Detroit Politics: the Same Old Same Old, Even Older

The Detroit Common Council has snubbed Mayor Dave Bing. Or, rather, he has snubbed them. Well, somebody has snubbed somebody, anyway.

The city purchased the old MGM Grand Casino for $6.3 million dollars last summer, and the plan was that the building would be re-purposed into a multiple use facility housing police, fire, and EMS personnel while also having a state of the art crime lab under the Michigan State Police. The Council's problem with that is that the bond request to pay for the changes are $37 million over the cost of the work.

Yet the action comes on the heels of Mayor Bing filing a lawsuit to limit the Council's on air time over the two public access channels the City controls. The Council wants to be on air more than the two days per week the Mayor favors, up to two-thirds of the broadcast schedule. The Mayor says that extra $37 million was earmarked for future building, all of which would have to be approved by the Council.

Quite frankly, the whole thing sounds petulant. If that is the case, then it can only demonstrate to rest of Michigan that Detroit is still not particularly willing to act in its own best interests. So long as this type of infighting remains a part of how the city does business it will never rebound. The next time the city starts to point fingers at the presumed animosity the rest of the state has for it, it would do well to remember that when you point at another, three fingers point back at you.