong?
Right. Basically four people killed the whole thing. The Commission didn't have to spend or guarantee a nickel; all they had to do was say OK. This was a gift to the city. We need affordable housing, and we had 50 units. I would have lost a million dollars over 10 years, but I was prepared to do it.

What did you learn from that situation?
The private sector can never trust the public sector. We're headed for a government-driven economy, where wealth has become vilified, and regulation has run wild. You're mostly dealing with people who – no matter how clear the facts are – still won't follow common sense and logic. I should have the freedom to be stupid and go broke if I want to.

So who are a few people you think would make good elected officials?
The list is long, let's see. Mark Eckhoff [market treasurer, Fifth-Third Bank in TC], Wayne Pahssen [west Michigan regional managing principal, Rehmann], Mike Anton [owner, Anton & Co. accounting] …Jody Bergman [vice president, estimating, Comstock Construction, TC city commissioner], Otto Belovich [owner, Cherry Capital Cadillac Subaru, Traverse Motors], Bob Brick [owner/broker, RE/MAX Bayshore], Mike Ascione [co-president, American Waste], Mike Buell [superintendent, St. Francis], either Rick Deneweth [partner, Three West commercial real estate] or Connie Denewith [CEO, Traverse City State Bank]. … The trouble is, when good people like these stay silent, you have a problem.

What do you make of the future of Traverse City?
I keep hearing people will always move here because it's beautiful, but I think we're in for a rude awakening. The most beautiful place in Michigan is in the northern Upper Peninsula, but you can't get a job there. And if nobody can get a job, nobody will live there. We're only as vibrant as the private sector, and I'm seeing the public sector sucking more and more revenue from the private sector, and eventually there's nothing left to suck out. I do business across the state and elsewhere, and this town is by far the most difficult place to get things done.

So what would Gene LaFave do about it?
I served on COFAC [a citizens' committee, active from 2007 to 2009, charged with recommending potential cost cuts in TC's city operations]. Just give me line item control of the budget, and I'll eliminate 50 percent. Citizens would not even notice after two years. Take the fire department. Their budget is $3.6 million, and compared to the four comparable cities we studied, we have doubled the number of firefighters and doubled the expenditures. Our town is eight square miles, and we have four legitimate fires per year. I'd save life and limb of course, but after that, it'd be cheaper to just let them burn and give the property owners the money to rebuild. We'd save a ton of money. So I'd cut the budget in half and merge the fire department with Metro.

I'd also look at city salaries. If you look at their entire salary, pension, medical … they're earning double the private sector for the same jobs. So we're paying taxes, and they're making more money than we are?

I'd invest in infrastructure, which always has a return on investment. So streets, sidewalks, infrastructure … and then economic development. My idea was to bring in 100 to 150 students to town for a one to two year entrepreneurship program where they learn technology, microbiology …and we build an angel network around them to fund their startups. All they have to do is keep their headquarters here for X number of years. We need to be a standalone economy from southeast Michigan and grow beyond just tourism. Tourists help our hotels, retailers and restaurants, but they're not as good as those people who stay and live here. We need to grow our own entrepreneurs.

So why not run for office?
Never. It's just just become a very difficult town to run in. You could lose your business or your personal life. Nothing is out of bounds for some media outlets. No thanks.