Madonna
People are sensitive about their cities.
Brian McCollum reports that Rochester Hills Mayor Bryan Barnett didn't care for Madonna's remarks about his city on the Howard Stern Show and has responded with an open letter to the star.
Madonna told Stern that she felt like an "outsider" growing up in the "all-white" suburb after her family's time in Pontiac.
"I felt like they were members of country clubs and they had manicures and they wore nice clothes, and I didn't fit in," she said. "I felt like a country bumpkin."
Well, the Freep writes that the mayor published what he called an open letter to the pop star on Monday.
"It's like someone calling one of your kids ugly," Barnett told the Free Press. "You're not going to let that go by without a response."
In his letter, the mayor talked about Rochester Hills' Blue Ribbon-certified schools, cultural diversity and economic strengths, the Freep writes.
"We are growing in many ways including in our economic, racial, and religious diversity," his letter stated. "We are home to one of the largest mosques in metro Detroit and the largest Albanian Catholic church in the world outside of Albania. We have a growing senior population with a vibrant college town feel. In fact, these are just some of the factors Money Magazine used to select Rochester Hills as one of the top ten best places to live in America."
What the mayor doesn't mention is that the Rochester Hills of today is different than the one Madonna talks about from many years ago.
