- LIAR, LIAR PANTS ON FIRE! GOV. RICK SNYDER, TREAS. ANDY DILLON, DETROIT COO CHRIS BROWN
“Can SOME Black people have SOME courage to face the white man off?”
Councilwoman Watson calls new FSA “a takeover, a power grab”
Unions file suit to stop FSA; court hearing Mon. April 9, Judge Collette
By Diane Bukowski
April 1, 2012
BREAKING NEWS: COUNCIL MEMBERS PUGH, BROWN, JENKINS, TATE CALL SPECIAL SESSION MONDAY, APRIL 2 AT 1 P.M. TO CONSIDER APPROVAL OF FINANCIAL STABILITY AGREEMENT (click on CC special session 4 2 12 1 pm approving FSA) to view signed call.
Council to discuss union contract tentative agreements at 9 a.m. April 2.
Detroit COO Chris Brown, Deputy Mayor Kirk Lewis at Council table March 29, 2012
DETROIT – Michigan Governor Rick Snyder appears to have played a colossal April Fool’s Day joke on Detroit by having Deputy Mayor Kirk Lewis and Chief Operating Officer Chris Brown present to City Council a proposed “Fiscal Stability Agreement” (FSA) March 29. Many council members and citizens called it a dictatorship under another name.
“They are just making Black people look stupid over and over again,” community activist Sandra Hines told the Council. “They have you looking stupid, begging for a little piece of meat. This needs to stop. It’s not about you. It’s about US and what will happen to us if you sign this agreement. Can SOME Black people have SOME courage to face the white man off?”
Ironically, the chief presenter at the March 29 meeting was Chris Brown, a white former DTE and Singapore utilities executive. He is not Deputy Mayor and has no power to sign off any agreement for Mayor Dave Bing, who remained hospitalized. Lewis, appearing disgusted, left halfway through the meeting.
Morris Mays (center) protests PA 4 in Lansing April 13, 2011
“Ever since the privatization and regionalization stepped up by [former Gov.] Engler and [former Mayor] Archer, and the same thing with [former Mayor] Kilpatrick, this city’s been gong downhill,” said Morris Mays. “Because of you I can’t even go to Belle Isle without some ugly police car on the bridge. I’m from Montgomery, Alabama, the birthplace of the civil rights movement, and I know Black lapdogs when I see them.”
The state is currently moving to take control of Belle Isle, ostensibly leaving it under City ownership, similar to takeovers of Cobo Hall, the Detroit Zoo, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the city’s historical museum, Eastern Market and many other services. It has illegally withheld funds from the city’s Department of Human Services since last October and wants to shut it down.
The FSA removes numerous powers of the Mayor and the City Council and transfers them to a nine-member appointed Financial Advisory Board which reports to the state treasurer and governor. It is to include plans not yet specified to drastically downsize and regionalize city assets and services. It expects the Council to approve those future as yet unknown actions by signing the FSA.
It gives the FAB the power to abrogate union contracts and to violate state law, the Public Employee Relations Act, by refusing to bargain in good faith after June 30. (Click on CCFSA 3 29 12 to read entire agreement and print it out in PDF.)
Ed McNeil (r) with union leaders protest at Detroit News demanding pro-worker coverage
Ed McNeil, chief negotiator for the Coalition of City of Detroit Unions (CCDU) told VOD that the CCDU has filed a motion for an restraining order to prevent passage of the FSA, citing its unconstitutionality. A hearing is to be held Monday, April 9 at 9 a.m. before Ingham County Circuit Court Judge William Collette in Mason, Michigan. Collette earlier held that state-appointed financial review teams must not meet secretly, but obey the Open Meetings Act.
“This is nothing more than a Consent Agreement under Public Act 4, through the back door,” stormed Councilwoman JoAnn Watson. “Over 200,000 Michigan citizens waged a hard-fought campaign for their right to protection under our state and federal constitutions. The State Canvassers are currently reviewing a sample of 35,000 signatures and expect to report out in two weeks. The governor’s timetable is based on a fear of the referendum repeal of PA 4.”
She noted that the FSA language allows it to outlive PA 4 if it is overturned. It says it can be terminated only when the city reports three years of no deficits, or Wall Street upgrades the city’s bond ratings to its highest levels, or State Treasurer Andy Dillon says so.
Councilwoman JoAnn Watson at meeting March 29, 2012
On March 27, she said, “Where is the money that the state owes us–$220 million in revenue sharing funds, and another $400 million we lost from the Archer-Engler agreement preventing us from taxing non-residents who work here? Other financial review boards like that in New York City in the 1970’s have included billions of dollars in cash infusions from both the state and federal governments. The state has brought nothing to the table.”
She noted that Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy during the 1930’s Great Depression, when he was President of the National Conference of Mayors, called for cities to be allowed to declare moratoriums on their debt to the banks. She proposed that Council pass a resolution to that effect (which the conservative majority of the Council was clearly not going to do).
On March 29, Attorney Jerome Goldberg of the Moratorium NOW! on Foreclosures, Evictions and Shut-offs Coalition pulled out the Financial Review Team’s March 26 report. (Click on Detroit Review Team Report 3-26-12 (3) to read entire report.)
Atty. Jerome Goldberg at council table March 29, 2012
“This agreement is mandated by the same banks that essentially destroyed the tax base of our city through fraudulent, racist predatory lending and foreclosures,” Goldberg said. “They are now committing the same predatory lending practices on Detroit itself, and cities all over the country. They lure the city into swap agreements that they know will fail, amounting to $16.9 billion in debt and $4.9 billion in interest. PA 4 and this agreement are geared towards ensuring that the debt service to the banks is paid before all else.”
He pointed to Harrisburg, capitol of Pennsylvania, which has just agreed to default on some of its bond payments to the banks so it can keep the city running. (See VOD story at http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/03/28/harrisburg-pa-plans-default-on-bond-payments-municipal-defaults-on-rise/.)
Bankole Thompson and Mildred Gaddis give Gov. Snyder a forum at WCCC March 27, 2012
During the week of March 25, Snyder appeared at a town hall meeting at Wayne County Community College sponsored by The Michigan Chronicle’s Bankole Thompson and Mildred Gaddis, and on a radio show with Frankie Darcell. In his bland, kindly-sounding voice, he claimed to be doing nothing more than “assisting” the city with its resource problems.
He did use incendiary language, however, when he declared that Detroit, Flint, Saginaw, and Pontiac, the last three of which have been under EM control, have the highest crime rates in the state. He failed to note anything about the cause of crime.
At the city council meeting Mar. 29, Council President Pro-Tem Gary Brown declared, “The city’s number one problem in crime,” while members of the audience called out instead for “Jobs, jobs.”
Financial Review Team members Conrad Mallet, Jr. and Andy DIllon as they are chewed out by audience March 23
Snyder’s audience at WCCC was clearly hand-picked to prevent another virtual uprising like that at the March 26 meeting of the Financial Review Team. (See VOD story below.) The city’s daily media jumped on his proclamations to push the FSA.
Prior to that, on March 27, State Treasurer Andy Dillon got the Council to vote for a $137 million state-backed loan, ostensibly with provisions that it would not be tied to any Fiscal Stability Agreement. HE LIED.
“That tiebar is still in this document,” objected City Councilwoman Brenda Jones, who along with members JoAnn Watson and Gary Brown voted against the loan.
Councilwoman Brenda Jones at table March 2, 2012
The document says in Sec. 2.5 (a), “The anticipated aggregate size of the refinancing(s) is approximately $137 million, of which approximately $33 million will be used to refinance existing debt, and approximately $104 million will be placed in an escrow account and used to pay for costs of the Reform Program [proposed in the FSA] and for City operating expense.”
Both City Councilmen Kwame Kenyatta and Andre Spivey said Dillon told them March 23 that the money was NOT a loan, but a gift.
Councilman Kwame Kenyata speaks at council meeting in 2010; both he and Councilwoman JoAnn Watson (at his right) denounced back-room meetings on PA4 deal in the past several weeks.
“One of problems is when we govern and conduct people’s business in back rooms,: Kenyatta said. “When Mr. Dillon came to my office, he didn’t say it was a bond. The proposed agreement a fiscal stability agreement, not a consent agreement. This is a debtor nation. The national debt is in the trillions, Michigan had a $17 billion debt. America and the western world are just kicking the can down the road.”
Council members Charles Pugh, Gary Brown, Kenneth Cockrel, Jr, Saunteel Jenkins, James Tate and Andre Spivey appeared to be entertaining the notion of “tweaking” the proposed FSA with relation to specific language in it, instead of rejecting it outright as a power grab and a takeover.
Jenkins asked for the Law Department and the Council’s Research and Analysis Division to give the Council their written analyses of the FSA by Monday, April 2. Some claim that Snyder will appoint an Emergency Manager for Detroit under terms of PA4 by April 5.
CALL COUNCIL: TELL THEM TO VOTE NO! SAVE OUR CITY!
CHARLES PUGH 224.4510
GARY BROWN 224-2450
S. JENKINS 224-4248
ANDRE SPIVEY 224-4841
JAMES TATE 224-1027
KEN COCKREL, JR 224-4505 KWAME KENYATTA 224-1198
JOANN WATSON 224-4535 BRENDA JONES 224-1245
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