Hundreds Rally against Possible Detroit Takeover: MyFoxDETROIT.com
Huge rally lays plans to repeal Emergency Manager act
January 3, 2012
By Diane Bukowski
DETROIT – Over 2500 Detroiters packed a local church Jan. 2 to stop a complete state takeover of their city. Under Public Act 4, enacted last year, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and State Treasurer Andy Dillon are rapidly moving to appoint an “emergency manager” (EM) to run the city, disenfranchising the residents of the world’s largest majority-Black city outside of Africa.
US Congressman John Conyers addresses rally against PA 4 January 2, with Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, a co-convenor, at his left; Council members Kwame Kenyatta and Brenda Jones are at far right
The EM would have the unilateral power to strip the city of all its assets, including its water and sewerage department, the third largest in the country, remove elected officials, abrogate union contracts, take over its pension funds, worth $6 billion, and even dis-incorporate the city.
Wall Street’s Fitch Ratings agency has said that an EM takeover will cause the banks to call in $400 million of outstanding city bonds immediately, one-third of the city’s budget. Detroit is paying $579 million on its debt to the banks in the current fiscal year.
“It is our understanding if you choose to appoint an Emergency Manager to oversee Detroit, that would mean that approximately 50 percent of all the African American citizens in the State would be living under the authority of unelected managers,” U.S. Congressman John Conyers (D-Detroit) and 65 elected officials wrote Snyder on Dec. 15.
Part of mass audience rallies against PA 4 in Detroit January 2
They received no response. Instead, Snyder has now moved to the second step of the takeover procedure, the appointment of a 10-member formal review team to conduct a 60-day study of the city’s finances, which he can cut short at any time to declare a takeover.
Rev. Edward Pinkney, leader of Black Autonomy Network Community Organization (BANCO), in Benton Harbor, denounces effects of PA 4 on his majority Black city, its first victim. Photo by Dale Rich
Snyder and Dillon have focused their PA4 takeovers almost exclusively on the state’s majority-Black cities, including Benton Harbor, Flint, Inkster, Pontiac and the public school systems of Detroit, Highland Park, and Inkster.
Conyers also wrote U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Dec. 2 asking him to take action against the takeovers under the nation’s Voting Rights Act.
“It just so happens that I have a closer relationship with the 44th President of the United States and his Attorney General, Eric Holder, than I have ever had with anybody in the Washington White House,” Conyers said at the rally. To date, however, Holder has announced no action, despite the Justice Department’s investigations of current voting practices in other cities. An inquiry to his office had not been answered by press time.
Conyers, Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, and the Moratorium NOW! Coalition were among the chief conveners of the rally, held at Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church on the city’s central west side.
PA 4 referendum organizer Brandon Jessup explains how to get valid petition signatures at rally January 2
Brandon Jessup, leader of Michigan Forward, which initiated a referendum petition drive to overturn PA 4, called on Detroiters at the rally to collect 100,000 petition signatures in the next two weeks. Michigan Forward, in coalition with unions and community groups, has collected 170,000 signatures state-wide since the petition drive was launched last June. At least 161,000 valid signatures are needed.
Al Garrett, president of Michigan AFSCME Council 25, said his union and Michigan Forward plan to take the petitions to the State Board of Canvassers Jan. 18. If the signatures are certified, the state constitution requires the act be frozen until a popular vote in November of this year.
Council 25 President Al Garrett
“We plan to hit the streets, and knock on doors,” Garrett said. The audience responded with a resounding “Yes” and a standing ovation when he asked if they were ready to lead the charge. Jessup said they are focusing on the next three Saturdays to “take it to the streets” with the petition drive, and gave detailed instructions to the audience on how to collect valid signatures. (See details at end of story.)
The state says it wants the Detroit takeover because the city is under “severe financial stress,” with an expected deficit of $155 million this year. In his recommendation for a formal review, Treasurer Dillon also cited the $579 million paid out on the city’s debt this year, and said the city’s total debt load is approaching $12 billion.
However, the state has announced it expects to end its fiscal year with a budget surplus of up to $1 billion, at least $242 million in the general fund, and $645 million in the state school aid fund. The surplus has resulted largely from slashing revenue-sharing funds to municipalities and aid to the schools, and cutting tens of thousands of Michigan residents off public assistance.
Maureen Taylor, president of Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, addresses rally against PA 4 Jan. 2
“This state government is aimed at destroying the lives of women and children,” said Maureen Taylor, President of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization.
Helen Moore of the Keep the Vote No Takeover coalition noted that two state takeovers of the city’s public schools have resulted in the fact that 66,000 Detroit students now attend charter schools. Close to ninety-percent of state per-pupil aid to Detroit goes to pay off the district’s debt to the banks, largely incurred during the takeovers.
State officials have said they want to use the state surplus to pay off the state’s own debt, estimated at $76.6 billion, according to the U.S. Debt Clock.
Attorney Jerome Goldberg, with attorney Vanessa Fluker to his right, both of Moratorium NOW! calls for a moratorium on debt to the banks. Photo by Dale Rich
But Councilwoman Watson and the entire City Council, the city’s Mayor Dave Bing, and the State Legislature’s Black Caucus have demanded that, at the very least, the state repay $220 million it owes to the city as a result of a revenue-sharing agreement with a previous governor.
Snyder has refused, saying it would be only a one-time solution.
Attorney Jerome Goldberg, of the Coalition for a Moratorium NOW! on Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shut-offs, proposed a long-term solution: a moratorium on the city’s debt service to the banks. Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy proposed a ten-year moratorium during the Great Depression, and many Third World countries have demanded complete cancellation of their debts to global banks and the International Monetary Fund during the current era.
State Rep. John Olumba
“Detroit has lost one-fourth of its population, because of the criminal, illegal and fraudulent practices of the banks,” Goldberg said. “Eighty-seven percent of Detroiters who bought homes have been victims of racist, predatory mortgages which resulted in foreclosures. We want to recover the billions the banks have stolen from us.”
Minister Malik Shabazz of the New Marcus Garvey Movement noted, “When they talk about long-term debt, what about the long-term debt owed to Africans in this country? We suffered through the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the worst holocaust in history, during which 250 million of our people died. We suffered through Jim Crow and lynchings, and many of us died to win the right to vote.”
State Rep. John Olumba recalled that the Big “MAC” effort to take over New York City in 1975 because it was on the verge of defaulting on its debt, failed miserably.
“The only thing that worked then was a $7 billion federal bail-out,” Olumba said. Councilwoman Watson has called for a $10 billion “Marshall Plan” to bail out Detroit. U.S Representative Hansen Clarke (D-Detroit), another rally sponsor has introduced a bill in the U.S. House calling for all of Detroiters’ federal taxes to be returned to the city to resolve the crisis.
Pastors David Bullock, head of the Michigan Chapter of Rainbow:PUSH, and Charles Williams II, head of the state chapter of the National Action Network, are also organizing a march on Snyder’s home in Superior Township, Michigan, set for the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday Jan. 16.
Join the “Taking It to the Streets” door to door campaign on January 7th and January 14, 2012 led by Richard Hairston & We the People of Detroit. Meet at 2727 Temple (rear entrance at 12:00 Noon to deploy
Petitions to overturn PA4 can be picked up at AFSCME Council 25’s Detroit office at 600 W. Lafayette in downtown Detroit. For further information, contact the office of Councilwoman JoAnn Watson at 313-224-4535, AFSCME Council 25 at 313-964-1711, Moratorium NOW! at 313-319-0870 or go to http://michiganforward.org/.
