Robert Laurie

The Detroit City Council has been busy.  First, it enacted an oh-so-important anti-bullying ordinance.  Later, it held a secret meeting to discuss the city’s impending financial apocalypse.  Then, it passed a resolution allowing the “Occupy” protesters to hold onto their precious tent city for one more week.  Finally, fearing that it would be eliminated when the state took over the city’s fiscal difficulties, it decided to work through the holidays in an effort to prevent the aforementioned doom.

It’s nice to know that it managed to find time, between bullies and occupiers, to deal with the economy, even if its real goal seems to be self-preservation.

The secret meeting was the direct result of a new economic audit, funded by the city’s taxpayers, which finds that Detroit will be completely broke by April of next year.  Keep in mind, we’re not talking about the “deficit spending” kind of broke.  This is the unequivocally destitute kind of poverty that will render the city unable to pay its employees or meet its debts.  Mayor Bing has floated the idea of privatizing city services and eliminating 2,200 jobs in order to free up money.  Unfortunately, this would only delay the inevitable, pushing the implosion back to mid-July.

According to Councilman Charles Pugh, the meeting was closed to the press because “We didn’t want to scare the hell out of people.”

Sadly, this seems to be an illustration of the problem with both Bing and the City Council.  Their solutions, well intentioned though they may be, are just too small to handle such a massive problem, and they seek to protect Detroiters from the truth of their situation rather than deal with it openly.  Both the Council and the mayor’s office are content to play small ball in order to keep Detroit’s political status quo intact, rather than offer the kind of massive, sweeping change that can truly turn the city around.  In short, they’re prolonging the pain as they try to delay the cure.

Since big ideas are in short supply within Detroit, it’s time to look elsewhere.

As desperate as they may be to keep control of their city, and their cushy jobs, it’s time to turn away from the City Council and appoint an Emergency Financial Manager.  Detroiters continually decry the influence of outsiders, but 40 years of insulation have led directly to our current fiscal condition. The resulting economic chaos has turned Detroit into an anchor that’s dragging Michigan down, when it should be the engine keeping it afloat. With all due respect, the region can no longer afford to indulge the pettiness of Detroit’s xenophobic residents.

It’s always preferable to make plans ahead of a crisis, rather than scramble to make decisions in the midst of turmoil. Right now – today – Detroit’s dismal economic situation is as good as it’s going to get.  As it’s become nearly impossible to see any way to put Detroit back on a path to stability without a Lansing-appointed Emergency Manager’s involvement, we should get one on board as quickly as possible.

Last night, Mayor Bing said he doesn’t want an Emergency Manager.  He wants to “to continue to lead the city back.”  Then again, he also made a recent proclamation that if a manager is required, he’d like the position.  Sorry, but he’s not the man for the job.

Detroit is a dying patient that needs a radical second opinion.  As the cost of health care and pensions continue to rise, Detroit’s union contracts are set to bury the city.  His recent proposals to make unspecified pension cuts and eliminate furlough days do nothing to change this fact.  Bing wants to alter and restructure current union contracts.  That’s great, but it’s not going to be enough if the city is still on the hook every time the unions feel like striking for more.  All the mayor’s proposed changes do is reset the problem, sending it back to a time when things weren’t quite as bad.  That’s a rollback, not a fix.  In a few decades, we’ll be right back where we are now.

The current mayor is far too close to the situation to be objective, and despite claims to the contrary, too tied to an archaic pro-union system to be effective.

Detroit’s last Republican mayor left office in 1966.  Since then, we’ve lived in a city controlled, almost exclusively, by left-wing politicians and their union allies.  There’s little doubt that an Emergency Financial Manager appointed by Governor Snyder will limit the power that relationship has built.  It’s about time. For Detroit to move forward, it’s time to leave the old ways behind.  For many in the city, mostly those in places of political power, that’s a scary thing.

For those who live, work and play here, it should be something to cheer.  Rather than fearing the outside influence of an Emergency Manager, they should be demanding it.

© 2011 North Star Writers Group

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