Detroit’s mayoral candidates were quick to express their opinions on Detroit’s impending emergency financial manager (EFM) after an announcement last week gave Gov. Rick Snyder the green light to appoint an EFM to Detroit.

Mayoral contenders, former DMC CEO Mike Duggan, Wayne Country Sherriff Benny Napoleon, and Lisa Howze, found various ways to sound off on the topic.

While Duggan and Howze are still fighting the idea of an EFM for Detroit, Napoleon has said it’s time for Detroit to accept the fact that an EFM is on the way.

Napoleon posted on his campaign’s Facebook page:

“The winds have changed. Let's partner with the Emergency Financial Manager (likely to be appointed) to swiftly address the city's finances, improve city services and then focus on a strong Detroit future with local elected leadership. As a partner in repairing city government and setting our future, we have a voice.”

So far, Napoleon is the only candidate who has retired his fighting words about the looming EFM.

Howze said in a recorded statement last week:

“I beg to differ with this public perception that only option for the City of Detroit is an emergency financial manager. What we need is strong senior and middle level management in areas of human resources, finance, and legal. Where the State can partner with us is in passing legislation that will allow Detroit to better collect its income tax revenue through withholding.”

Duggan took the fight to an op-ed, published in the Detroit Free Press.

In the piece he blasts Detroit Public Schools emergency management, calling it an example of failure. 

Duggan wrote:

“Turnarounds demand exceptional management talent. Without that talent, the greatest strategies in the world are just documents on a shelf."

He then he dissed the future EFM team, whoever that may be:

“What successful executive is going to make a career change to join a city of Detroit emergency manager with an expected tenure of 6-18 months?

While Duggan, Howze and Napoleon all have their opinions, they hold little sway with the state. Even current Mayor Dave Bing has declared any decision on a Detroit EFM on out of his control.

Does that mean that we should all keep quiet and leave the financial fate of the city in the Governor’s hands?

Not necessarily. But the real battle against an EFM was, in a way, already fought. Last year when voters rejected the emergency manager law, Public Act 4, it was thought to have been won. But a month later, the state passed a new, very similar law, PA436. 

The silver lining to PA436 is that the governor can’t just snap his fingers and appoint an EM. The city would have a chance to opt out—they could offer up a restructuring plan of their own, ask for another consent agreement, file for chapter 9 bankrupty, or get a mediator involved. Another notable difference is that PA436 is referendum-proof, meaning it's protected from ever going to public vote.

Here’s the catch: PA436 doesn’t kick in until late March. Currently, the state is operating under Public Act 72, the earliest EFM legislation passed in 1990. If Snyder acts before March 27, the city would be grandfathered into PA72, where the city cannot, in a sense, pick their poison.

So, should Detroit opponents of EFMs  accept their fate, or keep on fighting what seems like the inevitable?

 Today’s the day. Today, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is expected to receive a comprehensive report on Detroit’s finances to determine whether he should appoint an emergency manager to take over the city’s finances or not.

Snyder has said it won’t take him long after reviewing the report to make a decision about Detroit’s future. Earlier this month Snyder told reporters he wasn’t indecisive:

“It will probably take a week or two for me to make a full analysis of the report, and then decisions will be made. My reputation is not one to be sitting on things rather than making decisions.” 

But the hard part may be finding someone willing to take on the tall order of reigning in Detroit’s finances—a $300 million-plus short-term deficit and a long terms debt of more than $12 Billion. On top of everything, this is a city that takes great issue with state-based initiatives in city government.

If Detroit Mayor Dave Bing is right about having the second hardest job in that nation, then one can only imagine the post of Detroit’s emergency manager is right up there with the hardest of them. Talk about being hated.

Many people rumored to be on Rick Snyder’s short list have declined any interest in the post.

But one of those rumored EM possibilities is George Jackson, head of the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation. According to The Detroit News: "Jackson is the only named person who hasn't denied he is in consideration. A spokesman for Jackson declined to comment and referred the issue to Snyder's office". 

 A state-appointed review team has been combing through Detroit’s snarled finances since December. While Detroit, as the state’s largest city, would be the biggest municipality to fall under state receivership, it would not be the first.

The cities of Pontiac, Highland Park, Benton Harbor and Flint have all undergone the controversial state measure of involving locally elected officials being stripped of many or their powers so a state-selected leader can take over.

The issue has been so controversial that it has inspired Flint playwrights to create an entire production on the topic.

State of Emergency, a play opening this Friday in Flint, uses verbatim theatre, that is a technique that uses real quotes from interviews and found materials, to make up a theatrical production outlining what life under state management is like for cities like Flint.

The play could also soon apply to Detroit.  One of the play’s creators, Andrew Morton of Shop Floor Theatre Company, says the struggle for power between local officials and state appointed receivers is one that makes for a great drama.

Morton told Mlive-Flint:  

"A very specific example is the announcement of (the emergency manager) on the night of the election of 2011. To me, that's a dramatic event," Morton said. Shakespearean plots, it's all about who's in power, or power shifting from one group to another, or one groups trying to wrangle power back."

For Detroiters who don’t want to drive all the way to Flint will be able to watch it online streaming live  HERE on Saturday, Feb. 23 at 7 pm.

Local political annalists have agreed in their predictions that Detroit will go the way of Flint, Pontiac, and other cash strapped Michigan cities.

In his fourth (and possibly last) State of the City Address, Detroit mayor Dave Bing avoided the fact that the city is likely about to fall under state receivership.

His only acknowledgement of the issue  came when he boasted that his administration has had “no emergency manager to date.”

Local political pundits took to the social media website Twitter to point out the Mayor’s game of dodge ball on the topic.

Detroit Free Press columnist Stephen Henderson tweeted:

“Bing should also take credit: No swarms of locusts since he has been mayor. To date, that is. #BingSOTC2013”

Detroit News columnist Nolan Finley also took a crack at the mayor via Twitter:

“Elephant? What elephant? Bing barely mentions consent agreement and says nothing of pending financial manager. Reality avoidance.”

Free Press Columnist Rochelle Riley tweeted her two-cents as well:

“Bing speech sounds like its being delivered by a guy who knows it soon won't matter.”

The tweeting pundits noted that much of the Mayor’s claimed progress in the city has come from handouts rather than internal changes.

City Council President Pro-Tem Gary Brown posted:

“As Mayor points out, the business & philanthropic community are moving forward. It's city government that is failing. #Detroit #SOTC”

Riley agreed:

“Mayor Bing lists accomplishments; he can be proud. But most came by way of federal funds. He better hope that keeps coming. #BingSOTC2013.”

Riley took the chance to note something else: Recently Bing closed 50 city parks due to a $6 million budget shortfall but…

“Mayor Bing announces plan to raise $60 million to keep 17 rec. centers open a week after he announced plans to close 51 parks. #BingSOTC2013”

Interestingly, Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon, who is planning a run for mayor in 2013, tweeted his agreement with the Bing more than once during the speech, avoiding criticism of his possible opponent in the race.

“Again I agree, public safety must be the top priority of any administration. #Detroit #BN4theD #SOTC.”

After Bing refused an interview to prominenet (and often abrasive) Fox 2 news reporter Charlie LeDuff,  Fox 2 pulled Bing’s post-speech airtime altogether.

LeDuff tweeted:

Detroit Mayor Bing refuses me as his interviewer after State of City. Fox2 bosses Refuse him airtime all together. I work for a good org.

Bing also avoided giving any hints as to whether he plans to run for re-election this year.

Did anyone else watch the State of the City? Your thoughts?

As with any year that hasn't been lived yet, a world of possibilities awaits Detroit. For instance, the Detroit Tigers could still win the 2014 World Series and Belle Isle could still become a state park.

That's right. It's not over yet.

Hopes for a State-City lease deal that would have put Detroit’s island park in the charge of Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources were seemingly smashed to bits last month when governor Rick Snyder pulled the offer. Snyder says he only dropped the deal after Detroit city council failed to vote on the proposal before deadline.

But it’s not the end of a possible State lease of Belle Isle. If enough council members change their minds, or if the city falls under the reigns of a state-appointed emergency manager, the 30-year lease deal may likely resurface in 2014. At least that’s what Snyder has been hinting at recently.

Reports that the state set aside more than $4 million to spend on Belle Isle's upkeep if the deal went through were true, but now that money will dissolve back into the state’s $50.9 billion annual budget. Snyder says he's willing to nest-egg some funds for Belle Isle again, though.

Last week the Detroit News reported: 

“… The governor said he's not ruled out budgeting the money for converting Belle Isle into a state park in 2014 if City Council changes its mind about the lease.

"That deadline's past, so it's not going to happen (this year)," Snyder said.”

 Snyder told the Detroit Free Press editorial board the same thing: that the Belle Isle may just come back to the table.

He said he left money in the state budget for Belle Isle to show he was “dead serious” about making a deal with Detroit to maintain the 982-acre  park.

The council indirectly voted against the proposal this year by stalling past deadline, something that cancels the offer for this year. But 2014 is a chance for the city to have a change of heart.

  “They can say they didn’t vote, but I take it they voted ‘no’,” Snyder told the Free Press. “So we’re going to follow through in what we were going to do for 2014. I said '13 was off the table, but if somebody wants to talk '14 ... [I’m open].”

For all intents and purposes, it sounds like the offer is still an option, just delayed. And from the looks of things, Detroit will likely be in State receivership come 2014. As we all know, a lot can change in a year.

Again, it's a world of possibilities. 

When Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and city recreation officials announced last week that 50 parks are on the chopping block due to budget shortfalls, the image of abandoned property that Detroiters have grown accustomed to spread.

“They will look pretty awful come about June, July,” Dick said of the city’s parks slated to close. “They will have high grass probably about waist high and it’s not just grass … it’s going to become weeds with lots of trash in it. They’re goanna look like vacant lots do.”  

Just about every resident can name a park near their home that is going to flare up in weeds and trash this summer.

Unless communities organize and take ownership of the parks around them, more trash-strewn weeds will be the end result. But there is a resource here and an opportunity for residents to step up in their communities.

What if a group of neighbors got together and mowed a playground every week or two in a park that would otherwise be a tall thicket?  What if that group or individual planted flowers and put up signs, anything to brighten a depressing scene? These areas can be turned into extensions of people’s yards, flower gardens and play areas if the resolve is there.

Alicia Minter, Director of Detroit’s Recreation Department, is encouraging residents to do just that. 

“This is the time we can look to the community to be engaged and to assist the city,” Minter said. “Because of our limited resources [we hope] residents would adopt those parks … and have some stewardship in making sure those locations are cut and maintained because the city will not be able to do it.”

Is there a park in your neighborhood you’d like to adopt? At this point the power for change sits in resident's laps. Especially in neighborhoods that are not considered “stable” enough to be assisted through the Detroit Works Project framework.

Bing said like the idea of asking residents to help maintain public parks.

“We can’t constantly go and think that our citizens that are good, taxpaying citizens also have to take care of parks in their communities," Bing said. "We can’t think that the business community is constantly going to take care of the problem. We had a chance to take care of this ourselves and we didn’t do it."

He noted that a shortage of open parks and restricted recreation center hours would only worsen crime in the city. “We need a safe place for our young people in particular. They need a place to go. We don’t know the impact in terms of crime but we know it will be negative,” he said.

But with no other options it seems that a dedicated citizen or nonprofit interest in these closed parks is the last possibility left for a chance at keeping the city from further disrepair. Sure, it shouldn’t be up to residents who pay taxes to also do the work they are paying to have done, but there are a lot of things that shouldn't be happening in the city that are happening because this is a financial crisis. Maybe that term has lost some sting due to its overuse in recent years but that doesn't take from the fact that the city is flat out of cash.

Thoughts?

As early as last fall when former DMC head Mike Duggan became more open about his intended run for Detroit Mayor, he started on a major task: to distance himself from current Mayor Dave Bing and Governor Rick Snyder, both of whom are widely unpopular among Detroit voters, polls and pundits and plain old word on the street have shown.

Everything Bing has supported, Duggan has pinned as a bad idea, from the Belle Isle Lease to the proposed lighting authority and the privatization of city services. the consent agreement to claiming in November that Bing and Governor Snyder were going down “the wrong road.” Duggan’s big job over the next few months will be to find ways to be relatable to Detroiters and to unravel the rumors that he is a union buster.

In an interview Monday with Angelo Henderson on WCHB-AM 1200, Duggan continued to distance himself from Bing and disputed the idea that privatization is the answer, something Bing has often turned to in his role as mayor. Over the past three years, Bing has pushed to privatize the  DDOT bus system, the city lighting department, the health department and even trash collection. He has also hired a number of outside firms to perform services that the city offers. Bing has said the city’s last resort is to privatize services and that hiring outside firms is necessary to fix problems within the city.

But Duggan, when asked how he felt about privatization, said it was a result of leadership failure. He told Henderson on Monday:

“Privatization is an admission of management failure. A private company has to make a profit. The government does not. So if government can turn over to the private sector for running it cheaper, the government has to be pretty messed up in the way it was running.”

Belle Isle surged back into the spotlight in recent weeks after a Metro Detroit developer made an outlandish proposal: Sell the city park to private investors for $1 billion and secede the island from the U.S. to form a corporate utopia where taxes are near nil.

Many Detroiter’s guttural reaction to the billion dollar offer, presented by Bingham Farms developer Rodney Lockwood in the form of a futuristic fiction novel, was a granite hard “no”. Not surprising, since just months ago city council rejected a much tamer idea presented by Gov. Rick Snyder: lease Belle Isle to the state at no cost for 30 years while Detroit works to beef up its bare-bones finances.

While Lockwood’s far-fetched idea is highly unlikely to come to fruition, it makes the state’s offer seem like a very modest proposal. It also offers a peek at what could become of the island if the city plunges into bankruptcy before securing a deal with the state to maintain the island.

Despite the scathing criticism of Lockwood’s plan, $1 billion is nothing to yawn at. It’s a considerable sum for a city with an annual operating budget of $3.1 billion. It’s also the only reason the bizarre proposal is getting any airtime at all. Money is on the table. A lot of it. And when money talks, people—even opponents—listen.

That’s exactly what happened at the Detroit Athletic Club yesterday as Lockwood shared his vision for Belle Isle with a wide range of Michigan business leaders and elected officials. But not everyone, even staunch free market supporters, liked everything they heard.

The Detroit Free Press reports:

 “Sandy Baruah, president and CEO of the Detroit Regional Chamber, told developer Rodney Lockwood and his partners that they hadn't done enough to explain how their idea for a wealthy, virtually tax-free enclave on Belle Isle would benefit Detroit itself. ‘Having rich neighbors doesn't make you rich,’ he said, pointing to the example of upscale Grosse Pointe next to Detroit, one of the poorest cities in the nation.”

Detroit officials also doubted the plan would benefit Detroit.

George Jackson, head of the Detroit Economic Growth Council (DEGC) said that he didn’t see how the plan would boost Detroit’s development. Detroit City Council President Pro Tem Gary Brown flatly stated, “It will not work.”

Such a statement raises a searingly important question: What will work?

The answer could come as early as next week.

The Detroit News spoke with city council members who confirmed the lease is likely to pass council soon: Brown told The News:

"We're still working on issues about security, but we can get it done. The votes on City Council are there — they have actually been there for a while." City Councilman James Tate said: "The majority of the issues that my colleagues and the community had are addressed in the new proposed lease…[but] it's important to me that we have a public hearing on the matter to weigh in on the issue."

 

Councilman James Tate said the council votes are secured:

"The majority of the issues that my colleagues and the community had are addressed in the new proposed lease," Tate said. But "it's important to me that we have a public hearing on the matter to weigh in on the issue."

 The revamped lease proposal cuts the lease time down from 30 to ten years and the city could opt out after each ten-year interval. The city would retain ownership of the park while reaping the benefits of state funds to operate the 895 acre island in the Detroit river.

As for the fantastical corporate proposal for the island, it may never get far off the ground. But it does paint a picture of what could happen if naysayers keep disputing state intervention with 895-acre park without offering any alternatives.

"I have no problem selling Belle Isle," Michigan Chamber of Commerce’s Baruah told the Detroit News regarding Lockwood’s plan, "But frankly, I don't think you are making a great case for people outside the island." 

Less than a week after being ousted from her perch at the top of Detroit’s Law Department, former Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon has announced her intentions to explore a mayoral run.

Crittendon gained name recognition only this year after challenging the legality of the city’s consent agreement with the state this spring with a controversial lawsuit that pitted her against current Mayor Dave Bing as well as state officials.

At the time the Bing administration painted Crittendon as a rogue lawyer who acted out of line to dampen city progress. But Crittendon asserted that the lawsuit wasn’t about her, that it was about doing her job to make sure government was acting within the city charter.

Since then Bing has opted to hire his own lawyers from the private firm Miller Canfield a move that has cost the city more than $300,000, city bond ratings have slid further into the junk bin and Crittendon has been demoted.

But her hasty post-firing announcement of a possible run raises questions that one can’t help but ask: Was Crittendon planning a run all along? Did she make a big (and ultimately unsuccessful) show of an attempt to halt the consent agreement, (a controversial compromise tied directly to the unpopular emergency manager law) to gain name recognition and position herself for a plausible run?

It’s true, politicians have to stay continually ahead of the game, in months, sometimes years of strategically planning. A telltale sign is that Crtittendon says she already has eight people in place to run her exploratory committee with less than a week of job displacement behind her. She told The Detroit News she heard about her ouster over the news media “like everybody else”.

If that was the case, it seems like she had been planning a run for some time regardless of whether she would be fired.

In a radio interview with Mildred Gaddis on Inside Detroit WCHB-AM: News Talk 1200 Monday morning, Crittendon had all of her talking points ready, and still insisted that it wasn’t about her but about the law and the voice of the people.

It almost seems as if her rise to fame or in some cases infamy was a calculated power play. Which as far as poltics goes, would be brillaint. Or maybe the events of the past year steamed her up for a run.

“The papers have portrayed me as a polarizing figure,” she told Gaddis Monday morning. “This is not true. I can work with both branches of government, as well as residents and the business and corporate community. This is not about me.”

She said her legal actions to block the consent agreement gave people hope, that the legal fight got people “believing we can reclaim this city”.

Crittendon said she has seen an outpour of support, residents approaching her asking how they can help in her mayoral bid. She also struck on a cord that resonates with many Detroiters who are worried a state receivership would mean a loss of voice for residents by declaring that the city can manage its own financial crisis.

What would be Mayor Crittendon’s first action? A thorough audit, and a beefed up collections taskforce to get back money owed to the city, she said.

Although she obviously is against recievership, she said kowtowing to State pressure in order to stave off the dangling threat of an emergency manager is not her course of action. She said the state will likely appoint an EM anyway, so fear is not the answer.

“The City Council should not be afraid to take a bold stand and listen to the people, not be afraid,” she said adding that even if an EM is appointed prior to the election, “he will not be here forever”. It seems likely that after establishing herself as a fighter for the people, she has positioned herself in the spotlight as a sort of martyr, perhaps gaining a soft spot in voter’s hearts.

The second question is, will it work?

Pitted against the likes of former DMS frontman  Mike Duggan and Wayne county sherrif Benny Napoleon, Crittendon has some big fundraising to do. And fast.

It remains to be seen: What side of history will the woman who tried to stop Detroit’s state-mandated restructuring process fall on?

Aside from right-to-work, perhaps the most heated debate in Michigan last year was over the controversial emergency manager legislation.

Essentially, as opponents of the legislation fervently argue, an emergency manager siphons power from locally elected leaders and an appointed one starts calling the shots on how and where money is spent (and not spent) within an affected city.

Detroit, despite threats, has been able to doge an the infamous EFM (so far anyway).

But in many ways the city has, by default, come under a different type of financial management.

The city, it its compromised financial state, has been increasingly reliant on outside donors, big-ticket foundation gifts, to help keep city projects afloat. It’s been a much less heated debate, but it still exists in the undercurrent of city politics and grassroots movements.

A prime example of this came to a head in 2011, when the Kresge Foundation cut funding to Detroit Works project after a disagreement with the Bing administration over the role of outside decision-makers planning the fate of the city.

As Rustwire.com pointed out at the time: 

Investors like Rapson weren’t elected by the people of Detroit. He came to Detroit a few years ago from the McKinght Foundation in Minneapolis. He lives in some fancy suburb outside Troy. But as the Wall Street Journal points out, private individuals like Mr. Rapson are wielding a lot of power in Detroit. They are threatening to dictate the terms of a project that will nonetheless be funded 4-1 by public money.

Since 2011 Bing and Rapson have mended fances and are not on the the same page. News came yesterday taht Kresge plans to donate $150 million tot he Detroit Works projects, that is "every single dollar" that Kresge spends in Detroit over the next 5 years Rapson says.

Rapson is of the opinion that Detroit needs outside voices and ideas to get it on a new path. And he's partialy right, making the issue more complex than the stale outsider v. Detroit standoff. 

From the Wall Street Journal:

 Mr. Rapson counters that more outside voices are needed in Detroit to help local leaders who, he suggests, aren’t up to the challenge of remapping the city. “The idea that the folks who have been trained a certain way for the last 20 years and who have never had the opportunity to apply that training in another community could figure all that out de novo seems crazy,” he said in an interview.

 

But city leaders say mapping out the city’s future—including deciding which neighborhoods will survive Mr. Bing’s consolidation effort and which ones won’t—is a task for local leaders and voters. “People want to know that their interests are being represented,” says Marja Winters, the city’s deputy planning chief and co-leader of Detroit Works. “Someone who doesn’t live here can’t accurately represent their interests.”

 

 

So, in a way, the city is under a financial direction from people who have not been elected. But we have to ask ourselves: is that such a bad thing?