Kwame and Detroit's fiscal disaster

Simple-minded assertions

Auto industry didn't hurt Detroit's fiscal situation at all, did it? Housing industry collapse didn't leave thousands of Detroiters homeless? Recession didn't leave thousands more jobless? Tax rolls didn't plummet as a result? Jesus, I know it's easy to blame the hop hop mayor for everything, but that doesn't mean it's all right.

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by: MIChange @ Mon Mar 11, 2013 at 17:31:38 PM UTC

Let us not forget ...

... How the banks destroyed Detroit because as Jerry Goldberg says:

... Not one of the many newspaper articles discussing this lost population puts the blame where it belongs - on the major banks, which have leveled neighborhoods throughout Detroit with mass foreclosures driven by racist, predatory lending.

... In fact, the banks exercise direct control over large sections of the city budget, with casino tax dollars and state revenue sharing paid to trustees, so the funds go directly to the banks. Up to 80 percent of state school aid is earmarked for debt service to the banks.

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

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by: CFCLFM @ Mon Mar 11, 2013 at 20:06:39 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Two questions about "corruption and incompetence" ...

As you may recall, Detroit Mayor Bing fired City Attorney Krystal Crittendon and she is now a candidate for Mayor in the City of Detroit.  Moreover, Krystal Crittendon says Detroit can Collect $800 Million Owed by Businesses

1) Why did Mayor Bing not authorized corporate counsel (City Attorney), or acting corporate counsel, to initiate court proceedings to collect this $800 Million?

Also, according to the 03/21/12 story by Jeff Wattrrick titled: A $220M Question: Why doesn't Detroit sue for the revenue sharing money it says it's owed?  

The Bing Administration did not respond to requests to inquiries about what, if any, legal remedies it is pursuing to obtain those dollars.

2) Do you think that this is an example of "corruption and incompetence" courtesy of the elected leadership in the City of Detroit?  

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

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by: CFCLFM @ Mon Mar 11, 2013 at 20:34:38 PM UTC

All the talk about money owed to Detroit is idiocy.

Crittendon is an idiot.  The only criticism of Bing is that he didn't fire her earlier.

Here's a little bit of black-letter law:  Municipalities are creatures of the state which creates them.  No municipality has any right against a state government, other than those granted by the state constitution or state law.  Any right granted by state law can be withdrawn by a subsequent law, without recourse by the municipality.

Detroit can receive money from the State, and can ask for money from the State, but they have no enforceable right to demand money.

Crittendon appears never to have understood that, which is why she was unqualified to hold the position she did.

If a non-attorney says Detroit was owed vast sums of money by various agencies, I don't pay attention.  People have a right to be wrong without being ridiculed.  But when an attorney - particularly one serving as city attorney - makes the same mistake, they ought to be called on it.  Crittendon was one more symptom, among thousands, of the utter wretchedness of Detroit City government.

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by: Grebner @ Mon Mar 11, 2013 at 21:00:48 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Respectfully disagree:

I read a Deadline Detroit interview with Ms. Crittendon written by Darrell Dawsey and I came away thinking she was anything but an 'idiot' -- granted, you may want to fundamentally disagree with her interpretation of the law and consider them idiotic, but she came across as thoughtful and informed.

Great Lakes, Great Times.

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by: Michael McGuinness @ Mon Mar 11, 2013 at 23:23:57 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I've never met her, and I respect your opinion.

It may be that Crittendon knows more about the law than she lets on.  And it might be that some of her talk was intended to put her client in a better bargaining position in court.

But when she talks rubbish to the PUBLIC, which expects her to know more about Detroit's legal position than anyone else on earth, I don't see that she deserves any slack.

The legal question isn't knotty or complex; there aren't two sides to it.  Under Federal law, cities are simply creatures which belong to each state, and the cities have no right even to be treated fairly or equally.  No rights at all in Federal court.

But Michigan law is made by the legislature, and they're free to give or withhold anything they want.  Unless there's a pretty specific provision in the State Constitution - and nobody is pointing to one - there's no protection from whatever the legislature enacts.

Maybe Crittendon understands this, but chooses to act like an imbecile - it's hard to tell the difference between sincere and feigned imbecility at my distance.

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by: Grebner @ Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 00:33:07 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Two questions please, Mr. Grebner ...

... When you say that: "Under Federal law, cities are simply creatures which belong to each state, and the cities have no right even to be treated fairly or equally.  No rights at all in Federal court."

1) Do you believe that the City of Detroit, with its predominately African-American population, has no right to be treated fairly or equally by the Michigan Legislature, with its predominately white/European-American population?

Also, State Rep. John Olumba recently said that "... the City of Detroit is the most heavily taxed municipality in the state, in the United States."  (February 27, 2013, "Night Shift Detroit" with Tony Trupiano)

2) Do you think that the Michigan Legislature and the City of Detroit have a relationship based on a structure like colonialism?

Thank you in advance.

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

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by: CFCLFM @ Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 04:54:34 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I'm a politician myself, and sometimes I pretend I'm a lawyer.

1)  I don't know anything about the "rights" of municipal corporations.  I'd say generally, that the Republicans who control every part of state government in Michigan pretty much hate the very idea of cities, and so they screw up everything they can in every possible way.

If the state were well-run, the legislature would have set up, maybe 100 years ago, a set of standards which had to be met by every home-rule city, and then they would have provided the tools (including taxing powers) necessary to meet those standards.  If they had done that, Detroit couldn't have gotten where it is today, because their accounts fall so far outside accepted accounting standards so they would have failed the review at least 20 years ago.  In my ideal world, having set up such standards, the legislature would have provided support and intervention mechanisms to correct deviations from the standards, or to assist municipalities which fell onto hard times even while doing what they were supposed to be doing.  

Obviously, none of this was done, and instead Detroit was put in an impossible situation financially, which was made much worse by incredibly poor choices made by the City's voters.  (As I have said previously, Kwame's surprise re-election over Freman Hendrix in 2005 was one of the twenty worst days of my life.)

Rep. Olumba's comment requires a response.  Detroit has insanely low property values, combined with insanely high property tax rates.  The result is a freakishly weird tax system, where an owner occupied house may be assessed at $10000 (meaning it's really worth $20,000), and then taxed $680 per year - 3.4% of the market value. That's a high tax burden, when combined with the highest city income tax in the state, and is one of the factors making it impossible for Detroit to continue as it has.  But if the same house were in New York City, it might be worth $300,000 and taxed $5000, which is less than 1.7%.  Who faces the "higher tax"?  That answer depends on your definition, but everybody knows the answer to the question: "Who gets a better deal for their money?"

2) "Colonialism" feels roughly right, except that the old European powers were interested in taking valuable resources from their colonies: rubber, ivory, diamonds, tea.  The reason colonialism ended, in my view, was that raw materials ceased to be very important economically.  Today, when the legislature looks at Detroit, they don't really see anything they want.  If Detroit would go away, maybe attach itself to Ontario, your average Republican would never miss it.  Sure, there are a few things to fuss over (DWSD and DIA come to mind) but they aren't really central to the problems of life.  What we have today is basically indifference and neglect.  Certainly, there isn't the slightest interest in trying to fix any of the problems that make life so hard in Michigan's big cities today.

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by: Grebner @ Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 05:55:29 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Water is pretty "central to the problems of life," IMHO

That's why I'm dreading the moment when the new EM Czar puts DWSD on the auction block, which would probably make it the largest privately-run, for-profit municipal water system in the world ("serving" some 4-5 million people).

One that wouldn't even have to collect its own revenues -- all the metro communities that depend on DWSD already assess fees from their residents.

It will be a slow-moving disaster, marked by neverending water rate hikes and a boom in private wells tapping an already-weakened aquifer...and that's BEFORE fracking is taken into consideration.

"The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity." ~ Harlan Ellison

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by: helzapoppn @ Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 16:56:29 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Expect

the first move to be the creation of an "Authority." This will open the door to all that you say. And it will allow the Governor to show off how many billions of dollars of debt he took off Detroit's "books". Which, of course, is the disingenuous accounting practices one could expect from Snyder.

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by: MIChange @ Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 17:53:59 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

That would be why the two debts have been conflated in the first place...

...just so that the DWSD structural debt can be stripped away, either through a regional authority or outright privatization.

Another "low-hanging fruit" for the incoming EM Czar.

"The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity." ~ Harlan Ellison

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by: helzapoppn @ Wed Mar 13, 2013 at 12:26:07 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Four questions & one comment please ...

... If you don't mind, Mr. Grebner:
1)  Which of your following statements is correct? Please explain.

A. "... Here's a little bit of black-letter law:  Municipalities are creatures of the state which creates them.  No municipality has any right against a state government, other than those granted by the state constitution or state law.  Any right granted by state law can be withdrawn by a subsequent law, without recourse by the municipality."

B. "... Under Federal law, cities are simply creatures which belong to each state, and the cities have no right even to be treated fairly or equally.  No rights at all in Federal court."

C.  "... I don't know anything about the "rights" of municipal corporations."  

2)  Do you believe that "Republicans pretty much hate the very idea of cities" like: Adrian, Ann Arbor, Bloomfield Hills, Brown City, Carson City, Cheboygan, Grand Rapids, Grosse Pointe Woods, Iron Mountain, Livonia, Mackinac Island, Northville, and/or Rochester Hills?

3)  What do you mean when you say: "... they screw up everything they can in every possible way"?

4) Why was it that "... Kwame's surprise re-election over Freeman Hendrix in 2005" became one of the twenty worst days of your life?

FYI ... In case you think it requires a response, here is the context for the quote from State Rep. John Olumba, February 27, 2013, "Night Shift Detroit" ...  First Shift with Tony Truipiano

... I'm looking at 700,000 people disenfranchised from Tax Policy.  Now Tax Policy, by the way, is THE most important committee in Lansing besides Appropriations and guess what:

The City of Detroit is the most heavily taxed municipality in the state, in the United States.  

We have maxed out of every bond.  We can't issue any more bonds.  That's why they keep coming up with these new authorities.  If you notice, all last year they were moving legislation to create new authorities, that's so we can get more bonding capacity so that they can continue to load debt onto the people of the City of Detroit.  We are overtaxed.

They came up with study was the other day that said that people are paying property taxes that are 18 times higher than what they should be.

We got mileages up the wha-zoo. And the point is, if we are paying that much money in taxes, than anybody in the state, there are no Detroiters on Tax Policy, that's probably why."  

Thank you for your time.

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

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by: CFCLFM @ Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 23:24:21 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Exhausting demands! But I'll try to answer.

In response to your first question, I stand behind all three of my quotations.  The first two are simply alternative statements with the same meaning.  Cities, as corporations created by the state government, don't have "rights", and more than highways or trees do.

The third quotation might be expanded:  I don't talk about the "rights" of things that don't have legal rights.  When I talk of a "legal right", I mean an attribute which changes the balance in a legal argument between two entities.  I don't mean "it's something I can say to a public meeting that sounds good".

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by: Grebner @ Wed Mar 13, 2013 at 02:39:09 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Second answer.

I don't mean that Republicans hate all the people who LIVE in cities, I mean they hate the idea of cities.  Cities - including every one you listed - provide a higher level of services in a very localized area.  They pick up trash, maintain sidewalks, prevent people from storing junk cars, provide small local parks, offer recreational programs for children and elderly, run libraries....

In order to do those things, cities need to be able to ask their citizens for more taxes than are paid by rural or suburban areas which don't provide such services, or at least don't provide as much of them.

The Republicans in the legislature have found one method after another to block cities from collecting the money necessary to maintain the services they already offer, let alone to expand them.  So property taxes are capped, and rolled back, and there's an endlessly expanding list of projects whose taxes are diverted to other uses (TIFA's, brownfields, DDA's, renaissance zones, smart zones, industrial facilities, ...)  State revenue sharing, which was originally provided because the state took away many of the taxing powers of cities about fifty years ago, keeps being cut and cut and cut.  And now taxes on industrial equipment (misleadingly called "personal property") will be ended.

Detroit happens to be an extreme case, but the same antipathy extends toward Mason and Manton.  The Republicans prefer to starve them of revenue, because they don't see any fundamental difference between the public services offered by cities and "socialism".

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by: Grebner @ Wed Mar 13, 2013 at 02:52:55 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Third answer.

I got carried away and dealt with both #2 and #3 in my reply above.

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by: Grebner @ Wed Mar 13, 2013 at 02:54:43 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Fourth answer.

Detroit had a very clear choice before it, in 2005.  They could continue to allow Kwame and his gangsters to loot the city, or they could start cleaning up the mess by electing Freman.  Every single poll showed Freman winning.  Kwame's operatives saw the end coming, and began moving money around and preparing their abrupt escape.

But when the votes were counted, it was obvious that thousands of people said one thing to pollsters - and each other - and secretly voted to "let the good times roll!".  Kwame didn't just continue to loot and lie, but seems to have picked up his pace.  He stopped filing financial statements with the state, because there was no way to sanitize them.  Everything was for sale, and nothing was sacred.

Watching both Kwame's and Freman's campaigns from the inside (it seems bizarre, but PPC worked for both of them) it was obvious what the stakes were, and what was the right answer.  Not everybody voted for Kwame, of course, but a clear majority decided they'd prefer to continue partying as long as the party lasted.

I haven't found any of the recent revelations much of a surprise.  The die was cast back in November, 2005.

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by: Grebner @ Wed Mar 13, 2013 at 03:06:24 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

These comments

Illustrate why Detroiters don't trust the rest of the state.  

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by: MIChange @ Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 13:40:45 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

just woke up, it been intersting reading everything.

The point of the article is that the problem was around before kwane, that is very important point. Now it seems the article at that point, and you, seem to think that at the kwane takes over, everything becomes his fault, that is wrong. First the problems from before are still being caused by the same things as before, big 3 failing and the lost of jobs, white flight and the tax base leaving the city proper, and the continue  disinvestment from the state that has occur over decades. Detroit has been on the road to this sense before the 60's race riots, and the only  structural  problem that truthfully, matters is that you can't support a city design and built to provide service to 2.5 million people on a tax base of 700 hundred thousand. Kwane only came in and pick the bones of the dieing corpse that was Detroit, it been interesting see you flip out and link all this pieces on this, apparently we hit close to home. The only ones to blame for him are the people who voted for him or didn't vote at all, twice, and they are the detroiter's themselves. However this does not rationalize any argument for taking away there right to self determine. If you think it does that does smack of paternalism specficly many of the arguments used in centuries past to support fascism and monarchy. They are not too stupid to govern themselves and espousing otherwise is a betrayal of the ideas that found this country let alone state. Furthermore are you saying that dc should come in and take over Michigan because we failed at governing ourselves, or that we should abandon democracy because of .the actions of the house and failure of the legislature to get things done this last 20 years, this are the final places that your augments would lead.

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by: Warhawkgundam @ Mon Mar 11, 2013 at 20:38:29 PM UTC

And Kwame helped how?

Nobody said Detroit was ALL Kwame's fault.   But to prey on a bad situation and poverty stricken people makes him particularly despicable.  IF Detroit is ever going to come back, it deserves better than Kwame and Snyder.  This takes care of Kwame and makes an example of corruption in Detroit.  2014 will have to take care of Snyder.    

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by: dkmich @ Mon Mar 11, 2013 at 21:17:15 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

um.

When Detroit ran deficits Kilpatrick's M.O. was simple: Issue debt to pay down the deficit (yeah, it doesn't make sense to me, either), and craft budgets that were marvels of wishful thinking, filled with "if-come" savings or revenues that never materialized.

Bottom line: Corruption and incompetence go hand in hand. When you have years of corrupt leadership, you wind up with financial emergencies.

"Nobody said Detroit was ALL Kwame's fault."  see above, pretty clear were there putting blame

"But to prey on a bad situation and poverty stricken people makes him particularly despicable.  IF Detroit is ever going to come back, it deserves better than Kwame and Snyder.  This takes care of Kwame and makes an example of corruption in Detroit.  2014 will have to take care of Snyder. "

I agree it does make him a bad person, if you read what I wrote I even said so.

"Kwane only came in and pick the bones of the dieing corpse that was Detroit,"

However

it deserves better than Kwame and Snyder.  This takes care of Kwame and makes an example of corruption in Detroit.  2014 will have to take care of Snyder

It does, but until the people of Detroit stand up and do it themselves, there not going to get it. Welcome to how a democratic system should look, if there a is a bad elected official they should get thrown out, but until they do so the only people to blame are the people that by there voting for the guy, or the inability to vote at all, have gave this man power. furthermore, it almost understandably that the people of Detroit are apathy to the whole process, after all the keep getting the rug pulled out from under them, the reinstating of the EM/EFM law, with very minor changes, after the people vote the law down, and other such example going back years.

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by: Warhawkgundam @ Mon Mar 11, 2013 at 23:04:48 PM UTC

this was suppose to be a reply to Dkmich

n/T

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by: Warhawkgundam @ Mon Mar 11, 2013 at 23:06:47 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

heres another one Dkmich

but no verdict can undo the damage Kilpatrick's corrupt city hall did to Detroit.

- Nancy Kaffer

shortsighted, and wholly ignores what actually got it to this point.

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by: Warhawkgundam @ Mon Mar 11, 2013 at 23:20:45 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Am loving this article more and more

It's hard to say how much of Detroit's financial crisis can rightly be laid at Kilpatrick's feet. But by any reckoning, the former mayor has a lot to answer for.

well Nancy, let me tell you, Zero percent of Detroit problems can be laid at Kwame's feet, he was a criminal, he was corrupt, but he is also a symptom of the problem and not the problems itself, the fact that she wrote this dribble and the way she wrote it, shows utter ignorance of the Detroit region and it history of the last 50-100 years.  

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by: Warhawkgundam @ Mon Mar 11, 2013 at 23:28:44 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

BTW

Eric, you do realize that the current city council is really only in place and in its current form, thanks to white people in the 50's and 60's freaking out that a African American was elected to city council. they changed over from districts to a city wide seats, so to keep African Americans from being elected, and until the major migration of white people in the late 60's early 70's and onward, keep African Americans out of power.

This matters, because the difference in what kinda of leadership you get when you have to live in a district and have to care about the community, and you are more easily held responsible, are huge. From when you can just throw money at a seat, or coast through on Name Rec, Under reason a EM/EFM at this time is stupid, the new city council after this coming electing should be vastly different, given the switch over back to the old form of representing districts, it should be more diverse, and better represent the city. Is it a silver bullet no, but it will go along way to starting to fix the city, and it being strangled in the crib, ironicly by white men that live outside the city.  

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by: Warhawkgundam @ Mon Mar 11, 2013 at 23:17:56 PM UTC

In Pontiac

we have had seven districts that elected the seven council members. This has been the case for at least three decades, since the last charter revision.

A current charter revision commission is underway and one proposal that is said to be gaining steam is the hybrid of having five district councilmembers and two at-large councilmembers.

I am open to that concept, especially since the current council members represent a district with approximately 8,000 residents. Dividing 60,000 residents by 5 districts still will keep their elected representatives accessible and responsive (at least in theory).

Back to your primary item raised, however; I anticipate that many cities modified their method of electing representatives as much as they could to thwart minority representation in the past. As I keep researching Pontiac history, I anticipate I'll find similar efforts that were attempted (although they may or may not have had the intended effect of their proponents).

Great Lakes, Great Times.

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by: Michael McGuinness @ Mon Mar 11, 2013 at 23:31:59 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Detroit Common Council Wards v At-Large

Detroit has elected its members of Council on an At-Large basis since 1918. The 1910 Census showed 6,000 African-American residents in Detroit amongst a population of 465,766. The first African-American elected to Common Council was William Patrick in 1957.

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by: Former Michigander @ Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 00:51:40 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Are you suggesting Warhawkgundam is full of it?

You are?  Well, you're right!

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by: Grebner @ Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 02:02:26 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

well apparently my

class on races issues at CMU was wrong then, lols?

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by: Warhawkgundam @ Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 02:50:47 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

and grebner

when I'm proven wrong, I attempt it, unlike many other people, so shove it please.

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by: Warhawkgundam @ Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 02:55:06 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

probaly confuse

other cities, with Detroit, that would be a oops, still going back district's should help the city

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by: Warhawkgundam @ Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 03:11:53 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

You need to change the rating you gave his comment, like right now

Grebner has done more to assist this site than any other regular contributor. He's provided front page content that has drawn attention from the political press, and he's been commenting on things for years and years. Before I took the site over, Matt used to tell me about how he allowed Matt to use work time to grow the site.

You may find his comments unproductive, you may rate his comments a '1'. But, he is not a troll, and troll rating his comment -- the purpose of which is to punish a user by hopefully making the comment go away -- is the very definition of ratings abuse.

Unless you've rectified this by this afternoon, I'm going to take away your ratings privileges.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 13:34:57 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

This

This:

Are you suggesting Warhawkgundam is full of it?

Is a classic troll comment.  You don't have to be a troll to make a troll/unproductive comment.  And, quite frankly, if you're going to let troll comments fly by because of some abitrary favored member status, because someone helped you with the site, as if you're selling indulgences, than you can take away my rating privileges.

Honestly, you are proving my point.

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by: MiddleGrandGuy @ Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 13:45:59 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Hoo-boy

Comments like yours just make me tired. Honestly.

That is not a trolling comment. That is a comment on the weakness of Warhawkgundam's comment. It might come across as harsh, but it's within the scope of rigorous debate, especially considering that yesterday I was called a racist on at least two occasions, some of the things that were said during the recent Brewer-Johnson race, and especially the 2008 presidential primary.

There's a difference between being a troll and offering an unproductive comments. That's why a Zero is troll, and why 1 is unproductive. Odd that someone who so recently called for me to address misuses of the rating system would conflate the two.

The point of troll rating a comment is to eventually make it so it disappears. When you troll rate a comment on someone else's comment about something you said, what you're trying to do is censor someone else from disagreeing with you, because if a comment's rating drops below a "1" it gets hidden.

Finally, it's not a matter of selling indulgences. You know who trolls? People who show up, create an account under a name that's not their own, and immediately sets about trying to start flame wars. You know who doesn't troll? Someone who creates an account under his own name, and helps build a site through content and other material assistance. I have no idea what it might have cost me otherwise to pay Grebner for his series called Technical Politics, but I didn't have to because he did it for free. I'm not granting him an indulgence in telling people not to troll rate his comments. I'm showing an appreciation that he's helped spill intellectual blood and sweat on behalf of this website and that I don't intend to see him treated the same as someone who showed up last month and has mostly just shouted at people because he disagreed with him.

Again, ironically, you're the same person who during Brewer-Johnson asked me to address comment rating misuse, and I did it in the body of a post and told people to stop yelling at you about it.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 14:14:07 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

What

What you do with your site is your perogative, but you've shown a contempt for your readers, time and time again, that is simply stunning and petty.  A classy moderator says his or her piece on an issue and then moves on.  Your constant picking of scabs for their own sake is petty as hell, and if you're trying to push a lot of your readership away, well, you're doing one helluva good job.

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by: MiddleGrandGuy @ Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 00:55:25 AM UTC

Actually, Eric has shown that he has opinions.

Which is not only permissible, but positively proper, since he's running a blog.

If this were mainly a commercial enterprise, it might be better to veil himself, in order to preserve the site's traffic.  Or if he had set this up as a neutral meeting place for the discussion of public issues.

But, in the beginning, Matt Ferguson created ML in order to tout his own views.  When Eric accepted the burden, he took over the right to pontificate from the high seat.

I generally find Eric to be knowledgeable, sometimes surprisingly so.  I find his opinions to be somewhat sharp, but never ill-considered or foolish.  And best of all, I find it's very easy to ignore his opinions when I don't happen to agree with them.

You might practice the same approach - it's not difficult.  Eric tolerates everybody until they degenerate to name-calling.  If his posters merely state inane opinions, backed by bogus reasoning, he does a pretty good job of ignoring them in turn.

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by: Grebner @ Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 02:10:04 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Actually, you are incorrect

Nothing builds readership like conflict. The times of peak readership for this site is when people are arguing in comment threads, because people find it entertaining. So, there is that.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 03:39:52 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I know this is a couple days old but

I want to say that reading all the links and the comments from the prior related posts as well as this one (I just got to it today) prompted me to post my thoughts here.  I live in the Detroit suburb of Brownstown where we host one of the DWSD facilities and pay them for service.  I understand the long-term problems Detroit has had to cope with, the corruption that helped make things worse, and the dire situation the city finds itself in today.  I am quite worried about the idea of an EFM for Detroit and here is why:

I don't trust the Republicans' motives.
They might say they want to help but good intentions or not their track record is one of divestment and cronyism. I fully expect they will try to sell off valuable infrastructure that rightly belong to the communities they serve, especially the DWSD. They will pay someone a very high salary, give them dictatorial powers, and he will proceed to tear up the fabric of the city. That is just what I would expect from them.

However, Eric is correct to say something must be done. The BIG question is WHAT.

Personally, I believe that if Mayor Bing and the current city council had more income (even one-time inputs) for the short-term (it would likely need to be a lot of money) they could succeed with spending money on the right things to reduce long-term costs and increase revenue and might even just save the city. I don't believe that option is even being considered by the Republicans in Lansing (again to motive). Many of us just don't trust them to get us to a better place. I'm afraid they are taking advantage of the situation to make money for their friends. Just like Kwame, it's just what they do.

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by: Bill_in_Mi @ Wed Mar 13, 2013 at 16:36:03 PM UTC

America's Least Favorite Search Engine for EFM

FWIW, I think Snyder will appoint Mayor Dave Bing as EFM.  That way the illusion of democracy will be preserved.

"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell." -- Harry S Truman

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by: Butch Snider @ Wed Mar 13, 2013 at 16:47:43 PM UTC

While that would explain Bing's silence this past week...

...I just don't see it.

People would immediately see through the "illusion of democracy" and turn on Bing in that particularly nasty way we often see when families fight -- they know each other well enough to strike directly at their weakest points.

There's also Bing's health to consider: He literally might lack the energy to serve the extra 1-2 years it will take for an EM Czar to "balance" the books.

No, I think Dave Bing has given up. There's just no more fight left in him -- not against the State, nor the coming EM Czar, nor Council...and certainly not against all the Mayoral candidates lined up to replace him.

"The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity." ~ Harlan Ellison

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by: helzapoppn @ Wed Mar 13, 2013 at 17:05:37 PM UTC

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New news

The word on the street is Snyder has a certain lawyer in mind for Detroit EFM:

http://articles.chicagotribune...

I still don't trust him...

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by: Bill_in_Mi @ Wed Mar 13, 2013 at 17:52:06 PM UTC

[ Parent ]