Detroit's Arrogance Harms Itself

Detroit deserves this. Despite what Jesse Jackson says, despite what the radicals within both the city and elsewhere think, Detroit deserves this. Detroit merits, such as it is, an emergency manger.

Detroit's leaders are pathetically territorial. That means that Detroit voters are pathetically territorial. Leave us alone, we'll fix it. Leave us alone, it'll be alright. In short, leave us alone.

But Detroit isn't alone. It is part of an entire state, an entire state which can be brought down if it does not think of the entire state. When Detroit has wanted help, it has appealed to the court of Michigan. It has said, we are a part of you, indeed, we are you. Don't touch us, should you violate who you are.

Yet, should that be true, should we and Detroit be the same, doesn't it work both ways? Should not Detroit think of the entire state?

Of course it should. Yet should it not, of whom does that speak ill: the state, or the city?

The Solvency Board Cometh

Mayor Dave Bing and the Detroit City Council are appalled at the plan Governor Rick Snyder has for their town: a nine member panel which would control Detroit's finances. It would allow the Mayor and the Council to keep their job jobs as chief executive and chief legislature, and that's about it.

To those who claim that it strips Detroit of its political representation, well, it hardly does that. Detroit elected officials stay in place, and they have a say in who gets appointed to the board. Mayor Bing and the Council in various combinations will select 6 of the 9 who will serve on the Board. Further, as cities are the subsets of the state and not independent entities of their own volition, then seeing as Detroiters still vote for their State Reps and the Governor they are most certainly not losing their right to select their elected officials.

Detroit has messed around for far too long and gets far too much from the State as it is for the city to have any real moral ground to cry foul. When even the Detroit Free Press editorializes that the Mayor and all should accept the plan, it speaks volumes about how bad off the City has become. It may be, as Stephen Henderson states in the Freep, an emergency manager under another name. But it has become necessary as Detroit leadership simply has not stepped up and done something about the crisis.

This situation cannot reasonably be painted as us against them, Detroit against the rest of Michigan. Detroit already gets more money per capita from Lansing than any other municipality in the State. The City has simply refused to make the tough calls necessary for solvency, and now it will pay the price. That's not tyranny. It's governing those who have displayed they can't govern themselves.

And it probably should have been done a long time ago.

Brown Has the Right Idea on Detroit Budget Woes

Detroit City council President Pro Tem Gary Brown has offered to have his Council expenditures cut by one-third. He believes that his colleagues and the Mayor's office could stand to do the same. If his numbers are right, and so far his numbers appear to have been better than even the Mayor's, then Detroit would be looking at a savings of around $6 million. That's not something which in itself will keep the City from bankruptcy. But it is an interesting first step.

Detroit Council members get perks beyond what many similarly placed officials do in the country. They can get a city car or a stipend of $600 per month if they don't take one. The Detroit Council's budget takes more financing than those of most other major cities. To be fair, most of the members are willing to take a 10% hit to their budgets. Mr. Brown believes that that's not enough.

His will certainly be an uphill battle. Other Council members are balking, one, Andre Spivey, asserts that a strong local legislative branch of government will save more money6 in the long run. But if that really were the case it is fair to ask why don't we have savings now? Bickering, on the part of every part of Detroit City Government, is perhaps the biggest reason why the City is facing a state takeover. It's the content of the institutions of government and not the institutions themselves which are the problem.

It's a bold move for Councilman Brown, and an easy one too, seeing as he ought to be pretty well of considering his victorious whistle blower lawsuit with the City. Still, it has merit, and should be supported. You can't ask thousands of others to bite the bullet if you won't either.

Given the nature of Detroit politicians, and emergency manager is probably in our future. Yet if a few more people thought like Gary Brown, it might just be avoidable.

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.

More Detroit Woes.

In yet another bizarre and unusual case involving an elected official of the City of Detroit, it came out in today's Detroit Free Press that Councilwoman JoAnn Watson paid a measly $98 in property taxes on her west side home this past year. The parcel of land the home sits on was listed as a vacant lot despite the fact that a house had been there since 1926.

Property taxes in that area are generally well over the $2,000 per year mark. You would think that anyone, particularly a member of the City Council, would have realized that a paltry tax bill ought to indicate that something was amiss. Ms. Watson explained that she thought perhaps the assessment had went down because of a tornado striking the house. Yet she could not herself remember when the twister might have hit it, and besides, how would the City Assessor's office know that it was a victim of mother nature seeing as she filed no claims over her humble abode against her homeowner's insurance nor called the City to report the damage?

I think that the average person would remember quite clearly when a tornado had struck their home. But I will allow that Ms. Watson may have thought little of the tax bill plummeting in this age of declining home prices. It is fair to ask ourselves too whether we would have reported the issue or simply went ahead and paid the tax and thought that it was just too bad for Detroit. Their mistake; I really don't have a problem with that on moral grounds, although it probably would be wiser to request that someone look into the issue.

Which again, to be fair, the Councilwoman is in the process of doing. Nevertheless, and fair or not, elected officials are more under scrutiny than most people. They should realize that things in their personal lives, even such relative trivialities as a property tax assessment, need to be order precisely so no one can accuse them of the slightest taint of malfeasance. With the circus atmosphere that has engulfed Detroit government the last few years, the City does not need yet another sideshow act. Especially one which did not have to go on.

Primadonna Monica

With Kwame Kilpatrick soon to be gone and Ken Cockrell, Jr. lined up to become mayor of Detroit, things should be looking up. Then comes the realization that Monica Conyers becomes president of our City Council, and optimism wanes.

Yes, the Monica Conyers who had the police called into a problem of some bizarre sort in Denver at the Democratic National Convention. The same primadonna Monica who, in a fit if rage, called Ken Cockrell 'Shrek', yet demands folks respect her. The same Monica Conyers married to that paragon of socialism, John Conyers. What did she do now?

She greeted the press outside of her office yesterday by saying, "You guys are evil."

Well, well. There's hope for her after all.