No Emergency Financial Manager For Detroit! City Council April 9, 2013 A No Struggle, No Development Production! By KennySnod
Posted April 10, 2013
Overturning Emergency Manager! We oppose Emergency Managers because they rob us of our right to elect our own local representatives and deny democratic self-rule at the local level. We are demanding our elected leadership remember that they were elected by the same people who voted in the referendum against PA4 Nov. 6th, 2012. We demand that you abide by their decision.
Protesters in downtown Detroit demand cancellation of Detroit’s debt to banks.
Now we’re working to “Overturn Emergency Manager In Detroit!” We ask you to sign our “White House Petition: 1) End the Consent Agreement/ No Emergency Manager. 2) Begin the Justice Department Intervention, and 3) Stop Voter Suppression and Constitutional Violations. At: http://wh.gov/wGJK. We also ask you to join us in our 1) Our Mass demonstration, rallies, press conferences to protest and denounce the actions of Governor Snyder and his collaborators; 2) To expose the criminal nature of the banks and the corporation who are at the root of the financial crisis in Detroit and throughout the State of Michigan; 3) We must link this struggle in Detroit with the plight of other cities throughout Michigan like Benton Harbor, Flint, Highland Park, Inkster, Ecorse, Muskegon. As well as dozens of other cities in the USA like California, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Rhode Island and many others facing similar crises.
A No Struggle, No Development Production! By Kenny Snodgrass, Activist, Photographer, Videographer, Author of 1} From Victimization To Empowerment… www.trafford.com/07-0913 eBook available at www.ebookstore.sony.com
2} The World As I’ve Seen It! My Greatest Experience! {Photo Book}
YouTube: I have over 390 Video’s, over 136,000 hits averaging 5,000 a month on my YouTube channel @ www.YouTube.com/KennySnod
PRES.PUGH INTRODUCES DISCUSSION WITH SHINOLA AWARD
(VOD apologizes for use of racist graphic to make our point)
CITY COUNCIL MOVES AHEAD WITH JONES DAY VULTURE CONTRACT
By Diane Bukowski
April 13, 2013
DETROIT – Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh and his majority cadre apparently didn’t “know sh-t from Shinola” regarding the Jones Day law firm contract during meetings held April 9 and 10, which ended with their moving the costly contract for a vote at Council to be held April 16 in Council Chambers at 10 a.m.
(Definition–sh-t from Shinola: common saying in U.S. beginning 1950’s re: lack of knowledge, ignorance.)
- Dameeko Williams of Project Save Detroit 2013.
“This is nothing but vulture capitalism,” Dameeko Williams of Project Save Detroit 2013, representing the city’s youth, told Council before their deliberations. “Jones Day only represents the banks and the bondholders, like Comerica, Wells Fargo and Chase which hold most of Detroit’s debt..”
Pugh opened the session April 9 by introducing his friend from Shinola, LLC, Randy Montgomery, who said he and his partners will make watches, bicycles and other “cool Detroit” paraphernalia at the College for Creative Studies. Pugh sponsored a special award ceremony for this white-owned business, whose officers he met at a meeting of the white-dominated Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, a corporate front for privatization.
Charles Pugh with officers of Shinola, LLC at Council April 9, 2013.
Shinola? Apparently Pugh et. al. are not old enough to remember Shinola shoe polish. Incredibly, the owners of Shinola, LLC bought the rights to the name from that company, ignoring associations of black shoe polish with racist black face caricatures of old. (See racist Shinola ad above; VOD hereby apologizes for reprinting it to make our point.)
But perhaps the symbolism was appropriate.
Speakers say Kevyn Orr represents “vulture capitalism.”
Detroit’s Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr (African-American) is fronting for his alleged former employer Jones Day, a white-dominated law firm associated with right-wing racist causes and foundations. Case in point, Shelby County v. Holder. a challenge to the Voting Rights Act just heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. (See earlier VOD stories on Jones Day; links at bottom of article.)
Detroiters blasted Council throughout public comment (as seen in Kenny Snodgrass’ video above), before its discussion of Jones Day. VOD even brought copies of its latest article on Jones Day to educate the Council, but to no avail. Just as the majority evidently did not read the Consent Agreement, which gave away virtually all their powers, before approving it April 4, 2012, they prefer to read the sound-byte version of affairs from the big-business media to make their decisions
Rev. Charles Williams II, representing Michigan chapter of National Action Network.
“We are here from the National Action Network because we believe that Jones Day is a destroyer of democracy, we are standing against it and asking you to vote NO,” Rev. Charles Williams II told the Council. “Jones Day in one month got almost 12 million of TARP (federal Troubled Asset Relief Funds) to restructure Chrysler under bankruptcy. They bailed out the big companies, but 40 creditors pulled away from Chrysler, as unions and others were left out of the bail-out.”
Valerie Glenn of Free Detroit-No Consent said the Jones Day contract and others let to firms like Miller Canfield, Ernst & Young, Conway McKenzie and Milliman constitute corporatocacy and genocide.
“You will go down in history as the administration that completely destroyed Detroit,” Glenn said. “We call for your resignation.”
Theo Broughton of Hood Research speaks at City Council April 9, 2013.
Theo Broughton of Hood Research agreed.
“If Jones Day partners are getting $1100 an hour, we urge you to vote NO,” she said. “All of these firms are sucking up the city’s money.”
Cecily McClellan, a laid-off city worker and Vice-President of the Association of Professional and Technical Employees said, “Billionaires are trying to turn Detroit into a playground for the wealthy. They are the real criminals.”
One woman asked Council members a simple question.
Speaker asks: What does democracy mean to you, Gary Brown, James Tate and Saunteel Jenkins?
“Our democracy has been taken away, our constitutional rights have been violated,” she said. “I ask you Gary Brown, James Tate, Saunteel Jenkins—what does democracy mean to you?” Is anybody able to step up to the table and answer my question?”
Saunteel Jenkins replied haughtily, “Those who are here to express disagreement with this body are showing our expression of democracy.”
Ironically, a Council police officer present interfered with the First Amendment and this newspaper’s right to democracy during the session, preventing VOD videographer Kenneth Snodgrass from standing with other news photographers on the side of the Council table to take his videos and photos properly. When VOD editor Diane Bukowski’s camera malfunctioned, she was forced to borrow his camera to take photos, despite her protest to the officer that Snodgrass had VOD credentials and should be treated equally.
Pastor Willie Rideout speaks against Jones Day contract.
Pastor Willie J. Rideout of All God’s People summed up, “We are the people. We voted you in. You came to our churches to get you elected, and now we are telling you to vote no on Jones Day, say no to the creditors, stop this predatory movement. Push the Emergency Managers out and put the money back into our cities. Let the millionaires and billionaires pay their taxes.”
Councilwoman JoAnn Watson agreed, “Detroit’s debt to the banks should be re-negotiated. Banks and bondholders should not be paid first.”
The Jones Day contract was actually being referred to the Internal Operations Standing Committee for its meeting the following day. Councilwoman Brenda Jones, who chairs that committee, agreed to have a Committee of the Whole session then for the entire Council to ask questions about a contract they had just received in committee.
Councilwoman JoAnn Watson at table April 9, 2013, gives telling look at Council members Saunteel Jenkins and Kenneth Cockrel, Jr.
Council Pres. Pro-Tem Gary Brown contradicted Adam Hollier of Mayor Dave Bing’s office about the bid process for the contract. Hollier claimed it went through regular bid channels, but Brown said he discovered it had not gone through the Purchasing Division, but through a special process.
Councilwoman Jones, chair of the Internal Ops Committee, asked her fellow committee members James Tate and Andre Spivey on April 9 not to move the contract to the full Council yet, calling for due diligence.
The Committee heard a presentation in support of Jones Day from Edward Keelean, Acting Corporation Counsel in the wake of the Mayor Dave Bing’s demotion of his predecessor Krystal Crittendon after she stood up against the consent agreement and the hiring of Miller Canfield, a co-author of Public Act 4.
David Whitaker, head of the Council’s Research and Analysis Division, said they had done a partial report on the contract but had not been privy to numerous documents Keelean discussed during the meeting, despite asking for them repeatedly.
Jones asked that RAD be given sufficient time to make a full report, but she was outvoted by Tate and Spivey, leading to more blistering condemnation of those Council members during public comment.
Long-time activist Ken Parks was to the point in his remarks.
“We are big-time debt slaves to the masters of finance capital,” he said. “If we are going to restructure, we need to restructure our priorities, so that people are first and profits are second. The banks said from the start they knew their loans were not repayable; it’s up to them to take responsibility. It is time again for a Year of Jubilee, where our debts are forgiven.”
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Related articles:
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/03/27/detroiters-march-in-cleveland-tell-jones-day-and-banks-get-out/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/03/20/banks-behind-detroit-emergency-manager-takeover/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/01/18/the-gang-rape-of-detroit/
As usual an in depth & accurate accounting of the actions of the takeover & the obvious lawlessness of key elected & imposed “leaders”. Lawful citizens addressing lawlessness among key decision makers.