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PARTNERS IN DETROIT DEALS

UBS AG pressed predatory 2005 $1.5 billion POC loan on Detroit

EM Kevyn Orr cited loan as a prime cause of city’s crisis

Archer’s former debt manager was point man for loan

UBS had close ties to Obama

By Diane Bukowski 

September 11, 2013

U.S. Rep. John Conyers at Detroit bankruptcy forum Sept. 7, 2013.

DETROIT — U.S. Congressman John Conyers (D-Detroit) reported during his forum on Detroit’s bankruptcy Sept. 7 that he has been able to have little contact with President Barack Obama on the matter.

However, former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer, an advocate of the bankruptcy filing, and a group of business leaders including his gambling buddies Dan Gilbert of Quicken Loans and the Greektown Casino and Matt Cullen of Rock Ventures got an extensive audience with top aides to the President Aug. 29, according to the Detroit News.

Also present in the White House meeting were Kresge Foundation CEO Rip Ranson, and Henry Ford Health Systems CEO Nancy Schlichting. The News said it was held “to discuss Detroit’s struggling finances and to determine how the city could maximize existing federal programs and grants,” said the News.

Archer reported, “It was a very productive meeting.”

But, said the News, “White House officials explicitly ruled out any federally financed bailout or special legislation to support the cash-strapped city. Instead, they pushed for ways the administration could help the city’s business and political leadership leverage existing federal tools to speed the restructuring and soften the blow of bankruptcy.”

Gilbert’s co-czar of downtown Detroit, Mike Illitch, is already taking advantage of federal Empowerment Zone funds to build an $881 million hockey stadium and adjacent private development.

Conyers said Sept. 7 that he would “make sure by legislation that we provide a backstop to protect public pensions,” along with other plans. Evidently, according to those White House officials, the Obama administration does not plan to support his efforts. (VOD—separate story on the bankruptcy forum still to come.)

White House meeting participants also appeared to take Detroit’s bankruptcy as a done deal, although U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes has not yet determined whether Detroit is even eligible to file for bankruptcy.  During a hearing Sept. 10, Rhodes moved the date for hearings on legal eligibility objections from Sept. 18 to Oct. 15, likely delaying the start of the eligibility trial, currently set for Oct. 23.

Archer, who told Fox 2 Business News in an interview July 19 that he favored the bankruptcy, and blamed it on the pension funds,  may have played a key role in drowning Detroit in the debt Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr has blamed for the bankruptcy filing. 

LeBron James, now free with the Miami Heat, formerly “enslaved” to the Cleveland Cavaliers according to Dan Gilbert.

Archer is also close ally of Gilbert, who owns the Cleveland Cavaliers (and is famous for his racist rant about star LeBron James leaving to go to the Miami Heat), Quicken Loans, and the Greektown Casino. Archer has been working with Gilbert and Cullen to get casino gambling in Ohio and is also seeking to partner with him on the retail center he referred to in the Fox 2 interview at right.

According to a Feb. 10, 2005 article in Bloomberg Businessweek, Archer was on the payroll of UBS AG at the time that the behemoth global bank and its minority partner Siebert, Brandford and Shank loaned the city $1.5 billion in controversial “Pension Obligation Certificates (POC’s),” intertwined with interest rate swaps backed by Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch, in 2005. In 2006, they re-negotiated the deal.

At the time, UBS AG was the largest underwriter of municipal bonds nationally and had the most consultants on its payroll.

(L to r) Then Detroit CFO Sean Werdlow, formerly Detroit debt manager under Dennis Archer, Joe Doherty of SBS, Joe O’Keefe of Fitch Ratings, Stephen Murphy of Standard and Poor’s, and then Deputy Mayor Anthony Adams press UBS/SBS POC deal on City Council Jan. 31, 2005/Photo Diane Bukowski

“The Zurich-based bank paid $2.4 million last year to 28 consultants, including Dennis Archer, former Detroit mayor, and Ray Sullivan, a spokesman for President George W. Bush when he was governor of Texas,” said Bloomberg.

The magazine noted that such payments to former politicians were coming under increasing scrutiny by the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, for possible corruption. It reported more than 80 percent of municipal bonds were privately arranged across the country at the time, without competitive bidding.

“Last year, the MSRB sought to ban underwriters from hiring consultants,” Bloomberg said. “In a notice filed April 5, 2004, on the proposal, the MSRB wrote: ‘Some consultant practices challenge the integrity of the municipal securities market.’

“In the notice, the rulemaking board said political contributions by consultants may conflict with its 1994 pay-to-play rule, called G-37, which bars underwriters from contributing more than $250 to local officials who award bond work.”

It said such “sales are more expensive for taxpayers, six academic studies have shown. A 2002 study of 148 New Jersey sales by University of Connecticut professor Mark Robbins found that governments using competition saved $1.26 million.”

Bloomberg said it talked directly to Archer.

Shirley Franklin, former Mayor of Atlanta

“Former Detroit Mayor Archer said his political connections raised no ethical issues in his work as a consultant for UBS,” the magazine reported. “He said he had a personal friendship with Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin and held a fund-raiser for Franklin when she was running for office in 2001. He said that relationship had nothing to do with Atlanta choosing UBS to manage an $849 million bond sale in September for the city’s water system.”

Later in the article, Bloomberg said Archer told them, “At the end of the day, it’s the municipalities that make the decision. They’re not going to be influenced by Dennis Archer or anybody else.”

With regard to this story, Archer responded to an email from Voice of Detroit asking whether he thought the POC debt should be disallowed due to conflicts of interest with the following comments:

Former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer/Photo Black Past

“I had no involvement. I did not consult on the loans and I did not receive any remuneration. I had no involvement with Sean Werdlow regarding the loans. Sean worked in the Finance Department when I was mayor. Sean was not a direct report to me. He resigned from his position before I left office and began to work for the DMC. I had no conflict of interest. I was not involved in the transactions. I did not follow what was occurring in the Kilpatrick Administration as it relates to his appointees.

“Thus, beyond what I have just answered, I have no additional response to the assertions.  I did not meet with President Obama as he was not present at our meeting. Moreover, the POC debt was neither raised nor discussed. I have no position on the debt as I am not involved in the proceeding before Judge Rhodes. My legal practice area does not include bankruptcy, and therefore have formulated no position regarding any assertion that the POC debt should be disallowed.”

Wall Street bull

The 30-year POC’s constituted a risky bet on the vicissitudes of Wall Street, during the glory days of the housing market boom, which turned out to be built on the quicksand of predatory home mortgage lending. The global economy crashed in 2008. Detroit defaulted on its payments and ended up turning its casino tax revenues over to a trustee to guarantee future debt payments.

Many other cities, including those who have preceded Detroit in filing bankruptcy, such as San Bernadino, California, were also caught up in the pension obligation certificates craze of the period.

Henry Sciortino

Former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick held an economics forum in Jan. 2005, during which Henry Sciortino,  head of the Pittsburgh Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, cited a pension bond deal as partially responsible for the city’s debt default takeover. He called POC’s “one of the seven deadly sins of municipal finance.”

The point man for the POC deal in 2005 was Detroit’s Chief Financial Officer Sean Werdlow, at the time an appointee of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

Werdlow previously worked in the city’s Finance Department from 1995-99, becoming head of its debt management division during the Archer administration.

A Werdlow resume says during that time he “maintained total responsibility for the daily operation of the Debt Management section of the Finance Department. Coordinated and managed the City’s capital financing activities, systematically reviewed and evaluated financing opportunities, provided direction to Investment Bankers on optimal financial structures and served as the liaison between the City and rating agencies and other interested financial parties.” 

Sean Werdlow, photo from SBS website.

After a brief interlude as Vice-President of Finance and Treasurer for the Detroit Medical Center from 2000 to 2002, Werdlow returned to city government as Kilpatrick’s CFO. 

He likely used his ties with Wall Street ratings agencies to get Stephen Murphy of Standard and Poor’s and Joe O’Keefe of Fitch Ratings to the City Council table on Jan. 31, 2005. This reporter covered those Council hearings for the Michigan Citizen (MC) at the time. 

Murphy and O’Keefe were apparently leery of their role there. Ratings agencies, although paid by the banks, do not normally intercede to help them get loans. 

“It took a lot to get them here,” Werdlow told the Council. 

“Werdlow objected loudly when Councilwoman Sharon McPhail got a representative of Fitch Ratings, a bond rating agency, to admit his company had ‘frequently been apprised’ of the city’s plan to use layoffs and service cutbacks to deal with a $300 million budget deficit,” the author’s first MC article said.

Former DFT Pres. Janna Garrison and former Councilwoman Sharon McPhail at 2001 rally against charter schools in Lansing.

“The representative, Joe O’Keefe, said his agency currently rates the city’s credit as ‘A, with a negative outlook,’ unless the city enacts those cuts.” 

Despite vehement objections from pension trustees and union leaders, Werdlow insisted that the city had to borrow enough to cover 30 years of its obligations to the city’s pension systems, instead of borrowing only enough for the coming year. 

A short-term borrowing would constitute a “soft liability,” whereas the long-term borrowing would be a “hard liability,” said Werdlow and others. While both ratings agency reps demurred for a while, Murphy finally said it would be “financially prudent” to make the debt a hard liability. 

A week later, the City Council caved and voted for the POC debt. In November of that year, Werdlow took a top management position with Siebert, Brandford and Shank, now known as SBS Financial, and remains in that position. SBS Financial has remained a party to numerous loans to the city since then, as uncovered by an FOIA filed by Detroit retiree David Sole, an objector in the bankruptcy proceedings. 

Werdlow was contacted by email about this story, but it is unclear if the email address was correct. VOD has received no response from him.

Pres. Obama himself is well-known to have close ties with a former UBS top manager.

Pres. Barack Obama shakes hands with his friend Robert Wolf, formerly of UBS, one of Obama’s major campaign fundraisers.

Obama has received major campaign contributions from his friend Robert Wolf, at the time he worked for UBS. Wolf was characterized in news reports as the “largest contributor” to the campaign.  Wolf served as President and Chief Operating Officer of UBS Investment Bank, as well as Chairman and CEO of UBS‘s Group Americas division. He was a member of UBS’s Group Executive Board from 2008-2010.

Obama appointed Wolf to the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board from 2009-2011, then to the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness from 2011-2013, then to the Homeland Security Advisory Council’s Border Infrastructure Task Force in 2012, and in June 2013, to the President’s Export Council.

VOD has reported extensively on the involvement of UBS in fraudulent schemes world-wide, from the rigging of world interest rates as a member of the LIBOR (London-Interbank Offered Rate) board to the $1.5 billion fine exacted from UBS by the U.S. Department of Justice related to other fraudulent practices.

Kevyn Orr

VOD has also called on the Justice Department and its Fraud Division to investigate the 2005-06 UBS POC loan to Detroit for evident conflicts of interest and likely outright criminality. Under Public Act 436, Detroit EM Orr is supposed to investigate possible criminal activity that has led to Detroit’s debt crisis. In the case of the POC loan, although Orr admitted in his June 14 Proposal to Creditors,  ‘The City has identified certain issues related to the validity and/or enforceability of the COPS [POC’s] that may warrant further investigation,” he has refused to do so.

(See portion of Orr’s recent deposition by attorney Jerome Goldberg at orr dep extracts, in which he admits to knowledge of fraudulent activities for which UBS and Bank of America have been charged by the U.S. Dept. of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commisision. Orr skirted the question of his obligation under PA 436 to investigate possible criminal activities that led to Detroit’s debt crisis.)

VOD calls again for the cancellation of the city’s entire debt to UBS, SBS, and the Bank of America including swaps, hedges and penalties, rather than including it as part of the outstanding “pension liabilities” Orr has used as an excuse to file bankruptcy.

The debt is NOT a debt of the pension systems, which vehemently opposed it, It is a debt set up under false pretenses through contrived “non-profits” called the Detroit General Retirement System Trust and the Detroit Police and Fire Retirement System Trust. It is a likely criminal instrument set up by predatory lenders and their lackeys in city government.

VOD has started a petition on Change.Org at http://www.change.org/petitions/jeffrey-knox-usdoj-criminal-fraud-division-investigate-criminal-bank-ubs-ag-for-predatory-1-5-billion-loan-to-detroit.  Please click link and sign.

Protesters outside bankruptcy court in Detroit.

Related articles:

Archer et. al. meeting at White House http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130910/METRO01/309100031

Archer consultant for UBS: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&refer=&sid=arIsuoqg34OI

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/09/09/illitch-plans-881-million-red-wings-stadium-project-with-public-funds-despite-detroit-bankruptcy-filing/

POC petition to USDOJ VOD

DETROIT POC DEAL STORIES FROM MICHIGAN CITIZEN BY DIANE BUKOWSKI, BANKOLE THOMPSON

To watch Fox Business News video from which Archer’s quotes in the green side box above were taken, click on http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/2553555311001/former-detroit-mayor-on-citys-bankruptcy/,

Also see the following interview with Dennis Archer on Detroit Channel 7, in which he re-iterates his stance that bankruptcy will benefit the city.

Mike Illitch gets 60 percent public funds for new hockey stadium complex as Detroit goes through bankruptcy.

By Martin Z. Braun   Sep 3, 2013

(VOD: Photos added by VOD. Also see VOD story at http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/09/09/illitch-plans-881-million-red-wings-stadium-project-with-public-funds-despite-detroit-bankruptcy-filing/.)

At the 1997 groundbreaking for a 40,000-seat ballpark for Major League Baseball’s Detroit Tigers, Michigan Governor John Engler said the stadium would symbolize the city’s renewal.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and former Gov. John Engler

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder approved a plan to put public money toward a $450 million downtown arena on behalf of the the National Hockey League’s Red Wings and their billionaire owners.

Ford Motor Co. (F) Chairman William Clay Ford Jr., whose family owns the National Football League’s Lions, said in 1999 that his new 65,000-seat dome would “showcase the city’s turnaround.”

Now that Detroit has become the biggest U.S. municipality to declare bankruptcy, it’s Republican Governor Rick Snyder’s turn to tout a comeback spurred by a stadium for a suburban fan base financed with help from city taxpayers. Snyder approved a plan to put public money toward a $450 million downtown arena on behalf of the the National Hockey League’s Red Wings and their billionaire owners.

Rev. Charles Williams (in blue hat) and other pastors from Detroit and Benton Harbor during rally outside Gov. Rick Snyder’s residence MLK Day 2012.

The 18,000-seat complex and a planned $200 million private development nearby would transform a blighted area into one with apartments, offices, restaurants and shops, says Snyder, who controls the city through an appointed manager. Critics call the plan a giveaway to Mike Ilitch, owner of the Red Wings, the Tigers and the Little Caesar’s pizza chain.

“It’s going to be very tough, in my opinion, to make the case that the city of Detroit should go into bankruptcy so they can simply go in and just raid pensions or give money to the Red Wings,” said the Rev. Charles Williams II, senior pastor at Historic King Solomon Baptist Church in the city.

Hockeytown Agonistes

City retirees protest attack on pensions outside courthouse Aug. 19, 2013

Detroit, a former auto-building powerhouse, on July 18 filed the largest U.S. municipal bankruptcy after years of decline. The city of about 700,000, which lost half its population in the past 50 years, has more than $18 billion in long-term debt and an operating deficit close to $400 million. Snyder’s emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, has proposed reducing pension and health-care benefits for employees and paying holders of $2 billion in unsecured bonds an average 18 cents on the dollar. The distress is so deep that 40 percent of the city’s streetlights have gone dark.

Yet six days after the Detroit’s filing, an arm of state’s economic development corporation gave preliminary approval to sell $450 million in tax-exempt bonds to finance a 650,000-square-foot facility to replace Joe Louis Arena, the home of the Red Wings since 1979.

‘Momentum Shift’

The Red Wings, one of the six original teams in the NHL, have won 11 Stanley Cup championships, the most of any franchise in the U.S. Hockey and the Red Wings are so popular in Detroit that fans, many of whom travel to games from across the region, refer to the city as Hockeytown, a coinage trademarked by the team.

Gov. Rick Snyder, DTE CEO Gerry Anderson, and MEDC head Michael Finney.

Final approval for their new home is expected in November, said Michael Finney, president of the Michigan Economic Development Corp. The arena, which Finney said Detroit officials have approved, would be owned by a new public authority and leased by the Red Wings. Construction is to be finished in 2017.

Snyder said today that the arena would be “a huge momentum shift” for economic activity in the corridor between Detroit’s downtown and the Midtown district, which has experienced an influx of businesses and residents.

Catalyst Project

Planned Red Wings arena development would be cater corner to Comerica Park and Ford Field.

He said the new arena would tie in with nearby baseball and football stadiums. The corridor also is to get a new light-rail commuter train.

“It’s something that hopefully will be a tax-base generator,” Snyder said during a conference call with reporters. “Not the arena as much per se, but all the surrounding development.”

Construction would create 4,380 jobs and as much as $1.8 billion in new economic activity, according to Snyder and Olympia Development of Michigan, a company controlled by the Ilitch family.

John Hahn, a spokesman for Olympia Development, said the Ilitch organization has been committed to Detroit and the state for 31 years and was making another “substantial” investment downtown.

“We have a tremendous opportunity through this large-scale project to create jobs, stimulate economic activity and have a positive and lasting impact on our community,” he said in a prepared statement.

City and state officials point out that the public money that would partially back 30-year arena bonds had been previously targeted to economic development projects in downtown Detroit.

Meaningless Pursuit

Snyder goes after Black majority cities in the “Comeback State.”

Snyder, who has dubbed Michigan the Comeback State because of auto industry’s post-recession revival, may find that his projections collide with reality.

A 2002 study looking at whether construction jobs rose in St. Louis as a result of downtown arenas for the St. Louis Blues hockey team and Rams football team found they didn’t significantly affect construction employment.

Another study by economics professors Dennis Coates of the University of Maryland in Baltimore and Professor Brad Humphreys of the University of Alberta found that income per capita in metropolitan areas didn’t fall during player strikes, supporting an “emerging consensus” that professional sports don’t have an impact on local economies.

“There’s always a debate about does this really pan out?” Orr, the emergency manager, said in a July 25 interview. “The reality is we are so needy of some economic development, I can’t see how we don’t pursue it because if we don’t, what’s left?”

Tapping Schools

Detroit children have been protesting tidal wave of school closings, beginning with 50 in 2004, long before other cities were hit. More than half of the city’s schools are now closed. This photo shows protest July 1, 2004.

Almost 60 percent of the funds to pay for the arena would come from taxpayers. Bonds would be backed by a combination of about $15 million in annual payments from Detroit’s Downtown Development Authority and $11.5 million from Olympia. Wayne County may also provide support, according to a July 24 memo.

In December, Michigan’s legislature revived the ability of the development authority to take a portion of school-tax revenue generated by property on 615 downtown acres. The money, which had gone toward economic-development bonds, would be used for debt service on a project meeting the characteristics of a new Red Wings arena.

The levy generates about $13 million, said Bob Rossbach, a spokesman for the authority.

The money otherwise would have reverted to public schools and the state’s school-aid fund, according to a legislative analysis. The state will reimburse the district to make up shortfalls, just as did before 2011, said Rossbach.

“It’s not taking money from Detroit Public Schools and putting it into economic development,” Rossbach said. Continue reading →

Israeli nuclear and chemical weapons manufacturing facility at Dimona (image by sodahead.com)

By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News

September 11, 2013

A newly-discovered document of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency revealed Monday by Foreign Policy magazine shows that the U.S. agency had decisive evidence dating back to at least the 1980s that Israel had a stockpile of chemical and biological weapons.

The revelation comes in the midst of the reported use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government on August 21st, although there is still no clarity as to whether the regime or the rebels carried out the attack, or whether it was an accident.

While U.S. President Barack Obama threatened to go to war with Syria over the attack, the Syrian government has denied responsibility, and has agreed to a proposal by the Russian government to open its stores of chemical weapons to international inspection and destruction.

The document revealed by Foreign Policy magazine on Monday shows that, in addition to building up a nuclear stockpile of an estimated three hundred nuclear weapons during the 1960s and 70s, the Israeli military also developed an extensive stockpile of chemical and biological weapons.

The 1983 document stated that U.S. spy satellites had identified “a probable CW [chemical weapon] nerve agent production facility and a storage facility… at the Dimona Sensitive Storage Area in the Negev Desert. Other CW production is believed to exist within a well-developed Israeli chemical industry.”

“While we cannot confirm whether the Israelis possess lethal chemical agents,” the document adds, “several indicators lead us to believe that they have available to them at least persistent and nonpersistent nerve agents, a mustard agent, and several riot-control agents, marched with suitable delivery systems.”

The single page of a larger CIA report was discovered at the Ronald Reagan Library in California in its unredacted form – the report had been released several years ago to the National Archives, but was heavily censored.

According to the Foreign Policy report, “Israeli historian Avner Cohen, in his 1988 book Israel and the Bomb, wrote that Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion secretly ordered that a stockpile of chemical weapons be built at about the time of the 1956 war between Israel and Egypt. The CIA, on the other hand, believed that Israel did not begin work on chemical weapons until either the late 1960s or the early 1970s.

The article included the following assessment from the 1983 CIA report: “Israel, finding itself surrounded by frontline Arab states with budding CW [chemical weapons] capabilities, became increasingly conscious of its vulnerability to chemical attack. Its sensitivities were galvanized by the capture of large quantities of Soviet CW-related equipment during both the 1967 Arab-Israeli and the 1973 Yom Kippur wars. As a result, Israel undertook a program of chemical warfare preparations in both offensive and protective areas.”

The Israeli government has harshly criticized the Syrian government for its alleged use of chemical weapons three weeks ago, and has encouraged President Obama’s pledge to respond militarily.

Israel did sign the Convention to Ban Chemical Weapons, but the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) never ratified the treaty. Israel has never opened its nuclear facility or its chemical weapons stockpile to international inspections.

israel | international politics | news report saed at imemc dot org

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http://www.imemc.org/article/66095

IMEMC is a media center developed in collaboration between Palestinian and International journalists to provide independent media coverage of Israel-Palestine.

Related article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/books/14book.html?_r=0

Anti-war march in Detroit Sept. 8, 2013.

The President’s speech Tuesday night repeated all of the lies the United States has been telling about Syria to justify war — and shows that war may be delayed, but is not off the table.

The biggest lie being told right now is that Assad agreed to give up his country’s chemical weapons because of the United States’ “credible military threat.”

What has really happened is that the warmakers in the Pentagon, and their backers on Wall Street, ran into a gigantic brick wall of resistance. They were forced to back down for the time being.

Protesters lined Woodward Avenue in Detroit Sept. 8 to stop war on Syria.

They wanted to go to war right now. But when Kerry said on Monday, “All Assad has to do is give up his chemical weapons,” Syria and Russia called his bluff.

Backing up this move was mass sentiment against war and an anti-war movement that sprang up overnight.

At that very moment, the U.S. was desperately looking for a way out of its stated plans. It was clear that Obama would not get approval for an attack on Syria in the House. And internationally the White House was not getting support, either.

Detroit rally Sept. 8 against war on Syria.

As soon as Obama saw a way out, he took it. This was a tactical retreat – one that gives the anti-war movement more time to mobilize.

It also gives the warmakers more time to mobilize. The goals of the 1% have not changed one iota. They just couldn’t wage the war they wanted when they wanted.

The direction of the competing proposals in the UN Security Council and Congress is to put Syria in the same position as Iraq in 2003. The United States will demand compliance and, like Iraq, it won’t matter what Syria does – the U.S. will claim it is not complying.

Protest in Washington D.C. Sept 7, 2013

Now is the time for the anti-war movement to demand the unilateral disarmament of the Pentagon. The United States has the world’s largest stockpiles of conventional, nuclear and chemical weapons. Right now babies are being born in Fallujah, Iraq, with staggering rates of birth defects because of exposure to depleted uranium used by the U.S. military.

As much as the world is against war, the profit-hungry demands of the 1% constantly compel it to go to war. The U.S. wants complete domination of the Middle East and its vast oil resources. And the 1% wants to break up the alliance of forces that have the capacity to resist the dictates of the United States and Israel.

Only the peoples’ movement can stop war, which the U.S. will try again in Syria later. The struggle continues. The anti-war nerve touched by the latest announced attack was unemployment, poverty, the just-announced cuts in food stamps, Trayvon Martin, low wages, students’ debt burdens and furloughed workers.

All those issues remain, and so does the need to fight for “Money for jobs, not for war!”

International Action Center
c/o Solidarity Center
147 W. 24th St., FL 2 • New York, NY 10011
212-633-6646
http://www.iacenter.org

FOR EXCELLENT VIDEO OF WORLD-WIDE PROTESTS VS. WAR ON SYRIA: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/09/08/322769/global-antiwar-protests-held-on-syria/ 

 

Los Angeles rally against war on Syria.

Art Papapanos (r) of the DEGC presents Illitch stadium proposal to Council committee Sept. 5, 2013. Slide shows proposed new DDA boundaries and project area. Next to it is portrait of the late City Council President Erma Henderson.

95-year project to be 61% publicly-funded, tax-exempt

Utilizes remaining Empowerment Zone bond credits

Expands DDA to create “city within a city,” displacing residents, businesses

Eliminates millions in city fees assessed under Joe Louis Arena plan

Cato Institute: no communities have benefited from sports projects 

By Diane Bukowski 

Sept. 8, 2013 

Marion and Mike Illtich. Illitch is one of Forbes “400 Richest Individuals” in U.S.

DETROIT – As Detroit bankruptcy proceedings present a massive threat to city assets and workers’ pensions, downtown czar Mike Illitch plans to replace Joe Louis Arena with a new tax-free Red Wings hockey stadium and adjacent private developments at a cost of at least $881 million, 61 percent publicly-funded.

An estimated $536 million would come from tax increments “captured” by the Downtown Development Authority, including school, library, city, county and state taxes.

These figures differ from previously announced lower amounts because they include an estimated cost of bonds to be issued by the Michigan Strategic Fund. The bonds would utilize the remainder of Detroit’s federal Empowerment Zone credits, set to expire at the end of 2013. They cover 30 years of a 95-year agreement, according to a report from the City Council’s Legislative Policy Division (LPD).

Gov. Rick Snyder is jeered by protesters in Benton Harbor at its annual Blossom-time Parade in 2011, called a dictator.

Art Papapanos, vice president of board administration at the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation  (DEGC), described plans for an  “Events Center” and “Catalyst Development Project, during a Council committee meeting Sept. 5. He said they would be located in a Downtown Development Authority area expanded to include land north of I-75 (the Fisher Freeway), west of Woodward, south of Charlotte and east of Grand River.

The project takes advantage of Public Act 396 of 2012, signed by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder in Dec. 2012. That Act amends the Downtown Development Authority Act of 1975 to exempt a DDA in a city of more than 600,000 residents from all taxation on its earnings or property, including real estate transfer taxes.

MAP OF PROPOSED EXPANSION OF DDA DISTRICT (ALL AREA N. OF I-75), WITH ILLITCH PROJECT AREA OUTLINED IN PURPLE. HOCKEY ARENA WOULD BE W. OF WOODWARD, S. OF TEMPLE, EAST OF CASS, N. OF 1-75.

“When Proposal A passed, it limited a DDA’s ability to capture revenue streams,” Papapanos said. “[The new Act] says show us a project of at least $300 million to recapture the revenue stream. So we presented a $650 million project, $450 million for the arena and $200 million for the ancillary area.”

Papapanos said the DEGC wants the Council to approve the expansion of the DDA district amend the DDA Tax Increment Finance Plan, and approve the contribution of 37 city-owned parcels of land there at no cost.

Federally-assisted Detroit Empowerment Zone in red. Funds will expire Dec. 31, 2013.

He said that Illitch’s Olympia Development of Michigan will also fund three stations on the proposed Woodward Corridor M-1 rail line. The Catalyst Development Area surrounding the arena would include retail and residential construction and modernization.

Papapanos said the Council must vote on the plan within 60 days, but the LPD report says the real urgency comes from the amended expiration date on Empowerment Zone funds. A Council vote on the project was set for Nov. 12, with a discussion by the full Council sometime in October.

Council members Saunteel Jenkins (l) and James Tate (r) favor the project.

Council Neighborhood and Community Services Committee chair James Tate said regarding the project, “What excited me is the Empowerment Zone aspect.”

Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, who did not run for next year’s term, was angry.

“This proposes a free transfer of city-owned land,” she said. “State law requires any transfer to be at fair market value. We need information from the assessor’s office.”

Watson also objected to the fact that the city is not included as a party in the “Concession Management Agreement” (CMA) covering the project. The parties are Olympia Development of Michigan (an Illitch holding), the Michigan Strategic Fund, and Wayne County.

Councilwoman JoAnn Watson

Council President Saunteel Jenkins agreed that the value of city land for the project should be assessed, but appeared to accept that the city would not be party to the CMA.

Watson added that hundreds of millions in city fees and surcharges from Joe Louis Arena will be lost and questioned what will happen to the facility.

“This would be an opportunity for a replica of the agreement put together by Mayor Coleman A. Young and Bella Marshall for Joe Louis Arena to provide compensation for the city,” Watson said. “Every time they appear on TV, why not demand a share before approving this agreement?”

Red Wings fans pour into Joe Louis Arena.

In Dec. 2012, the Detroit News reported that Illitch’s Red Wings owed the city up to $70 million in cable television rights and millions more in rent, concessions and other revenue and property taxes. The LPD report says only a fraction of that amount, owing since 1980, has been paid since then pursuant to negotiations with Illitch Holdings.

During a Council hearing in 2011, a city analyst from the Assessor’s office said many other fees associated with the city’s sports franchises, including income taxes from Tigers, Lions and Red Wing team members, had not been paid. Watson eventually estimated outstanding corporate debt to the city at $800 million.

Marie Burton says: “We are not rats or dogs, we are human beings.”

Watson also demanded a task force to monitor the hiring of city residents and businesses similar to that utilized for Comerica Park and Ford Field. Illitch’s proposal says he will comply with Exec. Order 1, which requires 51 percent of the workers on the project to be Detroit residents.

Empowerment Zone funding requires 37 percent of the workers to come from the Empowerment Zone itself but does not set wage levels or hours worked. The proposal says a third-party task force will be set up, but does not indicate who will choose it.

Detroit residents present expressed outrage during comments restricted to one minute by committee chair James Tate, who threatened their removal if they exceeded the time limit. Tate also unsuccessfully attempted to limit questions from Councilwoman Watson, and refused to have LPD’s David Whitaker give a summary of their report.

“People are being removed under this project, and they have no idea where they’re going,” Marie Burton said. “You know these people are going to burn your stuff down, tear it down brick by brick. People need decent housing with flowers and trees, and the city needs its tax dollars. Give us respect. We are not rats or dogs, we are human beings.”

Atty. Tom Stephens of DREM and Jerry Balenger, owner of the downtown building housing Cliff Bell’s Jazz Club and the Bucharest Grill, vehemently opposed the Illitch plan.

Representing “Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management,” Attorney Tom Stephens said, “[Publicly-funded sports arenas have] not worked as an economic development strategy to create high-quality living wage jobs, either in Detroit – where taxpayers funded both Comerica Park and Ford Field during the same years that the city slid into its current fiscal crisis and bankruptcy—or anywhere else . . . .Desperately needed financial assistance has long been and is still being denied to children mired in poverty, to public safety, transit, education, health, environmental protection . . .and other social necessities. lWhy should elected officials appropriate hundreds of millions of tax dollars to benefit a multibillionaire owner of a sports franchise?” (Click on TStephens coments  for Stephens full written comments.)

Cliff Bell’s before and after renovation.

A Cato Institute study cited in the LPD report found that not one community has benefited economically from similar sports arena projects anywhere in the U.S. in previous years.

Jerry Balenger, owner of the building housing the popular Cliff Bell’s Jazz Club and Bucharest Grill on Park Avenue in the DDA area, said Illitch is employing a “scorched earth policy.”  He said the DEGC has not consulted with other business owners in the district, who are trying to ameliorate 27 years of blight there. He said Illitch wants to build a wall around his holdings with this project, located diagonally north of the Illitch’s Detroit Tigers’ Comerica Park and the Detroit Lions’ Ford Field.

Bill McMasters (r) of Michigan Taxpayers United says plan is for a “city within a city” controlled by secret interests with taxing power. Chris Jackson, who favors the project is at left.

Forbes Magazine lists Illitch as one of the “400 Richest Americans.” He owns the Red Wings, the Detroit Tigers, and Little Caesar’s Pizza, as part of the $1.7 billion Illitch Holdings empire, along with large amounts of land in downtown and midtown Detroit.  His wife Marian owns the sole controlling interest in the Motor City Casino, and is also involved with Gateway Casino Resorts, LLC and other gambling enterprises.

Bill McMasters, head of Taxpayers United of Michigan, which has 300 members from Detroit, called the project the “creation of a city within a city by a secret organization with taxing power by people who are not elected.”

He showed a Freedom of Information Act request he submitted to the DEGC and the DDA asking for a list of tax breaks given to major companies in Detroit Renaissance Zones. A denial letter from Papapanos, who identified himself as the “FOIA Coordinator for the DDA only,” said the DEGC is not a “public body” and therefore not subject to FOIA and Open Meetings Act laws. He said the DDA does not keep such records. (Click on McMasters FOIA and response for full letter detailing all businesses McMasters wants information on. Click on DEGC Directors 2010 2011 for most recently available listing of directors.)

The DEGC staffs the DDA and numerous other city authorities. Its board members represent a broad range of major corporate CEO’s in the region.

Pastor Alonzo Bell

Pastor Alonzo Bell of the Martin Evans Missionary Baptist Church on the city’s east side said he bought property adjacent to the church land, but now is losing it because the tax rates have skyrocketed.

“This shows the inequality of billionaires getting tax breaks for profit,” he said. “Everybody in the City of Detroit needs to get a tax break.”

Ray Litch said Cass Alumni Association wants to build baseball fields for students on old Cass in proposed new DDA area.

Laverne Holloway said, “This is an absolute shame! People keep saying Detroit is destroyed and worthless, but people are coming every day with their hands out for more public money. Mike Illitch owes us $200 million. PAY THE MONEY! We need every single dime every corporation owes us collected first.”

Ray Litch, Vice-President of the Cass Tech Alumni Association, said they have been planning to construct a field for “boys and girls” baseball on the site of the old school, since razed. He said the football field built with the new school is too small.

Laverne Holloway speaks against Illitch plan.

Others, primarily from businesses and construction unions, favored the proposal.

They included Ken Harris, President and CEO of the Michigan Black Chamber of Commerce, which he said has 72,000 members in the state and 32,000 in Detroit, and the largest Black supplier data base in the country. He said Detroit is ranked #4 across the nation in numbers of Black entrepreneurs.

“I commend Mike and Marian Illitch for their history of supporting us,” he said.

Proposed plan for Queen Lillian office complex.

Chris Jackson, who is partnering with Jenkins Construction in the Queen Lillian medical building project just north of the expanded DDA, said the project will be an “opportunity for Black businesses and developers.”

Toney Stewart, Delegate of Local 687 of the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights (MRCC), said, “We need jobs!” The Carpenters Union has 14,000 members across the state, the vast majority of them white males. The MRCC is a major contributor to the campaigns of powerful politicians state-wide. 

Carpenters Local 687 officers.

For complete information on the project, see:

City Council Legislative Policy Division Report at CCLPD analysis of hockey stadium project

Documents from DEGC: MOU Memo Reso with Exhibits 6-19-13

MOU Events Center and area Memo Reso with Exhibits 6-19-13

Related article from Spark submitted by Keith Hines at DETROIT Destruction of the Cities 9 4 2013 KMH D II

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Detroit EM Kevyn Orr discuss Detroit’s bankruptcy filing July 19, 2013/Photo Diane Bukowski

By Brian Chappatta

September 9, 2013

The smallest amount of municipal-bond issuance in Michigan in 10 years is threatening to derail the state’s economic comeback, showing how Gov. Rick Snyder underestimated the fallout from Detroit’s bankruptcy filing.

Bond sales dwindled to $71.5 million in August, the slowest month in the state since at least February 2003, data compiled by Bloomberg show. At least three Michigan localities — Genesee and Saginaw counties and Battle Creek — postponed a combined $131 million of issuance last month after Detroit’s July 18 Chapter 9 filing because interest rates were too high. Oakland County delayed a $350 million deal last week.

Detroit bankruptcy derails Snyder’s “Comeback State”

Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr has proposed imposing losses on general-obligation bondholders, drawing scrutiny to debt backed by a local government’s full faith and credit. Frankenmuth, northwest of Detroit in Saginaw County, is offering $1.75 million of limited-tax general obligations Tuesday in one of two long-term sales planned in the state this week.

“At some point, the cities need the money and will have to borrow, but it’s going to be more expensive and that’s bad for the Michigan economy,” said Erik Gordon, who teaches at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business in Ann Arbor. “Money that’s paid in excess interest is money that’s flowing out of the state with nothing coming back in return.”

The postponed projects and higher borrowing costs threaten to halt economic gains that have led Snyder to call Michigan the Comeback State. Since the 18-month recession ended in June 2009, Michigan has had the second-best economic growth among U.S. states, trailing only North Dakota, according to the Bloomberg Economic Evaluation of States.

Interest rates on Michigan bonds higher than Cali bonds, despite bankruptcy filings there.

Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s raised their outlook on the state’s credit to positive this year, citing growing reserves and balanced budgets. Thanks in part to the federal bailout of the auto industry, Michigan’s unemployment rate has declined to 8.8 percent from as high as 14.2 percent in 2009, Labor Department data show.

The extra yield investors demand to hold Michigan general obligations relative to benchmark munis tells a different story. The eighth-most-populous state’s 0.55 percentage point yield spread over top-rated debt is second-most among 17 states tracked by Bloomberg, behind Illinois. Michigan pays more to borrow than California, even with an S&P rating two levels higher.

“It’s a healthy reaction by the municipal market to take a pause and reassess the risk” in Michigan, said Robert Amodeo, head of munis in New York at Western Asset Management Co., which oversees about $30 billion of local debt. “There’s a lack of appetite at the moment.” Continue reading →

                    TO DOWNLOAD FLIER, CLICK ON IPA-Detroit-Oct 5-6 color

                      DOWNLOAD FLIER AT CC Illitch hearing 9 5 13.

Some of the supporters of Oakman Orthopedic who ralled to save the school and stop school closings nationally on Aug. 28, 2013.

Detroiters join national call for moratorium on school closings

Demand Oakman Orthopedic remain open

Parents, students rise up as Detroit School of the Arts cutbacks announced

30.6% of school aid to banks; Detroit bankruptcy raised rates on DPS bond 

By Diane Bukowski 

August 31, 2013 

State School Board member Marianne Yared McGuire (l) with others at rally to stop school closings Aug. 28, 2013.

DETROIT – As outrage swells across the country about massive school closings and cutbacks, the Detroit Public School (DPS) system, the first to begin its own tidal wave of closings in 2006 with the shut-down of 50 schools, continues to wield a wide-swinging hatchet under “emergency” dictatorship.

Dozens turned out in front of DPS headquarters at the Fisher Building Aug. 28 to join other cities in a national call for a moratorium on school closings. They advocated  in particular for the state-of-the-art Oakman Orthopedic School, built to accommodate the needs of uniquely disadvantaged children. 

“Save our Orthopedic School, save our neighborhood schools,” protesters chanted, adding, “Hit the road, Jack and don’t you come back no more!” referring to Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s newly-appointed DPS Emergency Manager (EM) Jack Martin. A cacophony of car horns greeted their chants. 

DSA students approach stage angrily during meeting with DPS EM Jack Martin and others Aug. 28, 2013.

Martin has refused to meet with parents at Oakman, but that evening, parents and students at another state-of-the-art institution, the Detroit School of the Arts (DSA), forced him and DSA officers off the stage briefly. The large crowd erupted in outrage at the proposed lay-offs of skilled teachers, arts curriculum cutbacks, and the appointment of a new young white male principal in place of the Black women who previously held that job at DSA. 

Parent Qiana Lynum told Fox 2 News, which was barred from entering the meeting, “This is a crown jewel—the only school of its kind in the country. I moved here from Atlanta just so my daughter could attend DSA.” 

DPS plans to close 28 more schools, pay 30.6% of state aid to the banks 

The DPS Deficit Elimination Plan for 2013-14, signed by former DPS EM Roy Roberts, says the district plans to close 28 more schools from 2014 to 2016. DPS has been decimated by closures for nearly a decade now, with state per-pupil aid siphoned off to charter schools, 13 schools in the state-created Education Achievement Authority, and the district’s debt to the banks. 

Aliya Moore, president of Oakman Tiger Parents Club. Keep the Vote No Takeover leader Helen Moore is in background.

During the 2013-14 school year, DPS set aside $107,261,000 for that debt, taken out of $350,285,000 in state per-pupil aid, according to a letter DPS sent Aug. 15 to the Bank of New York, which oversees the payments. See DPS Set aside requirements 8 15 13.

Aliya Moore, President of the Oakman Tiger Parents Association, told VOD that Martin has refused to keep Oakman open despite recommendations by both the Detroit and Michigan Boards of Education. Forty percent of Oakman’s 300 children have severe disabilities which the school was built to accommodate, with accessible entrances, a single floor layout, rooms for diaper changes and catheterizations, and a wheelchair accessible greenhouse and playground. 

“There is no other school like Oakman in Michigan,” Moore said. “But they are forcing our children to go to Nolan and Henderson schools this fall. We attended very phony open houses for both these schools, where most of the buildings were taped off, making us stay in small areas. They have some of Oakman’s staff at Noble assigned to a gym. A special ed therapist said none of her equipment has been moved to Noble and that there is no sink in the nursing station there.” 

Oakman Orthopedic School.

Moore said cosmetic changes to the grounds at the schools such as shrubbery and flowers have been added, but that parents fear the Oakman building is being “tampered with.” 

“First they told us there were $900,000 worth of repairs needed at Oakman, now it’s $3 million,” Moore said. “We haven’t been able to go inside there since Aug. 13, and then they only allowed us in one hallway and stood outside the bathroom when we used it to make sure we didn’t try to go anyplace else.” 

“No child should have to go to a school like that.” 

Photos of conditions at Noble are displayed during protest.

Marianne Yared McGuire of the State Board of Education attended the protest, standing next to a woman with a poster plastered with photos showing deplorable conditions at Nolan. 

“No child should have to go to a school like that,” McGuire said, “let alone those going to Oakman. “Eleanor White, the head of Special Education for the Michigan Department of Education (MDE), said everything would be ready by the start of the school year at Nolan and Henderson.” 

Sixty Oakman parents and children traveled to Lansing to meet with the MDE last month, according to another protester, but personnel there told them no one was available when they arrived. She said the MDE never called them back or sent an email. 

“They’re supposed to serve us because special ed is totally supported with state and federal tax dollars,” she declared angrily. 

Helen Moore rallies protesters.

Lamar Lemmons is president of the Detroit Board of Education, which the state has stripped of most of its powers. 

“This is taxation without representation,” he told the crowd. “It’s enough to start a revolution. The board has voted continuously against the closure of Oakman and other schools. Oakman was working, and now we’re being punished for our success. They closed the Detroit Day School for the Deaf and a school for pregnant and parenting teens before this. They go after the most vulnerable. We demand that the state reimburse DPS for all the money it owes us. There are hundreds of millions in funds that the state has refused to take because it would mean they would have to get rid of the Emergency Managers.” 

More protesters kept coming. Cynthia Lowe and Marguerite Maddox (with helper dog)are at left.

Board member Elena Herrada added, “They go after the low-hanging fruit in order to gentrify so rich whites can move in. They closed Southwestern High School, and now it’s Oakman and the Detroit School of the Arts. It’s very strategic. The parents are overwhelmed because they have no alternatives.” 

For more information from Journey for Justice, which sponsored the national day of protest against school closings, go to Journey for Justice fact sheet. Also see http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/08/26/detroit-joins-natl-coalition-to-call-for-moratorium-on-school-closings-rally-wed-aug-28-3-pm-dps-hq-fisher-bldg/.

DSA FACES LOSS OF ARTS TEACHERS, CUTS TO ARTS CURRICULUM 

(SEE LETTER BELOW STORY FROM DSA FOUNDER DR. DENISE DAVIS-COTTON.) 

At DSA, parents and students at a packed meeting erupted in anger when officials announced that the only discussion of proposed cuts would come from questions submitted on cards. The officials said only six questions from the cards would be addressed. The school’s new principal, Robert Harvey, showed slides and claimed that DSA is running a $5 million deficit due to decreased student enrollment. Lay-offs and cutbacks in the arts curriculum were abruptly announced the week before schools opened. 

DPS Superintendent Karen Ridgeway speaks as DPS EM Jack Martin (next left) listens approvingly.

As EM Jack Martin sat by, smiling in approval, Superintendent of Academics Karen Ridgeway claimed that DSA had previously been allowed to have 30 teachers although its student enrollment of 500 qualified it for only 21. She said the school must return to its previous enrollment of 750 to 800 students to regain staff, and announced that applications were being handed out.

Eight teachers were slated for lay-offs, with the band and music tech programs among others cut. 

A student called out, “We don’t have enough teachers already. The classes are overcrowded. How can we have a School of the Arts without arts teachers?” 

Audience members at DSA meeting begin rising in protest.

In Dec. 2012, DSA staff reported in a letter, “It is the 12th week of school, yet there are still 45 classes that are oversized to the capacity of anywhere between 39 students to 54 students. We have been told we can’t hire more teachers because it is not in the budget, the one that we still do not have.”

The minutes of the DSA Governing Council for April 15, 2013, state that the “Governing council was told that budget for next year would not change. They were also promised no ‘sweeping layoffs.’”  Go to DSA 2013 4-15 Minutes_Approved_FINAL for full minutes.

Martin and other DPS officials rush off stage as crowd gets angrier.

The staff letter says that, “Doug Ross’ office, the Office of Innovation and Charter Schools, receives 3 percent of our operating budget,” and says the school can never get assistance for its needs from that office. It says Ross has been siphoning funds meant for DSA to charter schools. Ross is a long-time advocate and founder of charter schools in Detroit. (Go to DSA Staff Statement Opposing Self Governance to read full letter.)

Helen Moore challenges Martin and DPS officials during DSA meeting Aug. 28, 2013.

Also, City of Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr declared bankruptcy in July. The Wall Street Journal later reported in August, “Detroit’s public-school system is expected to pay a hefty yield premium as it looks to sell $92 million in debt Tuesday, about a month after the city sent shock waves through the municipal-bond market with its record bankruptcy filing.” 

The article estimated investors in the $92 million bond would earn 4.5 percent instead of the normal 0.18 percent, meaning millions more siphoned off to the banks from the DPS budget.  

After return to stage, DSA Principal bends down to hear students’ protests.

DSA is one of nine “self-governing small high schools,” with 2,800 students, according to the district’s 2013-14 Deficit Elimination Plan. Go to DEP DPS 2013 14.

“Decisions related to curriculum, staffing, budgeting and operations will be determined at the school level enabling the individual Governing Councils to maintain autonomy in their educational programs,” says the plan. “This will allow them to make decisions that best meet the individual needs of their students, shifting authority under this education model.” 

Members of the Governing Councils are appointed. During the meeting, parents and advocates said the governing council is virtually non-functional and demanded that it be disbanded and the school be returned to regular DPS status. They asked that all lay-offs and curriculum changes be canceled immediately.

Natasha Baker read off questions from the cards, each of which elicited loud applause from the audience. 

DSA Principal Robert Harvey (r) refused to talk to VOD at end of meeting.

“Why was a new principal chosen and no one else interviewed,” asked one individual. Ridgeway claimed there were interviews, but an audience member declared that a lie. 

“What is going to happen to our talented staff?” asked another individual. Ridgeway replied that they are being transferred to other schools. 

Anger from parents and students in the meeting continued to rise. 

Helen Moore, co-founder of Keep the Vote No Takeover, stood and declared, “This is our school, our meeting. You are not answering the parents’ questions. You are not allowing the parents to be in charge.” 

Shortly afterwards, Martin, who had been silent, and other officials left the stage briefly while a parent of their choice, Cheryl Valentine, took over. She asked the audience to work with the EM and take applications for more students. She asked parents to sign up with the Detroit Parent Network, an organization set up by private organizations including the Skillman Foundation. 

Parent Christal Bonner addresses audience as former speaker, Karen Valentine, listens from stage. Bonner is pointing to principal and others cowering in a corner of the stage.

Parent Christal Bonner then took the mike. 

“I am a parent of six children, one just graduated from DSA in June, and another is supposed to be coming here in September for the band program,” Bonner said. “I am very concerned because I want DSA to be a full-functioning fine arts school. The kids here support each other, and there has been an artistic, friendly family environment. This school used to be called the School of the Fine and Performing Arts. We shouldn’t be forced to go out and sell chicken dinners to support arts in our schools.”

DSA students and parents flock around Christal Bonner to sign petitions demanding no lay-offs, no curriculum changes, return to DPS regular status.

Parents and students flocked around her to sign petitions based on demands she presented, including restoration of all teachers and a full arts program, and return to regular DPS status instead of the “self-governing” model.  She and Moore called on the audience to attend rallies at DPS headquarters Aug. 29 and 30 to present the petitions to Martin. 

Bonner said the DSA format was based on that of the Booker  T. Washington School of the Fine and Performing Arts in Dallas, Texas, the only other school of its kind in the country, except for Interlochen in Michigan. 

“They don’t want too many of US there, and it’s a private school,” Bonner declared. 

DPS EM Jack Martin, guarded by police and staff, kneels to talk to parent.

Sharetta Strong, parent of a DSA graduate, told VOD, “I’m very concerned. We’ve been working with them all year, and have been told nothing about a $5 million budget gap.”

Charlene Ward, parent of a DSA 11^th grader, said, “The self-governing board has been all but dissolved. This is the first time most of the parents have seen those numbers over the course of the school year. This was supposed to be a partnership. What kind of partners let you go belly under? They feel they can do the same thing over and over. We can only take so much. We have an EM over the city, and an EM over the schools. They do not really understand what we need. We need arts at a performing arts school. My son was so excited to be in the vocal jazz program. We know what the school needs. To yank it just as the school year begins is not right.” 

DPS under EM Jack Martin later issued the following statement to Fox 2 News (it is not posted on the DPS website): 

Parent Christal Bonner (r) and Helen Moore (center) gather petition signatures and talk to audience members

“The decision to make changes to the number of instructional positions at Detroit School of Arts is being reviewed by Detroit Public Schools Academic Leadership and Emergency Manager. It is anticipated that, going forward, staff changes of this nature will also be reviewed with representatives of the school’s Governing Council. Detroit Public Schools remains committed to supporting not only the Detroit School of Arts, but also adding arts/music enrichment back to all of our elementary and middle schools for the 2013-14 school year.

DSA Principal shows charts showing alleged enrollment and achievement drops.

However, we must also remain vigilant in operating our school system in a fiscally responsible manner so that the District can be sustainable for future generations of Detroit students. In recent years, DSA has consistently operated at a deficit that the District can no longer afford to cover, therefore consideration is being given to eliminating some instructional positions and having DSA’s newly restructured leadership team perform both their administrative work and take on some instructional responsibility based on proven models. All of these administrators are licensed and qualified in the respective areas of instruction which they may take on. Further, the District’s ongoing enrollment drive shows hopeful signs of future growth for the school, with approximately 50 new students having enrolled this summer. The district is also actively seeking supplemental funding to assist in instructional areas where budgetary constraints might cause programs to be affected.” 

STATEMENT FROM DSA FOUNDER DR. DENISE DAVIS-COTTON

Arts help stimulate the soul. When the arts are diminished in schools, one shreds part of the souls of children. -Dr. Denise Davis-Cotton, Founder and First Principal, Detroit School of Arts 

Dr. Denise Davis-Cotton, DSA founder and first Principal

Detroit School of Arts (DSA) was designed to provide enriched academic arts opportunities for students under the tutelage of high quality academic arts instructors. DSA was founded on the principles of leadership integrity and community engagement.  These two qualities helped advance DSA into national and international acclaim.

It is difficult and painful to learn about the disruption of DSA’s educational attainment, which began by removing the school from under the auspices of the Detroit Public Schools and forcing her to exist in an unwarranted aggressively inadequate autocratic governance structure. Regretfully, providing a high quality education to DSA’s students was replaced with a regressive ideology of immobilizing educational advancement. 

DSA Orchestra

It is disconcerting to learn about the educational bureaucratic practices and processes that silenced the community’s voices by denying them democratic participation in selecting the school’s leadership. DSA’s positive school climate and culture suddenly became a cesspool for incompetent competents imposing a villainous will on students, parents, teachers, and staff.

DSA student violinist.

The most pejorative act to DSA’s academic integrity is the recent displacement of stellar teachers with impeccable professional records. There is no sound or appropriate rationale to justify these displacements.  Detroit Public Schools is in a position to correct a wrong that resulted in harming DSA, which is held hostage under a depreciatory governance structure, unqualified school leadership, and an amputation of first-rate arts instructors; specifically, N. Burrell, M. Malabad, and  C. Malabed.

The demise of the DSA’s educational programs and removal of exceptional instructors is unjustifiable and reprehensible.  The current autocratic school governance structure appears to produce despondently inept and deceptive leadership decisions that fail to advance DSA’s mission and vision.

Award-winning DSA singers and teachers Dec. 17, 2008

To reconcile these issues, it is of paramount importance and urgency to begin to restore DSA’s credibility by re-instating DSA to the Detroit Public Schools and re-instating the displaced teachers. DPS can support DSA by acting immediately to remove the school from an existing ineffective, unqualified, disorganized, despotic governance and school leadership structure that has diminished and harmed DSA’s school community and paralyzed thriving programs. Furthermore, DPS can immediately re-call the displaced teachers.

DSA jazz musicians

The ramifications and repercussions of ignoring the requests of DSA’s school community could continue to impair the learning experience for students and impede DSA’s growth. Support is needed (at this time) to save not only the institution but the future of the citizens of Detroit. One only need to be reminded that there are four things that help construct a society: laws, education, religion, and the arts. Failure to save DSA, an institution that has proven to instill arts within the Detroit community, will be judged historically as another step in the genocide of Detroit’s culture.

For more information on the fight against school closings and cutbacks, (for Oakman), contact Helen Moore (313)-934-7721 and helen-moore@att.net; Aliya Moore (313)-758-8552 and oakmantigerrparentorganization@yahoo.com
Maulana Tolbert (313)-341-5929 and detroit.nlc@gmail.com.

For more information on DSA situation, contact Christal Bonner @ (313)350-2393 or bonnerchar@yahoo.com . She is also asking that concerned parents, students and supporters start calling and emailing the following:

Jack Martin, EM- (313)870-3772 ; jack.martin@detroitk12.org

Karen Ridgeway, Supt (313)873-4493; karen.ridgeway@detroitk12.org

Natasha Baker, Innovator (313)873-3485 ; natasha.baker@detroitk12.org

Willie McAllister, Music Supr (313)873-7706; willie.mcallister@detroitk12.org

Robert Harvey, Principal DSA; (313)494-6000; rharve1@yahoo.com

Hugo Chavez, the late president of Venezuela, Fidel Castro of Cuba, and Evo Morales, President of Bolivia, in Havana, Cuba. LA LUCHA CONTINUA!

By Evo Morales Ayma
President of Bolivia 

March 2010 meeting of the European Council.

Statement of President Evo Morales Ayma to the gathering of Heads of State of the European Community, (06/30/2013). With simple words, simultaneously translated, President Morales spoke to more than one hundred Heads of State and dignitaries of the European Community: 

Indigena boliviano.

Well, here am I, Evo Morales. I have come to meet those who celebrate the encounter.

Well, here am I, a descendant of those who populated America forty thousand years ago. I have come to meet with those who discovered her only 500 years ago.

Well then, here are we all.

We know who we are, and that is a lot.

We will never have anything else.

Bolivia’s indigneous people march to stop construction of highway through their ancestral lands.

A European brother, a customs officer, asks me for a written paper with a visa to be able to discover those who discovered me.

A European brother, a usurer, asks me for payment of a debt contracted by Judas, whom I never authorized to sell me.

The European brother pettifogger explains to me that all debts are to be paid with interest, even when human beings and whole countries are sold without asking for their consent.

I am discovering you now.

I, too, can demand repayment, and can also demand interest.

In the Archives of Indies, there is written, page after page, receipt after receipt, signature after signature, that between the years of 1503 and 1660 alone,185,000 kilograms of gold and 16 million kilograms of silver were brought from America to

Plundering?

I will not believe that!

Because that would mean thinking that the Christian brothers betrayed their Seventh Commandment.

Pillaging?

Save me Tanatzin, from supposing that the Europeans, like Cain, would kill, and deny the blood of their brother!

Genocide?

Bartolomeo de Casas.

That would mean to credit the slanderers, such as Bartolome de las Casas, who define the encounter as the destruction of the Indies, or to extremists such as Arturo Uslar Pietri, who affirms that capitalism and the present European civilization derive from the flood of precious metals!

No!

Those 185,000 kilograms of gold and 16 million kilograms of silver must be considered as the first of many friendly loans from America, destined for the development of Europe.

To say otherwise would be to assume the existence of war crimes, which would give us the right not simply to demand their immediate return, but also indemnification for damages.

I, Evo Morales, prefer to opt for the least offensive of these hypotheses.

Such fabulous exportation of capital was nothing more than the beginning of a “MARSHALLTESUMA” plan to guarantee the reconstruction of barbarian Europe, ruined by her deplorable wars against the learned Moslems, who had created algebra, polygamy, daily baths, and other superior advances of civilization.

This is why, celebrating the Fifth Centenary of the Loan, we can ask ourselves: Have our European brothers made a rational, responsible, or at least a productive use of the funds so generously advanced to them by the International Indo-American Fund?

We hate saying no. Continue reading →