Should Detroiters Bother to Vote Tomorrow?

There is a primary election in Detroit tomorrow, and it may be either the most or least important one in the city's history.

Seeing as Detroit is under the power of Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr and the people running for mayor and city council will be virtually powerless for at least the first year or so of their terms, any election right now seems unimportant. Even when they get real power, the bankruptcy which Detroit is facing may well determine what they can and cannot do for a few years after that. About the only really interesting aspect of the vote is Mike Duggan's write in candidacy for mayor. It would be an interesting side note to our history should he pull that off successfully.

Too, for the first time Detroiters will get to vote for council members by district, with two others elected at large. It is hope that, in the long run, this will give more power to the city's neighborhoods. That does make sense, but only time will tell.

ll that said, we can't shake the feeling that tomorrow's primary is a pointless endeavor. Why not wait until the EM is gone and save Detroit that much cash in salaries and benefits? But we may be missing something important with that question and will not insist upon it.

So, go ahead and vote. We suppose it must be worth something or they wouldn't be holding and election, right?

Detroiters Deserve Bankruptcy

The whole situation is a mess. Detroit has become the largest city to declare bankruptcy, and outside of actually trying to set a better course, everything is wrong about it. People voting for people whom they expect to be given everything, that's wrong. Politicians buying off unions with money rather than standing up to them, that's wrong. Retirees looking at losing significant parts of their pensions, that's wrong. All the urban blight within the city limits, caused, not by so many people fleeing to the suburbs as by their flight caused by inept and downright hateful political leaders, that's wrong. Citizens, the ones who took their vote seriously anyway but stood by Detroit now faced with what is at least a momentarily bleaker situation, that's wrong. Big spending Democrats who ran the city for years without regard for the future as though Lansing or Washington held moral imperatives to bail Detroit out eventually, that's wrong. Some folks are getting a necessary comeuppance, to be sure, but this whole thing is wrong. And it really all began with the voters, the people of Detroit themselves. At least, that is, the unthinking ones who voted this disease upon themselves. What's sad is, they won't learn. And that's the real wrong above all the others. The second Detroiters get a chance to govern themselves again, it will happen all over again. All of it. Make these words.