Gov. Rick Snyder plans to announce Friday whether he will appoint an emergency manager for Detroit but likely won't immediately name the person if he does, Mayor Dave Bing said.
Bing, who spoke with Snyder by phone earlier in the day, signaled the Republican governor had decided to take the extraordinary step of choosing an independent overseer to confront the city's $327 million budget deficit and $14 billion in long-term debt.
He stopped short of confirming the decision, saying the announcement was Snyder's to make.
"Everybody's got a pretty good idea of what the announcement will be," Bing said.
Speaking briefly to reporters Thursday afternoon from Lansing, Snyder only said that no specific individual would be announced during a forum he scheduled for mid-day Friday to discuss the city's financial situation. If he agrees that a financial emergency exists, which he is expected to do, there would be an appeals process, he said.
This has been a HUGE topic for us Michiganders. Southerners (Michigan southerners) are pretty pissed about it, while Northerners are generally acceptant of it. We're (northerners) pretty pissed about Detroit continually dragging the state down and we feel it's beyond time extraordinary measures be taken over the issue.
I'm not aware of anything like this ever really being used before. Does anyone else know if it has, and has it been succesful?
When a city or a school district in Michigan runs out of money, the state can appoint an emergency manager to take over the responsibilities of locally elected officials. An emergency manger’s powers are broad—made even more so this year – and are designed to help EMs balance the books and return governance to locally elected officials as quickly as possible.
Today, there are four cities and one school district under the control of an emergency manager:
Benton Harbor
Ecorse
Flint
Pontiac
Detroit Public Schools
This is the second time around for Flint, which had an “emergency financial manager” from 2002-2006. The cities of Detroit and Inkster and Benton Harbor Public Schools could soon be added to this list.
1. What can an emergency manager do?
An emergency manager can:
Hire/fire local government employees
Renegotiate, terminate, modify labor contracts with state treasury approval
Sell, lease, or privatize local assets with state treasury approval
Revise contract obligations
Change local budgets without local legislative approval
Initiate municipal bankruptcy proceedings
Hire support staff
An emergency manager cannot raise taxes.
2. Then and now: Emergency financial managers vs. emergency managers
Michigan’s emergency management system has been in place since 1988, when Public Act 101 allowed an emergency financial manager to assess and manage the finances of Hamtramck.
PA 101 was strengthened in 1990, when Public Act 72 gave state government the power to appoint “emergency financial managers” to local government units—such as towns, school districts, or counties—nearing bankruptcy.
Emergency financial managers became “emergency managers” when their powers were strengthened by Public Act 4 in 2011.
The more powerful emergency managers (EMs) can now strip locally elected officials of their power and they can renegotiate, alter, or void union contracts before they expire.
According to Joe Harris, Benton Harbor’s emergency manager, Public Act 4 effectively removes power from local, elected officials once an EM is appointed.
Harris told Michigan Radio in May that, “the only authority that they can have is the authority that's provided to them, or is given to them by the emergency manager.”
Under Public Act 4, past emergency managers have removed the legislative powers of elected officials, suspended their pay, fired city officials, and imposed pay cuts that violate union contracts.
Public Act 4 overrides Public Acts 101 and 72, which are no longer in effect.
Emergency manager decisions are approved by the State Treasurer—the same office that appoints EMs.
3. Emergency management as an alternative to bankruptcy
The emergency management system in Michigan is a bankruptcy workaround.
Municipalities have been able to file for bankruptcy since 1937, a last ditch option for towns that can’t raise taxes to pay off their debt.
Declaring bankruptcy allows local government units to void contracts, restructure debt, and adjust payroll obligations, such as pensions.
Michigan, like most states, requires state approval for a municipality to declare bankruptcy.
When a person defaults on their loans, it destroys their credit rating. The same is true of cities.
By appointing an emergency manager, the state essentially puts a “financially distressed” city or school district into state receivership. It gives state officials many of the special powers granted during bankruptcy proceedings without ruining a district’s credit rating.
An emergency manager can make drastic changes to contracts seen as unsustainable - costs such as union contracts, pensions, and other existing contractual obligations.
These options, powers given to EMs by Public Act 4, are unavailable to local officials.
4. How is an emergency manager appointed?
Towns deemed to be in financial distress go through a review process before they are put under emergency management.
The initial review can be triggered by a failure to pay debts or employee salaries, It can be requested by residents or local officials. And the State Senate, the State House of Representatives, and State Treasurer may also initiate a review.
If any problems are found, the Governor can request a second review before deciding to appoint an emergency manager.
The Local Emergency Financial Assistance Loan Board, which includes the State Treasurer, makes the appointment.
It was announced on Friday that Detroit will undergo a preliminary financial review.
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and the Detroit City Council say the city doesn’t need state intervention, and some analysts have suggested that bankruptcy is Detroit’s best option.
5. How long does an EM serve for?
EM’s serve without term limits and appointments are controlled by the Loan Board. The exception is school districts, where emergency managers serve 1 year terms and may be reappointed.
6. Major legal challenges to Michigan’s EM law
Michigan Forward is currently circulating a ballot initiative petition to repeal Public Act 4. They have collected 157,000 of the 162,000 signatures required by March 2012 to get the question on the November 2012 ballot.
If the petition is approved, PA 4 will be suspended until the November 2012 vote.
The Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice has filed a lawsuit on behalf of voters saying the emergency manager law violates separation of powers and their right to self-government. Governor Snyder took an unusual step and asked the Michigan Supreme Court to issue an expedited ruling on the case. These cases normally work their way through lower courts before reaching the State Supreme Court. Snyder said the severe financial difficulties facing local governments and school districts require that the questions of constitutionality be resolved quickly. The State Supreme Court has asked for more information from those involved before deciding whether or not to hear the case.
U.S. Congressman John Conyers sent a letter last week to Attorney General Eric Holder, requesting a review of Michigan’s EM law with respect to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which protects minorities from discriminatory voting and representation practices. “In this case, while the law itself may be facially neutral, it would seem that it is being applied in a discriminatory fashion, as the impacted jurisdictions have very high proportions of African Americans and other minorities,” writes Conyers.
If Detroit is appointed an emergency manager, 49% of African Americans in Michigan will be living in cities run by EMs.
The letter also invokes Article 4, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees democratically elected representatives.
7. Beyond Michigan
So far, Michigan has been setting its own precedent for emergency management.
The state’s emergency manager process looks a lot like New York City’s Municipal Assistance Corporation, established in 1975 to manage the city’s debt crisis.
One of the earliest state-appointed financial management groups, the MAC functioned as emergency managers do now; overseeing the budget, managing loan procedures, and restructuring personnel to reduce payroll spending.
In Michigan, however, it’s not an oversight board, it’s one person.
While many states now have provisions on the books for the emergency management of local finances, few explicitly grant those powers to individual EMs in the same way PA 4 (2011) does.
The argument for having one manager is expediency and concentrated accountability—that a financial crisis demands flexible and responsive leadership.
The largest district taken over by the state was Flint in 2002 (the city’s population is now lower).
With seven times as many people, Detroit, now under a preliminary financial review, presents an entirely different challenge.
Gov. Rick Snyder plans to announce Friday whether he will appoint an emergency manager for Detroit but likely won't immediately name the person if he does, Mayor Dave Bing said.
Bing, who spoke with Snyder by phone earlier in the day, signaled the Republican governor had decided to take the extraordinary step of choosing an independent overseer to confront the city's $327 million budget deficit and $14 billion in long-term debt.
He stopped short of confirming the decision, saying the announcement was Snyder's to make.
"Everybody's got a pretty good idea of what the announcement will be," Bing said.
Speaking briefly to reporters Thursday afternoon from Lansing, Snyder only said that no specific individual would be announced during a forum he scheduled for mid-day Friday to discuss the city's financial situation. If he agrees that a financial emergency exists, which he is expected to do, there would be an appeals process, he said.
This has been a HUGE topic for us Michiganders. Southerners (Michigan southerners) are pretty pissed about it, while Northerners are generally acceptant of it. We're (northerners) pretty pissed about Detroit continually dragging the state down and we feel it's beyond time extraordinary measures be taken over the issue.
I'm not aware of anything like this ever really being used before. Does anyone else know if it has, and has it been succesful?
Interesting. What prevents a city/school from returning to it's pre-manager state after the works are done?
I equate it to the show "Kitchen Nightmares" where chef Ramsey comes in to a dying restaurant and revitalizes the place and starts bringing in business again, but the funny thing about that show is that a majority of the businesses he helps still go out of business.
Manchu wrote: To put a finer point on it, can you think of a dictator that could fix what sucks about Detroit?
Sure you can. Where there's a will there's a way. 10,000 troops driving everyone from the city followed by a second wave burning everything to the ground + 1,000,000 tree seeds = PROFIT. Return Detroit to nature. Problem, solution.
Rented Tritium wrote: I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of the state appointing a dictator for a city and dissolving a legally elected government.
Manchu wrote: You say some really gakky things sometimes.
What? Everything is possible with the proper will. And you did ask what a dictator could do. Frankly thats just making the inevitable happy more quickly and humanely. Detroit is dying like ten thousand other ghost towns in the US. As time changes people move. Detroit is no different.
Or just dissolve the government and do nothing. People will leave for new productive areas (the burbs or other cities) as they are doing now. Frankly a big gigantic road trip to the auto plants in Tennessee is just the ticket.
I think there's some truth to it. They need to encourage people to leave. Scatter the residents of detroit across the other cities in the region and de-city the place. Once it shrinks enough, it can become a regular old small town and maybe grow back up naturally with new industries.
Rented Tritium wrote: I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of the state appointing a dictator for a city and dissolving a legally elected government.
Detroit really sucks, though.
Yeah, it seems a bit... unamerican.
Hey, you guys decided to dissolve your legally appointed government when you switched your jackets to blue instead of red... there is nothing more American than stabbing your rulers in the back
Rented Tritium wrote: I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of the state appointing a dictator for a city and dissolving a legally elected government.
Detroit really sucks, though.
Yeah, it seems a bit... unamerican.
Well except for the native Americans...
As I noted, alternatively just shut it down and let it die. Towns die all the time. New ones are born and grow. We who grew up in the West know about this. LA, Houston, Dallas, were tiny in 1920. Then they boomed. Eventually they will bust. It is the way of things. There are plenty of dead towns all across the west. Former gold rush or oil rush towns that have dried up or nearly so. Drive I59 or Route 66.
Diboll, Texas on the other hand, thats eternal.
"I lost my eyeball in Diboll" -Frazzled driving ditty.
Frazzled wrote: As time changes people move. Detroit is no different.
Seriously, you really can't see what's wrong with you treating the actual people that live in Detroit like they don't exist?
OK. 1. You asked what a dictator could do. Don't jump on my back when you asked the question. A real dictator would wall it up and move on. I'm being benevolent. 2. Going the alternate benign neglect strategy whats the problem? Its going to fail no matter what. Treat it like a rural county with rural services demunicipalize (hah new word!) it. I mean come are you going to prop up every town in America? I know about 50 boom towns in Texas we'd have to go back and give billions to.
It's easy to destroy detroit and still treat them like people.
Just give anyone who moves out of detroit, but stays in michigan some kind of stipend for X years or a huge tax credit or priority enrollment for their kids in better schools or something.
Basically buy out as many as you can, the rest can live in the smaller and less crappy detroit.
Frazzled wrote: 1. You asked what a dictator could do. Don't jump on my back when you asked the question. A real dictator would wall it up and move on. I'm being benevolent.
Actually, I asked if you could think of a dictator who could actually rehabilitate Detroit. You know, is there actually a person who could do it. Your response was the only solution to Detroit is to destroy it. So you didn't answer or even attempt to answer my question. And there's nothing at all benevolent about your comment.
Frazzled wrote: 2. Going the alternate benign neglect strategy whats the problem? Its going to fail no matter what. Treat it like a rural county with rural services demunicipalize (hah new word!) it.
And what are you going to do with the 700,000 people who live there?
Rented Tritium wrote: It's easy to destroy detroit and still treat them like people.
Just give anyone who moves out of detroit, but stays in michigan some kind of stipend for X years or a huge tax credit or priority enrollment for their kids in better schools or something.
Basically buy out as many as you can, the rest can live in the smaller and less crappy detroit.
See there you go. Judging from the unemployment just offer them a stable job. Thats why we always had to move and I'm not working in one city with my family in another because I like to live in hurricane zones.
Rented Tritium wrote: Just give anyone who moves out of detroit, but stays in michigan some kind of stipend for X years or a huge tax credit or priority enrollment for their kids in better schools or something.
First, The reason for suspending democracy in the first place is because Detroit is supposedly a drain on the rest of Michigan's economy. Subsidizing mass immigration is not a solution. Second, you seem to be pretending that nothing at all is going on in the city. There are jobs there. There is industry. There is are people who have livelihoods.
Funny enough, Frazzled himself already posted the most fitting analogy to this attitude -- the US government's treatment of Native Americans.
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Frazzled wrote: Judging from the unemployment just offer them a stable job.
EDIT: then what would you counsel Manchu? If the city is dying you don't want bonuses for people to leave so it can become manageable. What would you do governor Manchu?
If detroit is so much of a drain that we're even TALKING about suspending democracy, then paying off the residents to leave might actually be a net positive.
That's a point of debate. Not everyone actually agrees that democracy must be suspended in Detroit. The anti-labor, white Republican governor of Michigan represents the people who do -- and that's not everyone.
Manchu wrote: That's a point of debate. Not everyone actually agrees that democracy must be suspended in Detroit. The anti-labor, white Republican governor of Michigan represents the people who do -- and that's not everyone.
Cool. Leave it alone then. Being as none of us are from Detroit, lets all watch this live action TV episode of watching a city die. Doesn't bug me one way or another.
Manchu wrote: That's a point of debate. Not everyone actually agrees that democracy must be suspended in Detroit. The anti-labor, white Republican governor of Michigan represents the people who do -- and that's not everyone.
Cool. Leave it alone then. Being as none of us are from Detroit, lets all watch this live action TV episode of watching a city die. Doesn't bug me one way or another.
The problem there is that the city affects the state as a whole. Which is kind of an issue for those of us who live here. It's a local problem, though, so non-locals apathy is understandable.
Personally I don't care anymore. I'm just waiting for the first chance to jump ship and swim to safety like the rat I am
Speak for your goddamn self. The OP is from MI. I myself lived in south eastern MI including Detroit for a number of years. if you don't give a gak about the city and aren't from there and never lived there and have no friends or family there, then maybe it's you who shouldn't be posting about "letting it die."
Speak for your goddamn self. The OP is from MI. I myself live in Southwestern MI including Detroit for a number of years. if you don't give a gak about the city and aren't from there and never lived there and have no friends or family there, then maybe it's you who shouldn't be posting about "letting it die."
Curious... what do you think should be done?
There's homes there that is cheaper than my backyard shed.
I have no fething clue, honestly. That was my original point. This emergency manager thing is not new. MI Republicans have been floating it in the face of protest for a long while now. The issue is, even if they do decide to do it -- who will they even find that's willing to do it? Who has an idea of what to do?
Is democracy what's wrong with Detroit? I don't think so. So why are they really getting rid of it?
In my opinion, this is not a problem. It is a pile of problems. And I honestly don't think the government, whether elected representatives or appointed dictators, can solve them all or even most of them.
Manchu wrote: That's a point of debate. Not everyone actually agrees that democracy must be suspended in Detroit. The anti-labor, white Republican governor of Michigan represents the people who do -- and that's not everyone.
being someone who pays for the privilege of working in detroit (extra income tax) but has no vote, I say take over, its long overdue, the city takes a disproportionate amount of tax revenue from the state.
Really a tragedy but no one seems to care. I've watched countless videos and seen lots of websites devoted to the utter, wretched decay of a once-beautiful city into a 3rd world pest-hole.
Some nice buildings there. Great architecture in the downtown area. Houses were nice once, too. But now mostly decomposed into crackhouses and gangbanger hideouts. The videos showing street after street of abandoned, trashed out, filthy houses is really mind boggling. Piles of trash in the street.
I guess at some point just bulldozing it all and selling off what scrap has any worth might be an option. Can the city claim Eminent Domain and take over the abandoned homes and land and demolish it?
Does seem un-American in the extreme...but this is already an extreme situation.
Personally I don't care anymore. I'm just waiting for the first chance to jump ship and swim to safety like the rat I am
And I think that's a big part of the problem. To many are willing to just let the city die.
Detroit in many ways is Michigan. One city makes up more then half of the entire states GDP, yet it's beyond bankrupt, losing more then 15 million a month.
We can't let the city die. It's to big for the state. But the voters have shown again and again that they just don't care. Kwame Kilpatrick is a stark example. From everything I've heard of Bing, he's a good man who wants the best for the city, but has been stymied time and time again by the City Council who just seems to be out to get as much as they can before the ship sinks.
As for calls of dictatorship... the law has been on the books for decades, challeneged in courts, with some things about it being overtuned and some being upheld. Snyder did recently try to expand it, but voters did overturn that last year. Our previous governors used the power it multiple times in other cities, Snyder is just the first to take on the 600lb gorilla in the room.
Like him or not. Trust him or not. Believe him or not.
Gov. Rick Snyder hit the nail on the head Friday — a couple times, actually — when, in announcing his plan to put an emergency manager in Detroit to oversee the city’s dismal finances, he said these key things:
“Detroit can’t wait. We need to solve this issue today because residents are not getting the services they need.”
"Citizens of Detroit are the customers of the city, not just the citizens. We need to figure out how to provide them great service."
And the congregation — and by that I mean the regular, hardworking residents of this city who have stuck it out and keep swinging in what can sometimes seem a futile battle — said, “Amen!”
What would be interesting is if all of the elected officials were chosen by lottery from the city limits, instead of by election of those with only enough money to run for office.
On the one hand, the idea of an unelected official being given extreme authority over elected representatives is ideologically offensive. On the other, local governments are horrible, having neither the resources nor power to do good, while having extreme ability to cause harm.
I think pragmatism has to win out; it might be an offensive idea, but if at least some of the problems are the fault of incompetent or corrupt local officials, then it might be able to solve that.
First of all Detroit is below the bridge and thusly, full of trolls. eh.
Detroit sucks, we all know it sucks. I liked the plan they have pitched for nearly a decade, tear down and remove the streets of outer Detroit. Making a smaller, more manageable city. Pay for the hold outs to relocate.
There will always be someone in a house that says they will not budge, until you offer them enough money to relocate.
I want my 2 city blocks worth of property converted back into rural wilderness.
Get in while the getting is good.
Alternately, Detroit could have a thriving business hosting guided survivalist adventure vacations. We discussed this at great length at work awhile back.
Buy a few blocks, wall it up, make a barracks, whatever, supplies etc. buy an armoured transport, and some other locations with burned out husks of buildings.
Advertise.
Bring people in with armed escorts in the armoured vehicle, and see if they can last a week in the burned out buildings and the tours.
Tigers Lions and Cheetahs? Nope. Crack heads, gangers, and packs of wild dogs, yes.
Go back to home and work and brag to all your friends you survived a week in Detroit.
Detroit is southern michigan, so populated by Fudgies. Northern LP'ers are Trolls. The souther LP'ers are fudgies because they come up to troll territory to by the fudge.
whembly wrote: There's homes there that is cheaper than my backyard shed.
I'm sure I heard on the news that there are houses there for less than $3000? And that whole swathes of the city are just abandoned as people just stopped paying rent/mortgages and went somewhere else when their homes became worthless?
It seems like it might be worth trying to get some high tech, low footprint companies to buy up neighbourhoods, to resell cheaply to their workers. Not only are you getting people, companies and money moving back into the city (hopefully for extended periods of time), but also brainpower and prestige.
whembly wrote: There's homes there that is cheaper than my backyard shed.
I'm sure I heard on the news that there are houses there for less than $3000? And that whole swathes of the city are just abandoned as people just stopped paying rent/mortgages and went somewhere else when their homes became worthless?
It seems like it might be worth trying to get some high tech, low footprint companies to buy up neighbourhoods, to resell cheaply to their workers. Not only are you getting people, companies and money moving back into the city (hopefully for extended periods of time), but also brainpower and prestige.
Your talking inner city Detroit... good like finding people who want to invest in that.
A burgeoning metro area needs certain things to survive, namely a reason. People don't congregate to a random place due to change; they often find reasons such as convenience or strategic thinking.
In Detroit's case, industry and location drove the city to higher populations, but as the automotive industry declined, the city lost that population. Perhaps building a subway system and other amenities that many successful cities (but not all) would of helped convince others to stay but that is all past now and what we have today is a shrunken city with many, many problems.
I don't know if the city can reclaim what it has lost due to population loss but the focus should be to concentrate and focus the money and services to a smaller area. Abandoning the outskirts of the city would be a bad idea, but they need to convert those areas into suburban sprawl to replace unused buildings.
Reverse the process of urbanization and invest in what is the core that is profitable.
There has been a lot of talk that Mike Ilitch is buying up a lot of land downtown, and will be building something big. A new arena for the Redwings is a given, but possibly a new stadium for the Pistons as well. Along with that, he's mentioned plans for a giant shopping center type of thing.
Such a thing would be great for the city, especially if he buys the right land for it. The only problem is the entirety of the area surrounding it is effecitvely a warzone where people like me do not get out of their car without full battle rattle and the ability to call in air strikes. Something has to be done about that.
djones520 wrote: Your talking inner city Detroit... good like finding people who want to invest in that.
That bad eh?
I was picturing slightly more suburban areas being abandoned and the possibility of turning them into science and business parks quite cheaply by buying up a couple of blocks and then selling or renting the homes out to employees of the companies that move in.
djones520 wrote: Your talking inner city Detroit... good like finding people who want to invest in that.
That bad eh?
I was picturing slightly more suburban areas being abandoned and the possibility of turning them into science and business parks quite cheaply by buying up a couple of blocks and then selling or renting the homes out to employees of the companies that move in.
The subruban area's aren't so bad. My grandmother lives on the Taylor, Dearborne border, and it's a decent enough town. Still higher crime rate then I'm comfortable with, but these parts of Detroit... it's bad. Robocop bad.
It is possible to mistake inner city Detroit for a very elaborate Fallout 4 advertisement.
There was a kickstarter to fund a zombie theme park....
ANd yes it is that bad, just check out the literacy rate of those coming out of high school (hint its as low as 25% in some areas of detroit) IMO thats the biggest reason detroit is dying, no one is going to move a family into that city when the schools are so horrible.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Lets also not ignore the fact that the city has had a ridiculus amount of time to right its own course and has failed to do so.
I could point out the obvioius union graft positions still around today like a Farrier position (horse shoe specialist) for the water department. The City Water Department has no horses, yet the city refuses to reduce staff, even when it comes to the Farrier.
Do not pity these people they made their own bed, now all of Michigan will pay for it.
It is possible to mistake inner city Detroit for a very elaborate Fallout 4 advertisement.
Implying it's not an actual post apocalyptic hell hole. I have combat vet friends who wouldn't go to Detroit or Chicago if you paid'em, and these are guys who cut their teeth in '03 for the Invasion,
I graduated from Wayne State (downtown detroit) and I still get the campus alerts and such to my email address. Whats great is how they frequently mention in every email NOT to call 911, instead call the on campus police because they actually respond.
Detroit's not all bad but they need some sort of kick in the rear like this to get going.
Speak for your goddamn self. The OP is from MI. I myself lived in south eastern MI including Detroit for a number of years. if you don't give a gak about the city and aren't from there and never lived there and have no friends or family there, then maybe it's you who shouldn't be posting about "letting it die."
Ooo.. touchy touchy.
A city is dying. Let it die.
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Manchu wrote: I have no fething clue, honestly. That was my original point. This emergency manager thing is not new. MI Republicans have been floating it in the face of protest for a long while now. The issue is, even if they do decide to do it -- who will they even find that's willing to do it? Who has an idea of what to do?
Is democracy what's wrong with Detroit? I don't think so. So why are they really getting rid of it?
In my opinion, this is not a problem. It is a pile of problems. And I honestly don't think the government, whether elected representatives or appointed dictators, can solve them all or even most of them.
The problem is the auto industry died there. Like every other boom time, mourn it and move on.
It's not as simple as letting it die Frazzled. Detroit is responsible for more then half of the GDP of the state. An irresponsible government would just let it die.
djones520 wrote: It's not as simple as letting it die Frazzled. Detroit is responsible for more then half of the GDP of the state. An irresponsible government would just let it die.
Frazzled wrote: The problem is the auto industry died there. Like every other boom time, mourn it and move on.
The southern states, including many parts of Texas, are gak holes and have been gak holes for a lot longer than Detroit has had problems. Is the decline of agricultural profit a sign that this region should be abandoned, as has more or less been the case for ~150 years? Your attitude is not only detached from reality but utterly repulsive.
Frazzled wrote: The problem is the auto industry died there. Like every other boom time, mourn it and move on.
The southern states, including many parts of Texas, are gak holes and have been gak holes for a lot longer than Detroit has had problems. Is the decline of agricultural profit a sign that this region should be abandoned, as has more or less been the case for ~150 years? Your attitude is not only detached from reality but utterly repulsive.
My attitude is realistic. if a city no longer has an underlying industry its going to die. Whats the problem?
This isn't a matter of death but a matter of debt. This idea that the city is "dying" is a myth used to justify the policy of dictatorship, which in turn comes down to wealthier white suburban areas wanting to control a poorer black urban area. The city is changing. It's not the metropolis of the 50s. But since when did a city need to be that in order to be "alive"? Frazzled, you sure do whine about the South but you never spare a thought for reality when it comes to insulting the rest of the USA.
Detroit is in my state, and you can drive to ANY spot in Michigan, and ask, and no one will tell you good things about Detroit, and Michigan is a rather large state. But in saying that, Im honestly on both sides of the fence on this. On 1 hand, Detroit has proven that it not only can run itself, but that it does so poorly that it drags the rest of the state down with it, and in an epic fashion. So on the that hand, I can agree that something HAS to be done about its current state. But Im not a fan of just giving someone power like that. I dunno....Id like to just level the damn place and say good luck to its inhabitants
KingCracker wrote: Id like to just level the damn place and say good luck to its inhabitants
Sort of like, if your car gets a flat tire you wish you could just tow it to the dump? Detroit is an important part of the MI economy. I think the issue is that white people don't want to live there and haven't wanted to live there for years. But they still want to control the resources, like the Cobo Center, like utilities, like Downtown, like the bridge. The trouble is, in a democracy, you don't usually get to control the government of a place where you don't live.
KingCracker wrote: Id like to just level the damn place and say good luck to its inhabitants
Sort of like, if your car gets a flat tire you wish you could just tow it to the dump? Detroit is an important part of the MI economy. I think the issue is that white people don't want to live there and haven't wanted to live there for years. But they still want to control the resources, like the Cobo Center, like utilities, like Downtown, like the bridge. The trouble is, in a democracy, you don't usually get to control the government of a place where you don't live.
Stop saying "Detroit is an important part of the MI economy" Until you give us a source for this factoid? Because I call BS, GM is a significant part of the economy, which Detroit had to BEG and PAY to stay in the city when it had plans to move to the tech-center outside of town.
Detroit produces nothing of note, and other than dan gilbert moving his company downtown (because he owns half of downtown) has no real industry or business. The suburbs are where the plants are now, the suburbs contain the majority of the office buildings.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And this map should give you a real education on detroits issues.
Manchu wrote: This isn't a matter of death but a matter of debt. This idea that the city is "dying" is a myth used to justify the policy of dictatorship, which in turn comes down to wealthier white suburban areas wanting to control a poorer black urban area. The city is changing. It's not the metropolis of the 50s. But since when did a city need to be that in order to be "alive"? Frazzled, you sure do whine about the South but you never spare a thought for reality when it comes to insulting the rest of the USA.
1. When do I whine about the South?
2. Michigan is full of Damnyankees. We're supposed to not like you. 3. Unemployment is what 8000% now? Sounds like your industry is dead there. I've seen a lot of Michigan plates in the last two years.
KingCracker wrote: Id like to just level the damn place and say good luck to its inhabitants
Sort of like, if your car gets a flat tire you wish you could just tow it to the dump? Detroit is an important part of the MI economy. I think the issue is that white people don't want to live there and haven't wanted to live there for years. But they still want to control the resources, like the Cobo Center, like utilities, like Downtown, like the bridge. The trouble is, in a democracy, you don't usually get to control the government of a place where you don't live.
Stop saying "Detroit is an important part of the MI economy" Until you give us a source for this factoid? Because I call BS, GM is a significant part of the economy, which Detroit had to BEG and PAY to stay in the city when it had plans to move to the tech-center outside of town.
Detroit produces nothing of note, and other than dan gilbert moving his company downtown (because he owns half of downtown) has no real industry or business. The suburbs are where the plants are now, the suburbs contain the majority of the office buildings.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And this map should give you a real education on detroits issues.
Lint wrote: Hey Manchu, obviously you're intense about the subject, but wtf is up with all the "white" comments and implied racism?
A common myth about MI is that the whole state is some kind of post-apoc wasteland. Actually, some of the suburbs surrounding Detroit (without even getting into Western and Northern MI) are extremely wealthy. They are also overwhelmingly white whereas the city itself is overwhelmingly black. As you might imagine, the same goes for their respective elected officials. The myth goes that the black government of Detroit has mismanaged the city into public catastrophe while the white suburban areas have been prosperous and responsible -- therefore, because the whites are tired of supporting the blacks' mismanagement, the whites should simply take over. Now, this is rarely talked about in such explicitly racial terms by the people who want to do it -- and I think it's obvious why they would avoid that characterization. But the fact remains, race is obviously tied up in this. This whole dictatorship idea comes down to saying poor black people aren't responsible enough for democracy. But you know, there are other ways of explaining Detroit's decline: for instance, segregation allowing for the exploitation and abandonment of a black urban population -- a cycle of irresponsible, oppressive measures yielding dramatically declining returns. For more on that, you should read Thomas Sugrue's book on Detroit, The Origins of the Urban Crisis.
Manchu wrote: Whembly, didn't you see Revenge of the Sith?
bwahahaha!
I'd still argue he'd be good, because you need a qualified politician AND a business person to bring Detroit back from the brink. Oh... someone when large gonads... lighsabers help too.
Lint wrote: Hey Manchu, obviously you're intense about the subject, but wtf is up with all the "white" comments and implied racism?
A common myth about MI is that the whole state is some kind of post-apoc wasteland. Actually, some of the suburbs surrounding Detroit (without even getting into Western and Northern MI) are extremely wealthy. They are also overwhelmingly white whereas the city itself is overwhelmingly black. As you might imagine, the same goes for their respective elected officials. The myth goes that the black government of Detroit has mismanaged the city into public catastrophe while the white suburban areas have been prosperous and responsible -- therefore, because the whites are tired of supporting the blacks' mismanagement, the whites should simply take over. Now, this is rarely talked about in such explicitly racial terms by the people who want to do it -- and I think it's obvious why they would avoid that characterization. But the fact remains, race is obviously tied up in this. This whole dictatorship idea comes down to saying poor black people aren't responsible enough for democracy. But you know, there are other ways of explaining Detroit's decline: for instance, segregation allowing for the exploitation and abandonment of a black urban population -- a cycle of irresponsible, oppressive measures yielding dramatically declining returns. For more on that, you should read Thomas Sugrue's book on Detroit, The Origins of the Urban Crisis.
I thought the myth was that Michigan was incredibly cold and everyone had bad accents?
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whembly wrote: Appoint Mitt Romney full dictatorial powah... he's a turn-around specialist ain't he?
Its like, I mentioned this before. The Dark side is stong with this one!
Lint wrote: Hey Manchu, obviously you're intense about the subject, but wtf is up with all the "white" comments and implied racism?
A common myth about MI is that the whole state is some kind of post-apoc wasteland. Actually, some of the suburbs surrounding Detroit (without even getting into Western and Northern MI) are extremely wealthy. They are also overwhelmingly white whereas the city itself is overwhelmingly black. As you might imagine, the same goes for their respective elected officials. The myth goes that the black government of Detroit has mismanaged the city into public catastrophe while the white suburban areas have been prosperous and responsible -- therefore, because the whites are tired of supporting the blacks' mismanagement, the whites should simply take over. Now, this is rarely talked about in such explicitly racial terms by the people who want to do it -- and I think it's obvious why they would avoid that characterization. But the fact remains, race is obviously tied up in this. This whole dictatorship idea comes down to saying poor black people aren't responsible enough for democracy. But you know, there are other ways of explaining Detroit's decline: for instance, segregation allowing for the exploitation and abandonment of a black urban population -- a cycle of irresponsible, oppressive measures yielding dramatically declining returns. For more on that, you should read Thomas Sugrue's book on Detroit, The Origins of the Urban Crisis.
I thought the myth was that Michigan was incredibly cold and everyone had bad accents?
I also think the "most populous" city is a title Detroit will lose soon.
As far as the white black thing Detroit has been throwing out the race card for so long its somewhat of a joke these days. In fact they just turned down a ton of help/money from the state because "whitey" wanted to steal their "jewels"
how about the people who own busineses in detroit here's what they think
The Detroit Regional Chamber also issued a statement following Snyder's announcement: "The final barrier to Detroit's ongoing renaissance is financial stability and local government stability – an emergency manager will be in a position to make the quick and difficult decisions that have eluded city government. While there has been important progress under Mayor Dave Bing, the Chamber echoes the Governor's sentiments that the status quo is no longer acceptable and the city's citizens, neighborhoods and businesses deserve more rapid change."
Notice when I make my "claims" I'm giving you links to follow to the sources that support my "claims" unlike just saying "DETROIT IS IMPORTANT!" Reason being most people know that bankruptcy will destroy Detroit's ability to pull bonds and an EM will not, and at this point your not moving forward without a EM or Bankruptcy.
Even a strong MI accent (which is mostly vowel flattening) isn't as pronounced as that of other Midwestern states.
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R3con wrote: Notice when I make my "claims" I'm giving you links to follow to the sources that support my "claims" unlike just saying "DETROIT IS IMPORTANT!"
Your claim seems to be that Detroit is a drain on MI's economy. I haven't seen you give a source for that or even clarify what exactly that means. I'm not disputing that the city has a high unemployment rate. What I dispute is that said rate means Detroit is not important to MI's economy. Detroit is clearly important to MI's economy. Aside from the hundreds of thousands of Michiganders who live and work there as individuals, there's also the fact that Detroit is still a major commercial and financial hub. If you need a source, get into your car, drive to the river, and look at the Ren Cen. Just because the city isn't what it was in the 50s doesn't mean it's "dying" or "dead."
I work 3 blocks from there, and due to employee discounts sometimes stay there for tigers games. I am very familiar with Detroit, if you read my earlier posts you'll see I even graduated from Wayne State. I get to pay income taxes to Detroit because my employer got a sweet deal to stay in the city. I still wouldnt walk from cobo to greektown at 1am.
Detroit is not a center of commerce, it is no longer a major port (other than road traffic from canada) and other than a few centers of artificially created industry, like gilbert moving rock financial down, or the stadium districts. Detroit really has nothing going for it. You want to know why most grocery stores and big chains avoid the city, because they pay people a ton of money to study demographics and potential income streams.
Wayne and Oakland counties are undoubtedly drivers of SE Michigan's Economy.
Detroit is losing population faster than the few "good" neighborhoods can replace them. Even when offering free homes and discounted loans to employees of certain facilities (police, city workers, henry ford).
The amount of money thrown at the cobo center, the school district (both public and private money) and the new train to nowhere down woodward all speak to me of tax dollars that could be better spent in other areas of the state. Not to mention my earlier post about the farrier that the water department keeps on hand.
An EM is needed to clean up the union contracts, and knock down some of the ridiculous levels of corruption in the city. Bing has made an amazing effort to get the city on the right track only to be blocked by the city council at every turn. An EM will get around such idiocy.
djones520 wrote: It's not as simple as letting it die Frazzled. Detroit is responsible for more then half of the GDP of the state. An irresponsible government would just let it die.
Source, because I call shenanigans!
Michigans GDP is about 385 billion. The Detroit metro area produces 175 billion of that, though 8 years ago it was 203 billion. So it's ranged anywhere from just under, to a good bit over half of the entire states GDP over the last decade.
Manchu wrote: Sort of like, if your car gets a flat tire you wish you could just tow it to the dump?
More like if my car gets a flat tire, I get rid of that tire rather than trying to repair it. Especially if the tire's locked in an economic death spiral that threatens to set the rest of my car aflame.
Manchu wrote: Sort of like, if your car gets a flat tire you wish you could just tow it to the dump?
More like if my car gets a flat tire, I get rid of that tire rather than trying to repair it. Especially if the tire's locked in an economic death spiral that threatens to set the rest of my car aflame.
Reference post just above yours. Detroit is more then just a tire. More like the engine. One that can be repaired.
djones520 wrote: Reference post just above yours. Detroit is more then just a tire. More like the engine. One that can be repaired.
Not, it seems, by popularly-elected politicians. I think we've pretty much established that no one's going to vote against keeping the gravy train running, even if it's completely unaffordable and ultimately disastrous.
djones520 wrote: Reference post just above yours. Detroit is more then just a tire. More like the engine. One that can be repaired.
Not, it seems, by popularly-elected politicians. I think we've pretty much established that no one's going to vote against keeping the gravy train running, even if it's completely unaffordable and ultimately disastrous.
Well, Snyder was popularly elected. And he needs to act in the best interests of the state, and the best interests of the state is to pull Detroits collective head from it's own ass.
This is not a dictatorship. Snyder, a popularly elected government official is enacting a law put in place by popularly elected representatives. The city has the ability to appeal the process. The law has survived legal challenges. There has to be measures in place to protect the rest of the state from Detroit, and thats what this is.
Dictators can be elected. In this case, it's even more removed. One guy is elected and then appoints a dictator. Plus, I'm not saying appointing a dictator in this case is illegal (without accepting that it is actually legal). What I am saying is, appointing a dictator is not the answer.
Why can't Detroit pay its bills? Very simply, because the tax base necessary to pay those bills is missing. Sure, the city government has been corrupt and otherwise mismanaged funds. But corruption and mismanagement exist in every government. It's just not as noticeable a problem when the tax base more than accounts for those facts. See for example New York and Chicago.
Taking a look at Sugrue's research, you can see that the people who benefited from the city also used to live in the city. Nowadays, many of the people who benefit from the city do not live there but instead live in the surrounding suburbs. And, moreover, the people who live in the suburbs are white while the people who live in the city are black. What happened? According to Sugrue, city planning that amounted to white flight and de facto segregation.
The city and, for some time, all that it had been doing still existed but a large portion of the tax base was quickly evaporating. So naturally, less and less was possible regarding the city budget. Add to regional economic abandonment the particular problems of racial segregation. Now speed that up so it happens over the course of two or three generations. How could anyone think the results would be anything but devastating?
In other words, Detroit's problems are not as simple as its elected officials' irresponsible or corrupt choices since the late 1970s. So replacing them with a dictator on behalf of the "responsible" suburbanites (whose families exploitatively abandoned the city) is not going to undo the problems. The only possible good I can see from this, not that it is inconsiderable, is temporarily forestalling bankruptcy. But the cost will be radicalizing the city's politics such that further efforts, at least in a democratic context, will be even less possible.
More comprehensive changes are needed to address the real, comprehensive problems. Denying American citizens democratic elections is not one of them. Instead, people need to realize that Detroit of 1950 is gone for good. That's not to say that Detroit will never be prosperous again. But Detroit can only ever be prosperous again as part of a larger region. This is an economic reality: the city plays an important role beyond the borders of its tax jurisdiction; the surrounding suburbs still depend on Detroit as their hub.
I think the city should be governed by itself in the context of regional oversight. What that means in practice is that the mayor of Detroit would participate in a council along with representatives of the county governments of Wayne, Macomb, and Oakland. That means the counties would have a say in what happens in Detroit. But that also means Detroit would have a say in what happens in the counties. The reality is this is one economic unit. It needs to be governed that way.
Of course, the counties will oppose this for the same reason white flight happened in the first place, the same reason they have assiduously prevented any public transportation between the poor black urban areas and wealthy white suburban ones. If the coming dictator could force these issues, we might see some lasting solutions emerge. But of course, wealthy white neighborhoods will never tolerate having democracy taken away from them.
Manchu wrote: Sort of like, if your car gets a flat tire you wish you could just tow it to the dump?
More like if my car gets a flat tire, I get rid of that tire rather than trying to repair it. Especially if the tire's locked in an economic death spiral that threatens to set the rest of my car aflame.
I had a blowout last week on 290 gonig 70. Had to get rid of what was left of the tire and wheel. Yargh.
djones520 wrote: Reference post just above yours. Detroit is more then just a tire. More like the engine. One that can be repaired.
Not, it seems, by popularly-elected politicians. I think we've pretty much established that no one's going to vote against keeping the gravy train running, even if it's completely unaffordable and ultimately disastrous.
I think you just described the US government as well.
Of course, the counties will oppose this for the same reason white flight happened in the first place, the same reason they have assiduously prevented any public transportation between the poor black urban areas and wealthy white suburban ones. If the coming dictator could force these issues, we might see some lasting solutions emerge. But of course, wealthy white neighborhoods will never tolerate having democracy taken away from them.
White's have fled alot farther than wayne county hell most of them the ones with money at least are in Livingston County. Detroit will not recover population because of racism I agree, but not white on black but blacks vs whites. When a minority white is voted onto city council to replace one of the clearly racist members of council then we'll have a chance at recovery.
The white flight will not reverse until, the murder and crime rate decrease to the point that raising a family is viable. Also the detroit school system needs to put out a better product, no one is going to by choice subject their kids to a school system with a 30% literacy rate at graduation. Schools of choice have helped but schools of choice has created a ripple effect in schools of choice, Detroit'ers take their kids to Ferndale, Ferndale residents drive their kidies farther north.
I've seen lots of arguments against the EM but not one plan for how to fix the budget problems or the population loss, or the fact that city unions have a choke hold on the city, things that a bankruptcy will only make things workse....Detroit is a a absolute mess, and I'd love to see what the EM can do to fix it.
I wouldn't mind so much about appointing an Emergency Manager in an undemocratic fashion for a large metropolitan area, but "IF" this right-wing schemes fails the Right won't stop and think through the premise in the first place. Instead, they will double down and say that the emergency manager didn't have ENOUGH power.
Frazzled wrote: Don't you have the burden to prove such an offensive statement?
Offensive statement? That's really amazing. I've already directed you to Sugrue's book. I don't know if you'll read it, since you couldn't give two feths about this issue and since you think acknowledging the real -- and obvious -- racism in this country is "offensive."
R3con wrote: I've seen lots of arguments against the EM but not one plan for how to fix the budget problems or the population loss, or the fact that city unions have a choke hold on the city
I just posted an alternative to suspending democracy and appointing a dictator. Detroit and the three counties should be governed as a regional economic unit. The counties should indeed have more say in what happens in the city. Yes, I know that black elected officials in the city will have a problem with that. That is exactly why they should also have more of a say of what happens in the counties. It can't be unilateral. Appointing a dictator is a unilateral solution: the state gets to override the elected government of the city and the city has no say in the city much less at any wider level.
Easy E wrote: Instead, they will double down and say that the emergency manager didn't have ENOUGH power.
Reading between the lines, this is probably the plan as it stands. The law as written would allow the city to dismiss the dictator after 18 months. Is the governor hoping in good faith that the city's elected officials will vote to keep themselves out of the offices their constituents elected them to for a longer period of time? Which, if any, of Detroit's problems can actually be addressed meaningfully in 18 months? What we'll have is 18 months of animosity and distrust further radicalizing the city's politics and driving down effectiveness to all-time lows. This in turn will provide further grist for the Republican propaganda mill when generating support for the appointment of the next dictator.
Frazzled wrote: Don't you have the burden to prove such an offensive statement?
Offensive statement? That's really amazing. I've already directed you to Sugrue's book. I don't know if you'll read it, since you couldn't give two feths about this issue and since you think acknowledging the real -- and obvious -- racism in this country is "offensive."
Dude we're on a website about toy soldiers. I'm not going to read about about supposed racism as the cause for Detroit's downfall because you can't be arsed to support your position. Why should I? It only benefits me with new plants in Tennessee and San Antonio for the companies that beat Government Motors to Death. Once again, Tennessee superior Michigan inferior. But don't feel bad. At least you're not New Mexico or West Texas.
Besides a corvette can anyone even think of a Government Motors car? What do they even make at this point?
You can't be arsed to read the thread. Or the news ...
Besides a corvette can anyone even think of a Government Motors car?
GM was the top selling make globally in 2011 and the second in 2012. Frazzled, you're tired, bitter, and clearly overwhelmed by the complexities of modern life. Also, I'd think living in TX you'd at least have heard of a Silverado.
You can't be arsed to read the thread. Or the news ...
I read plenty of news. But like our Brit comrade, it doesn't affect me, so I don't care beyond the headline level. However, you're calling your opponents racist. Thats clearly
1. Stupid
2. a violation of Dakka Rule #1
3. Designed to stifle a real debate on the issue.
Why on earth would I want to discuss it with you when you're impugning its racist?
Besides a corvette can anyone even think of a Government Motors car?
GM was the top selling make globally in 2011 and the second in 2012. Frazzled, you're tired, bitter, and clearly overwhelmed by the complexities of modern life. Also, I'd think living in TX you'd at least have heard of a Silverado.
I said car. Some we're throwing elbows, I'll note God doesn't seem to have graced you with reading comprehension this morning. Trucks aren't cars Yankee.
Manchu wrote: I just posted an alternative to suspending democracy and appointing a dictator. Detroit and the three counties should be governed as a regional economic unit. The counties should indeed have more say in what happens in the city. Yes, I know that black elected officials in the city will have a problem with that. That is exactly why they should also have more of a say of what happens in the counties. It can't be unilateral. Appointing a dictator is a unilateral solution: the state gets to override the elected government of the city and the city has no say
But even that plan will need a EM of some sort to jam through, I can hear the screams of "they stealing our jewels" from my office right now. Hell they wont even let the counties have a vote on the water system they all use.
And Oalkand is almost as jacked up as Detroit, and probably just as corrupt.
R3con wrote: But even that plan will need a EM of some sort to jam through
Not necessarily. Republicans have spent millions of dollars to successfully propagandize anti-labor and anti-democracy politics in MI. Things that were formerly unthinkable in that state are now happening. Why not spend some of those millions on lobbying the counties and city to engage in meaningful and democratic coordination? Snyder keeps talking about partnership but what kind of partnership does a dictator have with the people?
Are you looking at Detroit and not seeing a race issue? That would be very interesting, too ...
I basically see all major cities as urban hell holes where no sane human being regardless of race in their right mind would want to live. I don't have a dog in this particular fight, and it's just confirming my bias that again, any major urban population center is essentially a post apocalyptic hell hole.
Are you looking at Detroit and not seeing a race issue? That would be very interesting, too ...
I basically see all major cities as urban hell holes where no sane human being regardless of race in their right mind would want to live. I don't have a dog in this particular fight, and it's just confirming my bias that again, any major urban population center is essentially a post apocalyptic hell hole.
Well, at least you are open minded about the issue....
In all reality, I would be open to hearing what a city, any city; would need to do to recover from tough times. Can anyone point me to some case studies?
Manchu wrote: Not necessarily. Republicans have spent millions of dollars to successfully propagandize anti-labor and anti-democracy politics in MI. Things that were formerly unthinkable in that state are now happening. Why not spend some of those millions on lobbying the counties and city to engage in meaningful and democratic coordination? Snyder keeps talking about partnership but what kind of partnership does a dictator have with the people?
Those dastardly Republicans, pointing out it was, you know, Big Labor and the culture of unsustainable handouts fostered by politicians giving their constituency more than they can afford in order to win elections that led to the city being unable to cope with its new reality.
Stop saying "Detroit is an important part of the MI economy" Until you give us a source for this factoid? Because I call BS, GM is a significant part of the economy, which Detroit had to BEG and PAY to stay in the city when it had plans to move to the tech-center outside of town.
Detroit produces nothing of note, and other than dan gilbert moving his company downtown (because he owns half of downtown) has no real industry or business. The suburbs are where the plants are now, the suburbs contain the majority of the office buildings.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And this map should give you a real education on detroits issues.
I currently live just outside the city of Detroit, and R3con is spot on in his points. Everything is done in the suburbs around the city these days like Livonia, Plymouth, etc. For all the talk of businesses moving into the city, it's still dead and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. To be honest as long as the ineffective city council is still in charge then no one will want to go/move business to Detroit.
It's really sad, but it's the reality the city has to face.
I'm sure there are people that honestly believe that.
So, what do they expect to see happen once the Union contracts are broken?
Money will just pile up in Detroit's coffers?
People will stop "celebrating" Devil's Night?
Wealthy suburbanites will flock back to the city?
Everyone will gladly pay property and sales taxes?
Debt will evaporate?
I think it will allow the government to re-examine current staffing numbers, even though the population has severely dwindled the city payroll has not followed (except for of course emergency services)
R3con wrote: I think it will allow the government to re-examine current staffing numbers, even though the population has severely dwindled the city payroll has not followed (except for of course emergency services)
Are the public unions the only problem? no, but they do provide a significant drain on the city in terms of retirement plans and simply being too large for the task at hand. Breaking the contracts would simply be a start
1. Re-examine current staffing
2. Save money on retirement plans
3. ???
Okay, now we are starting to get somewhere. So, both of those options save money. Now what do we do?
What is the root of the problems in Detroit? Do these measures impact the root of the problems or do they impact the symptoms of the problems? I honestly don't know.
I do know just saving money will do nothing, unless there is a plan for what to do with the saved money.
1. Re-examine current staffing
2. Save money on retirement plans
3. ???
Okay, now we are starting to get somewhere. So, both of those options save money. Now what do we do?
What is the root of the problems in Detroit? Do these measures impact the root of the problems or do they impact the symptoms of the problems? I honestly don't know.
I do know just saving money will do nothing, unless there is a plan for what to do with the saved money.
they're running a deficit. There is no saved money until you make that deficit.
Easy E wrote: Okay, so you are only going to apply it to the deficit.
So...
1. Break union contracts
2. Re-examine staffing levels
3. Save money on retirement plans
4. Apply it to deficit
greta. That is the semblance of a plan. So, what is the goal? Just pay off the deficit?
Also, Frazz I thought St. Ronnie taught us that Deficit's don't matter?
They matter when no one funds your deficit, which appears to be the case here.
To your question - yes I think thats the idea. Get Detroit on a going concern basis again. Else you won't have money to pay the cops, fire, medical, and keep the lights on.
I haven't seen a convincing argument -- or to be honest, even a serious argument -- that union busting will save or even meaningfully help the situation. The issue is, you've got a city with a huge population. That population requires infrastructure for which current government revenue cannot account. The Republican narrative goes, the present infrastructure ranges from disastrously inefficient to basically criminal. Their argument is that unions are the mechanism by which this inefficiency and criminality arose and became entrenched. I say this isn't serious because it's an argument for causality that assumes causality. Put a little differently, it goes:
- There are strong unions in Detroit. - There are major deficits in Detroit. - Therefore, strong unions create major deficits and decreasing deficits requires weakening unions.
So you can see there's a confusion, or at least a lack of evidence, regarding elements that are merely contemporary being correlative much less causal here. The truth is, there are places in the US with strong unions and manageable budgets. It seems to me, what such places lack that Detroit has is wholesale regional abandonment along the racial demographics.
As far as I can tell, what Snyder wants to do in Detroit is not really about Detroit so much as a larger pattern of policies, like the sarcastically named "right to work" issue, opposition to government involvement in healthcare insurance, and voter ID laws, that aim at marginalizing what Mitt Romney very candidly estimated to be the 47%. But is anyone really surprised that Republicans prefer oligarchy to democracy?
A much, much better solution than appointing a dictator (who would ever have thought it would need to be pointed out as regarding the US?) is regional integration. I know there are issues with that: unless real efforts are actually made to deal with racism then nothing's to prevent another, possibly more disastrous white flight. You could still tackle the corrupt and inefficient infrastructure -- arguably, the perspective offered by integration would make that task more comprehensive.
If it's just Detroit's problem then the governor cannot justify appointing a dictator. Clearly it is a larger problem. Specifically, it is a problem that encompasses the city's suburbs.
And no one can answer, because it is an ideology and not a plan.
If you pay down the deficit, will that bring taxpayers back to the city? No.
Deficits are a symptom of the problem. The problem is that no one wants to live in Detroit. Therefore, there is no tax revenue to pay for anything, hence a deficit is created. Therefore, if you want ot solve the problem you have to get taxpayers into Detroit.
Manchu is actually saying, expand Detroit to include more taxpayers. The right is saying, let's bust unions and reduce pensions. If it gets worse for Government and Union workers, do you think they will stay as taxpayers in Detroit? If they leave does that help Detroit get better?
Frazzled wrote: Are the neghboring regions already incorporated? If so kiss the expansion idea goodbye.
Even then, wouldn't this "dictator" have Eminent Domain powah?
Generally, you can't "eminent domain" one municipalities' jurisdiction into another. Its a big reason places incorporate. But there's a lot of state law there so MI may be different. Politically, the outlying regions probably have more pull now than Detroit does too.
KingCracker wrote: Id like to just level the damn place and say good luck to its inhabitants
Sort of like, if your car gets a flat tire you wish you could just tow it to the dump? Detroit is an important part of the MI economy. I think the issue is that white people don't want to live there and haven't wanted to live there for years. But they still want to control the resources, like the Cobo Center, like utilities, like Downtown, like the bridge. The trouble is, in a democracy, you don't usually get to control the government of a place where you don't live.
I dont see how you can compare the two. If my tire goes flat, the rest of the car is fine, a little bit of money and work and the tire is fixed. Detroit is a rotting cesspool that is dragging the rest of the state down because of it. To compare an automobile in such a way, would be more like dumping mud in the gas tank and start driving it. It gets worse and worse as you go along, until you hit the point that the car stops working. In THAT case, yes, junk yard is a valid argument to have at that point
Frazzled wrote: Are the neghboring regions already incorporated? If so kiss the expansion idea goodbye.
If anything, Detroit needs to shrink and consolidate. That would allow the services that still function a better ability to serve the area, since they will actually be where the people are. As it is, their stretched too thin, because the people are too spread out.
That might help solve the overall problem of Detroit being a post apocalyptic wasteland.
Keep in mind, I'm talking about about institutionalizing a relationship that already exists in fact: having a city-and-three-county council made up of representatives from the existing governments of those jurisdictions. I'm not talking about shutting down existing governments. Detroit, Macomb, Oakland, and Wayne should be considered a kind of special economic zone and governed at that level as well as at lower levels.
Automatically Appended Next Post: To be honest, we should just go with the whole Metro Area being governed as a SEZ. If you look at it that way, i.e., in a historical way, you'll find that Detroit hasn't fallen apart -- it's just expanded outwards into the counties via its suburbs. The same city planning and tax jurisdiction schemas that made this white flight possible in the first place also meant that this larger version of Detroit would not be paying Detroit taxes to support Detroit infrastructure. If we consider Detroit's situation in specific terms of inner city blight, the issue becomes much clearer.
In terms of imagination, one of the problems here is people think a city is something very discrete, very separate from its suburbs. In an administrative sense, you can make that kind of precise division. But you can't do that in market terms. What happens when all Detroit's white citizens move within an hour of where they used to live? Some people read this as Detroit's population declining. But you could also say that Detorit's area just increased drastically. Considering the historical development of the city -- just look at the skyline, it's not jumbled up at all, but goes off in every direction -- this explanation makes more sense.
Typically, it's an area exempt from otherwise national laws because of some particular economic goal. Shenzhen, in the PRC, is a good example -- free trade was allowed there much earlier than in other parts of China. I'm kind of using the term the other way around to indicate integration rather than exemption. The term that is usually employed here is "Metropolitan Area" but I want to suggest something more than geographical, something more administratively formal because it is so unique.
Manchu wrote: Typically, it's an area exempt from otherwise national laws because of some particular economic goal. Shenzhen, in the PRC, is a good example -- free trade was allowed there much earlier than in other parts of China. I'm kind of using the term the other way around to indicate integration rather than exemption. The term that is usually employed here is "Metropolitan Area" but I want to suggest something more than geographical, something more administratively formal because it is so unique.
how do you integrate the surrounding towns? I'm pretty sure they'd fight that intensely on a legal and political basis. The other counties and towns in MI might as well, to avoid the precedent it sets.
Manchu wrote: I haven't seen a convincing argument -- or to be honest, even a serious argument -- that union busting will save or even meaningfully help the situation. The issue is, you've got a city with a huge population. That population requires infrastructure for which current government revenue cannot account. The Republican narrative goes, the present infrastructure ranges from disastrously inefficient to basically criminal. Their argument is that unions are the mechanism by which this inefficiency and criminality arose and became entrenched. I say this isn't serious because it's an argument for causality that assumes causality. Put a little differently, it goes:
- There are strong unions in Detroit.
- There are major deficits in Detroit.
- Therefore, strong unions create major deficits and decreasing deficits requires weakening unions.
So you can see there's a confusion, or at least a lack of evidence, regarding elements that are merely contemporary being correlative much less causal here. The truth is, there are places in the US with strong unions and manageable budgets. It seems to me, what such places lack that Detroit has is wholesale regional abandonment along the racial demographics.
As far as I can tell, what Snyder wants to do in Detroit is not really about Detroit so much as a larger pattern of policies, like the sarcastically named "right to work" issue, opposition to government involvement in healthcare insurance, and voter ID laws, that aim at marginalizing what Mitt Romney very candidly estimated to be the 47%. But is anyone really surprised that Republicans prefer oligarchy to democracy?
A much, much better solution than appointing a dictator (who would ever have thought it would need to be pointed out as regarding the US?) is regional integration. I know there are issues with that: unless real efforts are actually made to deal with racism then nothing's to prevent another, possibly more disastrous white flight. You could still tackle the corrupt and inefficient infrastructure -- arguably, the perspective offered by integration would make that task more comprehensive.
My only issue with the unions is that the contracts were signed when the D had a totally different population number and makeup. Yet the unions refuse to allow layoffs, they have taken pay cuts but we all know that pay is the least expensive part of a union employee, benefits and legacy costs being the most expensive parts.
The second thing a EM can do that the council or mayor will not do because its political suicide is strictly enforce back tax payments and foreclosures. A report just came out saying that 50% of homeowners are delinquent with property taxes.
Manchu I agree a regional athority would be best, but Detroit has burned WAY to many bridges to have any of the neighboring governmental entities even entertain such a thought. And while it may be childish I can hear people right now crying "they are your 'jewels' you deal with it" (you may have to be more local to get this point)
The city council has said it does not want people who "look like me" working on downtown projects (i can find youtube video if requested later) the amount of Racism that is prevalent in Detroit against whites is unbelievable, and it exists at all levels of City Government.
Regardless of an EM or not, the unions will end up getting cut back and having their contracts made null when the city declares Bankruptcy in the very near future.
Again, integration in this sense would be a higher-level mutual recognition not the merging of existing lower government. These places are already economically linked in a very intimate way. The problems they face, historically speaking, originate in their mutual inability to recognize and tend to that factual relationship. The solution therefore is to open up channels of discussion, planning, coordination, and action where these people are acting as a the community of neighbors they actually are rather than the crowd of strangers that they might prefer to be and have tried to be for too long.
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R3con wrote: the amount of Racism that is prevalent in Detroit against whites is unbelievable, and it exists at all levels of City Government
I know that. I acknowledge that as totally factual. But consider where that racism comes from -- look at the real history of this place and you'll see a lot of very good reasons why the urban blacks are suspicious of the suburban whites. It's like, you can easily understand why the suburban whites are suspicious of the urban blacks -- you see the crime, you see the poverty. I'm saying, put yourself in the other place for a minute and ask, what must it feel like to live inside of that because of systematic racism? If you open up your mind to the real history here, you'll understand there is no end to distrust and outright prejudice on both sides. And that's why this mess exists in the first place.
So if hate and marginalization are the problems, you gotta ask yourself -- how is taking away democracy and appointing a dictator going to help anything?
Again, integration in this sense would be a higher-level mutual recognition not the merging of existing lower government. These places are already economically linked in a very intimate way. The problems they face, historically speaking, originate in their mutual inability to recognize and tend to that factual relationship. The solution therefore is to open up channels of discussion, planning, coordination, and action where these people are acting as a the community of neighbors they actually are rather than the crowd of strangers that they might prefer to be and have tried to be for too long.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
R3con wrote: the amount of Racism that is prevalent in Detroit against whites is unbelievable, and it exists at all levels of City Government
I know that. I acknowledge that as totally factual. But consider where that racism comes from -- look at the real history of this place and you'll see a lot of very good reasons why the urban blacks are suspicious of the suburban whites. It's like, you can easily understand why the suburban whites are suspicious of the urban blacks -- you see the crime, you see the poverty. I'm saying, put yourself in the other place for a minute and ask, what must it feel like to live inside of that because of systematic racism? If you open up your mind to the real history here, you'll understand there is no end to distrust and outright prejudice on both sides. And that's why this mess exists in the first place.
So if hate and marginalization are the problems, you gotta ask yourself -- how is taking away democracy and appointing a dictator going to help anything?
Let me rephrase. How do you get buy in from them, as its not in their economic interest? This is not a criticism as its a valid strategy. But how are you going to get buyin?
You have to spend money on educating the public. You need to invest in a rhetoric that explains how the Metro area is actually a single unit. We've seen millions and millions of dollars spent, both on the part of suburban Republicans and urban Democrats, to publish the opposite narrative. But it has never been true. Unfortunately, these days you have a lot o Michiganders who believe this obvious lie that Detroit is this discrete little place that affects nothing around it -- even at the same time that they complain and complain that it's such a drag on the state economy. Money makes a difference: it's how you convince people that at-will-employment is actually the "right to work" instead of the right to fire any time for any reason. So much money has been spent twisting the truth into hatred and suspicion; how about some money spent for the sake of solidarity and cooperation?
The buy in will be obvious to anyone who can overcome their prejudices and the faulty narrative that has been paid for since the 90s. The buy in is obviously obvious: wouldn't you much rather live next to an economically vibrant city than a blighted ruin? The question is, who has the good will AND the dollars to actually engage the public about the truth of the city and the surrounding areas.
Manchu wrote: You have to spend money on educating the public. You need to invest in a rhetoric that explains how the Metro area is actually a single unit. We've seen millions and millions of dollars spent, both on the part of suburban Republicans and urban Democrats, to publish the opposite narrative. But it has never been true. Unfortunately, these days you have a lot o Michiganders who believe this obvious lie that Detroit is this discrete little place that affects nothing around it -- even at the same time that they complain and complain that it's such a drag on the state economy. Money makes a difference: it's how you convince people that at-will-employment is actually the "right to work" instead of the right to fire any time for any reason. So much money has been spent twisting the truth into hatred and suspicion; how about some money spent for the sake of solidarity and cooperation?
The buy in will be obvious to anyone who can overcome their prejudices and the faulty narrative that has been paid for since the 90s. The buy in is obviously obvious: wouldn't you much rather live next to an economically vibrant city than a blighted ruin? The question is, who has the good will AND the dollars to actually engage the public about the truth of the city and the surrounding areas.
The surrounding areas have time and time again come to Detroit with solutions, only to be told that we are somehow invaiding/taking/stealing are the white devil. Every single time in the last decade. Detroit wants money but no over site on how the money is spent. Detroit wants the suburbs to pay for Cobo Hall, Water Sytem, Bell Isle, Rail Travel, but does not want to give us a voice or vote.
I'm still flabbergasted that I am taxed without representation.
You want my real solution? Let everyone who pays Detroit City Income Taxes have a vote in Detroit, the city will turn around in a decade.
The mor eI listen to the discussion, the more I think a dictator should be appointed, but not just Detroit, but all of its subrbs too. It is pretty clear that these local govenrments/populations do NOT want to work together. Then force them all to take the same medicine and work together.
Easy E wrote: The mor eI listen to the discussion, the more I think a dictator should be appointed, but not just Detroit, but all of its subrbs too. It is pretty clear that these local govenrments/populations do NOT want to work together. Then force them all to take the same medicine and work together.
I bet the EM wouldn't be so popular then though.
An EM has been appointed to several city's outside of detroit already.
Yes, but I bet if the EM appointed to Detroit also had control of its suburbs; the idea of having a Detroit EM would be less popular in the Detroit area.
So, what kind of results have these EM's had othe rplaces?
You are joking, but because people might not know, an auditor doesn't have power. They just present findings.
An auditor could find things like this and present them to the city commission. If they're not completely stupid, they should get rid of the meters once the auditors suggest it. If they don't, the press should jump all over it and they get voted out.
So .. what's come of it? Looking at Pontiac, which has had dictators (first appointed Governor Granholm, a Democrat) for five years now, the Oakland Press cheerfully reports, "Pontiac Budget Healthier":
But here are the figures from that very article ...
Before Dictator Revenue: $54 million Spending: $55 million
In Fifth Year of Dictatorship Revenue: $30 million Spending: $36 million
Then there is the question of the $7 million deficit back in 2009. Surely, dictatorship (or at least Lou Schimmel's dictatorship) proves itself in that regard? Schimmel did balance the budget in the last fiscal year (dealing with a $8 million deficit, in case you were wondering) by literally decimating city jobs and nabbing a $55 million "cash infusion" deal with Oakland for waste water treatment. Great, that's one year covered -- and, looking ahead, the deal is supposed to provide $5 million annually for retirement and pension obligations.
But there's still a matter of that $6 million dollar structural deficit in the context of a $24 million decrease in revenues in five years, i.e., the six-fold increase in deficit spending under dictatorship has NOT effectively "primed the pump." How will Schimmel deal with this?
Those of us who are a certain age can’t even buy life insurance at any rate, especially at an affordable price. It’s just — when we were working, many of us did not buy life insurance based on the promises that were made to us. It’s just another betrayal.
Sorry grandma! Schimmel's response:
If I can’t get any help from them, then I’m going to have to just look at the plan and downsize the plan some more even beyond these things.
What does "help from them" mean? That they roll over as you steal their hard-earned money?
Wait, I thought the wastewater deal was supposed to help with retirement and pensions ...
Also, who gets to control this wastewater facility? Duh -- Oakland, of course! Schimmel is stealing people's benefits and selling off anything valuable in Pontiac to deal with a single year's deficit! So what are we going to steal and sell for next year's deficits? This should be sounding pretty familiar to people seriously following the plight of Detroit.
Simply put, this kind of dictatorship favors short term budgetary goals over long term prosperity or even sustainability. What use is a balanced budget if there is no recovery? From Lansing's point of view, there is a huge difference -- namely, municipal bankruptcy. That is what the dictator is there to do -- to prevent the state from assuming the city's liabilities. The state does not care whether or not the city grows and thrives at this point. Snyder simply doesn't want to pay.
So, my fellow Americans, do any of you remember what's good about democracy? That's right, the principle is about accountability. The elected leaders should represent their constituents' interests. So what happens when the people do not get to elect their leaders?
Their leaders will govern according to somebody else's interests.
I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. But I reckon I'm pretty familiar with it considering that I lived in Lake Orion, literally right across the street from Auburn Hills, in 2009-2010.
Here's an article on the EM in Pontiac, does a decent job of describing pluses and minuses of an EM(some may consider it biased)
It also has a cool map showing areas that are currently under an EM in MI
That is a great article. I thought it gave a pretty balanced view of the pros and cons. Thanks for posting it.
One thing that really stood out to me is that the first town Schimmel took over as an EM was called Escorse (or something). The EM did his thing, and then left. Now, the same city is back in financial troubles, and has a new EM. So, what good is the EM if the city still can't sustain itself? Couldn't the City Council fail like that too?
Oh wait, just like I predicted, the right's response was that the EM didn't have enough power the first time, and hence the PA4 was passed, with more power. So, if Pontiac (and others) falls back into problems, then what? Do we just give the next EM even more power next time around?
People forget that a Minicipality is NOT a Business. They run by different rules.
Here's an article on the EM in Pontiac, does a decent job of describing pluses and minuses of an EM(some may consider it biased)
It also has a cool map showing areas that are currently under an EM in MI
That is a great article. I thought it gave a pretty balanced view of the pros and cons. Thanks for posting it.
One thing that really stood out to me is that the first town Schimmel took over as an EM was called Escorse (or something). The EM did his thing, and then left. Now, the same city is back in financial troubles, and has a new EM. So, what good is the EM if the city still can't sustain itself? Couldn't the City Council fail like that too?
Oh wait, just like I predicted, the right's response was that the EM didn't have enough power the first time, and hence the PA4 was passed, with more power. So, if Pontiac (and others) falls back into problems, then what? Do we just give the next EM even more power next time around?
People forget that a Minicipality is NOT a Business. They run by different rules.
Easy E wrote: How do you let a city die? As in, what does it look like, realistically and not just a our fantasies?
Actually...that's a good point.
Is there ever a reason/change to say "let's start over"? Meaning:
1) All contracts are null & void
2) All elected positions gone
3) All local laws are repealed
4) ??
Essentially... just start over from scratch.
a) re-elect officials
b) recreate necessary departments (unneeded depts don't apply)
c) re-draft sensible municiple rules and regulation
d) ???
Trouble is, it's not dying -- someone is trying to murder it. Well, that's ascribing malicious intent, which I don't think is really the issue. Better put, someone is recklessly endangering the life of these places. They are purely indifferent to the places, which they can afford to be as dictators.
Manchu wrote: Trouble is, it's not dying -- someone is trying to murder it. Well, that's ascribing malicious intent, which I don't think is really the issue. Better put, someone is recklessly endangering the life of these places. They are purely indifferent to the places, which they can afford to be as dictators.
No, Manchu.
Someone is trying to get them to stop spending massively more money than they have every year, and trying to get them to adjust to the reality that all the people with jobs blew town a while ago.
Well, is that the intnent of the EM then Fraz; to kill the town?
In that article about Pontiac, you can see the size ofthe population has dropped significantly. If it keeps going, you will just have an empty town.
Maybe out west in the late 19oo's and early 20th century, that isn't so bad since the environment will just move in. However, won't the impact be a bit different if a cities suburb just emptied out?
*Snip*
If population loss and a depleted tax base can prompt emergency management, does that mean local government is a luxury poor people can't afford?
*snip*
One problem with this: Confidence in their elected officials was collapsing before the EM came to town. Detroit's previous elected mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, won two terms on low turnout then went to jail on a total of 26 felony counts. The city council president elevated by his resignation, Monica Conyers, went to jail, too. And the problem runs deeper than that, with a total lack of faith in city services. (Watch some of Charlie LeDuff's dispatches from the city about the length of time it takes to get cops to show up after a 9-11 call.) By the way, the emergency manager hired to preside over this, Kevyn Orr, is black. Does that matter? It complicates the "Jim Crow" huffing a little, doesn't it?
I think he means shouting "Jim Crowe" with no real evidence to back it up. I.e. huffing and puffing about laws design to exclude people due to race when such calims may not have any evidence.
So, Orr is saying Detroit is insolvent. And he's expecting the cities deficit to grow to be near 400 million by the end of the fiscal year, with the track it's on right now.
The city worker's pension plans are even in bad shape, and I'm sure that WAS target #1. But, the report states:
For the first time, Orr raised questions in the report about how well-funded Detroit's two city employee pensions systems really are.
The Detroit General Retirement System and Police & Fire Retirement System claim to have been 83 and 100 percent funded, respectively, as of June 2011. But Orr and a team of consultants aiding the restructuring of city government are beginning to question mathematical assumptions used to determine the value of the funds.
The city's June 2011 report showed the pensions having a $646 million accrued unfunded liability. But Orr said the market value of the two pension funds' assets — such as real estate — were more than $1 billion less than the actuarial assumptions.
So even that basic Republicna Strategy will not work out. Ouch.
