Place Issue on August Ballot for Decision by Residents and Not Just Six People
Respected community group, Citizens for Detroit’s Future, headed by prominent Detroit accountant and former mayoral hopeful Tom Barrow, in letters to members of the Detroit City Council called on members to reject outright the proposed State lease ceding control of Belle Isle to conservative state interests or place the matter on the August Ballot for a decision by the city’s residents.
“Belle Isle belongs to all of the people of Detroit, not just a mayor and six council people. It is the residents who must decide their jewel’s fate,” said Barrow. “Despite multiple alternate proposals surrounding Belle Isle, including one detailed submission by Citizens for Detroit’s Future calling for a city/suburban controlled Belle Isle Park Authority, none have been considered or vetted except the governor’s plan.”
The success of this grand robbery is dependent on organizing an “inside job” and having allies to keep a “back door” open for an efficient undetected raid. Already electorally compromised in 2009, (the County Board of Canvassers held that nearly 60,000 ballots cast for mayor could not be recounted including the entire class of Absentee Voters, because seals on cases had been changed after election night), the Mayor and six council members seemingly operate openly against the overwhelming voices of their constituents, vote against city resident’s interests, make collective decisions in violation of the Open Meetings Act and the City’s Charter, and meet privately to agree and sign off on deals with no public hearing or notification.
Unfortunately, left to the Council of Six, the ceding of Belle Isle will be a done deal. It is as much so as the forced hiring of Miller Canfield and the sale of hundreds of east side acres to a Hantz Farms Group despite massive overwhelming community opposition. Other than Detroit’s Water System, which will certainly be next, the ceding of Belle isle will be the apex to a well-orchestrated less-than-transparent plan to strip Detroit of its valuable assets and resources.
“If there ever was a robbery in broad daylight for which we need the police, it is ‘The Great Detroit Jewel Heist’ the mother of them all, a theft which will not be forgiven” said Barrow.
Koch Brothers.
CFDF cautions state interests about over-reach as the taking of Detroiter’s Belle Isle will be seen by many city residents as racially motivated and drive a REAL wedge between Detroit and its neighbors.
But race, as overarching a concern as any in matters of Detroit, is over-shadowed by the specter of the billionaires (Koch brothers, Walton and Devos families) who quietly orchestrate moves like these which include voter suppression, emergency managers, and right-to-work laws, all that build upon a worldview that profit-oriented elite business and political interests control our democracy at their whim.
Ralliers at Cadillac Place demand “Let the People Vote’ on PA 4.
City officials’ brazen lawlessness and weakness emboldens the state’s governor and the billionaires to run roughshod over the Detroit citizenry using the cover of votes by the Six. In effect, our “selected” Mayor and Council of Six, act as “loyal employees” to collaborate and conspire openly with outsiders to rob the city’s residents.
A question which must be asked is where are Detroit’s highly touted mayoral hopefuls? They seemingly always sit quiet whenever a fight needs Commanders and Generals, when their community cries out for its defenders, where are they with their swords and shields? Where are our state legislators with their raised voices of protest and determination to right wrongs when sheep clothed enemies come at us? Stand up!! Being silent will not make them like you and not make them stop coming at us. With whom do you stand, Detroiters or its Destroyers?
The proposed contract or lease that is again being scheduled for a vote by city council is bad for Detroit. This is the mayor’s office and the city recreation department stating that they don’t have the competence to care for city parks.
City workers and members of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists from across the U.S. picket the CAYMC May 27, 2010.
What’s being proposed in the lease?
The city will pay the state to cut the grass and shovel the snow, while the city will be forced to lay off more city workers.
The city will continue to pay for the lights, the lighting, the electric wiring and the light poles on Belle Isle.
The city will continue to pay for the water and sewage on Belle Isle. The city will pay for the state to water the grass.
This is worse than the consent agreement; when introduced to council, over half of the lease document was missing and unknown.
Photo from Grand Prix makes clear that state wants Belle Isle for its own reasons.
The state will take ownership of property and roads. With this ownership comes the millions in state road funding.
This is the same as the city council signing a blank check. A check when cashed will put the city further into debt.
The city already has and controls all dollars used or meant for Belle Isle. Why would the city give that money away?
The city’s deficit will rise and park services around the city will fall. Revenue generated by Belle Isle is now used at all parks, future Grand Prix and Hydroplane race income will now go to the state.
The state is not using state money for Belle Isle. The state is not giving money to the city. The state is taking our money for state use. The city will not have money to use on other parks as a result of this deal.
The state should fund Belle Isle if Belle Isle is intended to be a state park. All other state parks in the state are state funded. Belle Isle will continue to be funded by the city.
State’s view of Belle Isle under “lease”: white people kept “safe” by state trooper. (State photo.)
The state will call Belle Isle a state park, charge a $10 entry fee [which will go to the state’s general parks fund, not Belle Isle.] Take Detroit’s revenue sharing to maintain the island and force the city to cover existing costs.
This is a sale under the terms of a contract masquerading as a lease. This is a fraud. The state is not doing anything that Detroit cannot already do. The state takes city money and then pushes for emergency managers and a continuation of the consent agreement. Detroit’s city council should reject the state’s illegal unfunded mandate regarding Belle Isle. This is not just a NO vote on this proposal; this should be a NO to the consideration of such a deal by the city council.
Snyder and Dillon want Detroit to pay them to take control of Belle Isle.
Maybe the real answer is a new mayor and a new set of council members to oversee our parks.
Chair, Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan
Published on Huffington Post Jan. 24, 2012
(VOD: this article was written a year ago but raises still valid points about the ownership of Belle Isle. It does not speak to the issue of a state “lease,” which had not materialized at that time, but to the issue of private ownership, something that has been antithetical to the nature of Belle Isle since the 1700’s, says Professor Miles. However, under Michigan’s current governance, a “lease” to the state is dangerously close to private ownership.)
Marchers on Snyder’s house demand a fight against racism, Jan. 16, 2012.
When protestors from the Occupy for Democracy group rallied outside of Governor Rick Snyder’s Ann Arbor home on Martin Luther King Day, they called attention to an alarming fact. If the governor appoints an Emergency Manager for Detroit, he will give someone the power to fire city officials, sell city assets, and break city contracts. By this act the governor would, in essence, strip numerous Black elected officials of their authority to govern and their power to protect the natural resources and trust of the city. Such an outcome would be damaging to the democratic principle of equal access to representation that citizens of this nation have fought so hard for.
Detroit’s most precious jewel, Belle Isle.
And there is another, more subtle threat to the democratic ethos of the city that could materialize if Detroit’s officials were to be thus disempowered: the seizure of common land. Every newspaper account that I have read on Detroit’s fiscal crisis notes that if an emergency manager were to be assigned, a potential outcome would be the sale of Belle Isle, that splendid stretch of floating land between the U.S. and Canada kept by the city for the common good.
A dazzling 982-acre island park overlooking the Detroit River, Belle Isle is unique among the many famous urban parks developed by major cities like New York, Chicago, and Cincinnati in the late 1800s. It is the largest municipal island park in the country, and it harbors views across international borders. Within its abundant grounds, Belle Isle shelters 230 acres of old growth forest with a variety of 200-year-old tree specimens. The island is also a fresh water conservancy due to its river home and ample lakes.
Michigan Ojibwe tribe members gathering ingredients for maple syrup in the 1700’s. Both they and French settlers, who traded with them, considered Belle Isle common land.
When the city purchased the island from private hands in 1879, a major appeal of the location was the abundance of fresh water, which could be sheltered from industrial manufacturers and protected for future public use. This sense of preserving Belle Isle for the public good stretches back, in fact, to its earliest recorded history. In the 1700s, Ojibwe groups shared access to the island, which they called White Swan (Waabizi or Wanabizi in the Anishinaabe language) with French settlers. In the French colonial period, Hog Island (Isle aux Cochons), as Belle Isle was then known, was used as a public commons where settlers loosed their livestock, mainly hogs, to roam freely.
Family re-union picnic on Belle Isle July, 2012.
After Belle Isle became a city park and gained its current name, residents and tourists enjoyed the island as a recreational destination. In the 1940s and 1950s, Black east-siders made Belle Isle their own by gathering at the park for socials and church picnics. Mistinguette Smith, founder of the Black/Land Project, who recently visited Detroit to interview Black women about their views of land, found that Belle Isle was a focal point of these women’s stories. For Black women in the city, memories of good times on Belle Isle — walking along the river’s edge with friends, wearing shorts and holding ice cream cones — capture a period of contentment rich with the joys of community. This feeling of pleasure, pride, and connection with the crown jewel of the city’s parks is something that Detroiters cannot afford to lose.
Black children enjoying Belle Isle in 1955. Photo by Robert Frank.
If Detroit is a black city, then Belle Isle is black land. It is precious, peaceful, protected land held in trust for the people of the city. Land is the basis for human livelihood and prosperity. And yet, across this nation and for centuries, African Americans have had valuable land stripped out from under us– think of those 40 acres that never materialized after the Civil War, of the many black families who lost farms to illegal deals and swindles after Reconstruction, of the Geechee and Gullah communities on the sea islands of Georgia and South Carolina who lost their land to resort development, and of the struggling residents of Detroit who are losing their own backyards to foreclosure.
Family picnics near Belle Isle beach with view of downtown Detroit July, 2012.
The loss of Belle Isle to private purchasers, beholden only to themselves, would be a sad addition to this lamentable list. After a sale of that magical isle with its majestic trees and shimmering waters — condos, casinos, exclusive clubs and gated communities are unlikely to be too far behind.
As a public place owned by the city, a commons enjoyed by all residents and visitors, Belle Isle is priceless. I dare say that Detroit’s properly elected government officials know this. But what about a wildly empowered emergency manager whom Governor Snyder might impose? I cannot be so sure.
Mayor Dave Bing (r) stands at attention as Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (center) discusses proposed state “lease” of Belle Isle Sept. 12., 2012. At left is George Jackson, CEO of the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, and to Bing’s right is Keith Craig of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources/VOD photo
Council meets Thurs. Jan. 24 @ 1 p.m. and Mon. Jan. 28, votes Jan. 29 Proposed “lease” changes are insignificant, no help to Detroit State gets all revenue, grants, pays no rent, no improvement $$ guarantee City pays expenses, bonds, debt; no jobs or contracts guaranteed
By Diane Bukowski
January 23, 2013
DETROIT – The Detroit City Council “Rogue Six” are conspiring to give the city’s most gorgeous jewel, Belle Isle, to the state by Jan. 29, fast-tracking a proposed “lease” with no cost to the state at hearings Jan. 24 and 28. Their tactics are identical to those used in the Hantz Farms land grab.
Detroit City Council Rogue Six: Ken Cockrel, Jr., Saunteel Jenkins, Gary Brown, Charles Pugh, Andre Spivey, James Tate
VOD has obtained a copy of the proposed agreement, already signed by Recreation Department Director Patricia Minter, and Acting Corporation Counsel Edward Keelean., who has replaced Krystal Crittedon, fired by the Rogue Six. Click on Belle Isle proposal 1 17 13 to read entire proposal.
Councilwoman JoAnn Watson at Council hearing on Belle Isle Sept. 25, 2012.
“The cover sheet from the Purchasing Department labels this as revenue, with 100 percent state-funding,” Councilwoman JoAnn Watson said at a Council meeting Jan. 22.
“The value of Belle Isle has been appraised at least at $280 million, which is being totally ignored,” Watson continued. “This is the same kind of faulty logic that led to the giveaway of Cobo Hall. Belle Isle is a jewel, but here comes an alleged contract, basically saying the value of Belle Isle is nothing, just give it to the state to operate with the city still paying all the bills and getting no revenue. What kind of shadow government is running the city today?
One group has proposed turning Belle Isle into an independent commonwealth, with skyscraper condos and other amenities for the wealthy.
“The state says it already has the majority of the City Council. The Council is not operating with all nine members,” Watson contended. “There is still a law on the books that says the city can’t enter into a contract if the contractor owes the City money. The state still owes us over $240 million. You can get rid of Krystal Crittendon, but you can’t get rid of the law. Somebody has decided they want to turn Belle Isle into a playground for the rich.”
Councilman James Tate is chair of the Neighborhood and Community Services Committee, set to meet with the entire Council, the state, George Jackson of the Economic Growth Corporation, and the Detroit Police Department Thursday, Jan. 24 at 1 p.m. (Click on Neighborhood, Community Services Committe 1-24-13 agenda.) He contended a “working group” of three along with the outside representatives spent long hours to revise last year’s proposal.
Council member James Tate at Council hearing Aug. 7, 2012 after PA 4 was placed on ballot.
“Our goal was to put together a proposal that would have the City of Detroit’s best interest at heart,” he said. “I want to give each member of this body a chance for input on Thurday, then have a public hearing on Monday. I suggested we vote Jan. 29 and put this thing to bed, vote it up or down. There were some items we and State each wanted, but weren’t able to get, but the group did the best we could.”
In fact, the proposed lease, compared to the lease presented last year, has very insignificant and condescending changes which still don’t provide the city with any revenue, guaranteed jobs or Detroit-based business participation, and nothing in lease payments. The state still claims the cost of its maintenance of Belle Isle is sufficient to compensate for lease payments, but still promises no set figure that it will spend on Belle Isle improvements. The “lease” remains at 30 years, with two possible 30 year extensions.
The entrance fee, which many previously believed would be set aside for park improvements, is still the $10 a year state pass for all parks, with no guarantees that any of it will be set aside for Belle Isle. There appears to be some conflict between Tate and the State regarding whether the state police will patrol the island, which the Council at first said it would discuss in closed session.
However, after additional discussion, the Council, afraid of public reaction and challenges under the Open Meetings Act, said all sessions on Belle Isle would be open to the public.
The chart below describe provisions of the original “lease,” which still remain in the current lease. Click on Belle-isle-lease-VOD3 to read VOD’s story on the original proposal, which contains a link to the previous version of the “lease.”
The Council did vote for interim city designation of Belle Isle as a “historic site.” It is already on the register of National Historic Places. (Click on BI historic designation for text of resolution, submitted by Councilwoman Watson.)
Councilwoman Saunteel Jenkins, however, at first opposed the vote.
Coucilwoman Saunteel Jenkins.
“I support the study, but have concerns with an interim designation. There are federally-funded repairs to the MacArthur bridge on the agenda today, plus I have concers\ns concerns because whatever happens [with a historic designation] it would limit our ability to carry out the plan.”
She appeared to be concerned that the proposed lease might be blocked by the designation.
Jenkins later introduced a discussion of the number of lawsuit settlements on the agenda for the day, most of them for police brutality. She claimed cases such as one involving a house break-in by a youth benefit the “criminals” in the city.
Rafael Jones, 14, leads march for Justice for Aiyana and Charles Jones April 23, 2012 at Frank Murphy hall, with grandmother Mertilla Jones (l), aunt LaKrystal Sanders (r). Charles Jones is being held without bail on trumped up charges while 7-year-old Aiyana’s klller, Detroit cop Joseph Weekley, is free on personal bond. No other police officials involved in the raid on her home May 16, 2012 have been charged.
An enthusiastic discussion ensued, during which every Council member chimed in regarding the problem of “youth violence” and “crime” in Detroit as if they are the city’s primary concerns. No one put any blame on the police department and rampant ongoing brutality.
No one discussed what many Detroiters have termed the “lawlessness” of city and state officials, particularly violations of the Open Meetings Act by City Council over the last year, as hundreds of Detroiters have been forced to stand in the hallway unable to see or hear vital Council meetings on the Consent and Milestone Agreements and other issues.
Most mayoral candidates so far have made “crime” the focus of their campaigns, instead of the steady de-construction of Detroit by criminal politicans, banks, and mortgage companies.
One Detroiter told VOD, “Why isn’t it up to the people to vote on what happens to Belle Isle?” Detroit Tyrone Travis has cited state law which states a popular vote is required on most matters the state legislature deals with.
“Pastors, community leaders and citizens, has the time come to take to the streets and shut Detroit down–no cars in, no cars out?,” asked former mayoral candidate and community activist Jerroll Sanders in a column on her Facebook page furing last year’s discussion of the Belle Isle “lease.”
Jerroll Sanders
“The taking of assets in Detroit is racism prima facie,” Sanders said. “In less than seven years, Michigan State officials, colluding with selected members of Detroit’s City Council, the City’s current and former mayors, and powerful backers, seized Detroit’s billion dollar art institute, billion dollar waterfront convention facility, prime golf courses, thousands of acreage of camp and park land, billion dollar water assets, billion dollar historical museum assets, as well as countless other properties and conferred them to suburban and personal corporate interests, often without providing one dime in return.”
Bele Isle is part of the heritage of Detroit”s children, who have been deprived of virtually everything else, including jobs, schools, recreation centers, and just treatment by the police and courts. STOP THE TAKEOVER!
Detroit and Highland Park students and parents participating in the Journey for Justice campaign will testify in Washington D.C. about nationwide discrimination against students of color in the public schools. School board members Elena Herrada (2nd from left) and Tawanna Simpson (r) are in front row.
VOD: story on press conference with comments is forthcoming shortly.
Students who are traveling to Washington stand during press conference at Dexter Elmhurst Center Jan. 23, 2013.
Students and parents listen intently to speakers. At left is Tom Stephens of the National Lawyers Guild who also apoke and will be going on the trip.
Helen Moore of Keep the Vote No Takeover is a coordinator of the J4J campaign.
School Board president Lamar Lemmons speaks at press conference.
Jorge Parras (r), GM Colombian worker on hunger strike with 200 others after being fired for being injured on the job, outside the 2013 Detroit Auto Show at Cobo Hall.
200 GM workers from Colombian plant on hunger strike to protest firing of workers injured on job, as elite celebrate at auto show
U.S. autoworkers protest wages, conditions; Detroiters protest poverty and Right to Work law
By Diane Bukowski
January 21, 2013
Statue of Detroit hero Joe Louis, fists at the ready, turns back on wealthy elite attending “Charity” preview of auto show Jan. 18, 2013.
DETROIT – During the 2013 Detroit auto show, the international media, executives from big corporations and banks, politicians with dollar signs in their eyes, and other assorted wealthy white folks in backless evening gowns and shoes on stilts, black tie and tails have flooded downtown Detroit like it was the wealthy country of Monaco.
“We really get the feel that there is even more activity than there has been over the past five or six years,” Michael O’Callaghan, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the [Detroit Convention and Visitors] bureau, told the Detroit News.. “The show will bring somewhere between $300 million, $400 million to southeast Michigan. Those dollars are gigantic, especially in January. . . . At Metro Detroit hotels, the increased revenue over the two-week period is in excess of $33 million.”
Larry Simon (l) of Simon’s BBQ, ejected from Cobo Hall after regionalization.
The figures do not include the majority of Black and resident-owned businesses from Detroit. The few Black owned-businesses which had franchises inside Cobo Hall, where the auto show was held, lost them after Cobo Hall was regionalized under the administration of then interim Mayor Kenneth Cockrel, Jr.
VOD spotted City Council President Charles Pugh and a friend at the gala “charity” preview Jan. 18, whose attendance was likely 90 percent white, and managed to catch a shot of him on the run. He repeatedly ducked away as VOD tried to photograph him. Not surprising, since the Big Three, along with mortgage companies and privatizers, have been largely responsible for the devastation of Detroit, moving well-paid unionized jobs away from the city to the South and overseas.
City Council President Charles Pugh shows up at Auto Show charity preview. He repeatedly ducked VOD camera afterwards.
Like Pugh and the rest of the Council’s Rogue Six, the daily media has ignored the reality of Detroit, the poorest major city in the country, where 51 percent of Detroit public schools children live below the poverty rate, and the unemployment rate continues to skyrocket.
Like those who refuse to see homeless people on the streets, well-heeled auto show attendees pointedly ignored protests by laid-off and increasingly impoverished auto workers and Detroiters. GM was touted by the daily media as king of the auto show.
Autoworkers Caravan at Auto Show Jan. 14, 2013.
A GM worker from Colombia who has been on hunger strike for 55 days because GM fired him and 200 co-workers after they became disabled due to injuries on the job was the focus of the first protest, sponsored by the Autoworkers Caravan, on Jan. 13 and 14. The only media present, other than those from the progressive left , was an Argentinian reporter.
Jorge Parras of Colombia, on hunger strike for 55 days.
“I have a spinal injury,” Jorge Parras, the single father of a five-year-old daughter, told VOD as he sat on a chair, covered with blankets. Due to his hunger strike, he said, he is experiencing “a lot of headaches, a lot of nausea, pain all over my body, extreme cold, and debilitation.”
“We hope for a prompt solution because our families are going through extremely difficult times,” Parras said. “Our children, our comrades have been evicted from their homes, and are hungry and desperate. This is why we take such drastic measures.”
He thanked everyone for their support and asked all union members and workers to add theirs. Statements have already been issued by workers in Brazil and Germany. Parras has been in the U.S. for five months. Parras attended demonstrations against Right to Work legislation in Lansing in December, and also traveled with a national delegation by bus to protest the School of the Americas, the CIA’s terrorist training center.
Former UAW Local 160 Pres.Norbin Thompson expresses solidarity with Colombian hunger strikers.
Many of the hunger strikers sewed their mouths shut until infection set in, to shame GM. The workers include 200 who have lost their jobs at GM’s Colomotores assembly plant due to work-related injuries. Prior to starting the hunger strike, they set up a tent encampment at the U.S. Embassy. To date, despite mediation, GM only agreed to a financial settlement of $500,000 to 12 workers, and refused to re-hire any workers. The workers refused the settlement and have continued their hunger strike, vowing not to end it until their demands are met.
“Due to poor working conditions, ASOTRECOL (Association of Injured Workers and Ex-Workers of General Motors Colombia), suffer many medical problems including herniated discs, carpal tunnel, tendonitis, chronic ringing in the ears, spinal injuries and cancer,” according to the Autoworkers Caravan newsletter.
Autoworkers Caravan included members of Beat Back Right to Work, which is mobilizing for a general strike to stop the war on working and poor people.
“ASTRECOL is demanding that GM admit its responsibility, improve health and safety, compensate them for being let go, and rehire them for jobs they can perform. They also want GM to recognize their union. Their encampment, now in its 410th day, aims to pressure the U.S. government, [then] a 20 percent owner – to force GM to honor their demands.”
The Autoworkers Caravan also petitioned United Auto Workers International President Bob King to intervene in the situation, and held a demonstration in front of GM’s headquarters on East Jefferson last August. As a result, UAW VP Joe Ashton and UAW health and safety reps went to Colomotores, to no avail. King was not present at the press conference in front of the Auto Show, but instead went to court to get permission to hold a protest demanding that the UAW be able to organize Nissan plants in the South.
Members of Good Jobs Now! and NAN outside auto show Jan. 18, 2013.
Former UAW Local 160 President Norbin Thompson also spoke at the press conference in support of Parras and his comrades. He said he drank water only for 22 days to support the hunger strike.
“Their struggle resonates because we go through the same things here, but not as severe,” Thompson said. “There is a parallel system of how corporations run here and there. GM has all the capital, the workers have none. We ought to be able to control at least whether out jobs injure us. We are asking for nothing but justice. What is happening in Colombia is migrating here. The workers cannot continue to endure this.”
Good Joba Now! and NAN protest at auto show Jan. 18, 2013.
Martha Grevatt, a UAW worker for 25 years who currently works at the GM Warren Stamping Plant, addressed the concerns of her co-workers across the U.S.
“GM went into bankruptcy in 2007 and came out in 2011,” she said. “Workers wanted to make gains as a result, but we have not. We have had no wage increase since 2006; we no longer have cost-of-living allowances; we have an unequal and divisive two-tier wage schedule. Hiring new hourly workers with these concessions has been more advantageous to the companies.”
Elite “ladies” appear shocked as workers and poor invade Auto Show with legal oberver (in green hat) Jan. 18, 2013.
She added, “We don’t get overtime on Saturdays; overtime only comes after 40 hours in the week. We have outrageous new work schedules which don’t allow us to choose weekends off, which hurts workers who have been forced to move elsewhere to follow their jobs, because they can’t go home to see their families regularly. Since 1979, 267 auto plants have closed in the U.S., half of them since 2004.”
Father and child were among protesters who entered auto show Jan. 18, 2013.
On Friday, Jan. 18, members of Good Jobs Now and the National Action Network loudly protested outside the auto show as busloads of elegantly dressed people were dropped off at the “charity” preview, to gather around the Cobo Hall statue of Joe Louis, his fists at the ready, drink free champagne and watch luxurious new cars roar up and down the lobby.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and the Republican heads of both houses of the state legislature, responsible for making Michigan a Right to Work (for less) state, along with Detroit mayoral candidate Mike Duggan, were in attendance.
Mike Duggan, who wants to be Detroit’s first white mayor since before Coleman Young, joshes with his lackeys at Auto Show Jan. 18, 2013.
Protesters loudly chanted against Snyder and Right to Work, banging drums and using bullhorns, as attendees scurried inside. Police roped off auto access to Cobo Hall for several blocks, but the protesters took possession of the streets across from Cobo anyway.
They included a large number of Black youth and very informally (and warmly) dressed adults, who decided after enduring the bitter cold for a while to make their presence known inside. They marched across the street to Cobo Hall and invaded the gala as shocked attendees gaped and showed their fright. They mingled with the rich white elite, roving through the lobby without police interference, until Rev. Charles Williams II concluded the protest with a prayer group.
Rev. Chas. Wms. II leads prayer at end of invasion. He explicitly warned demonstrators not to “turn over tables,” etc.
…And one day we must ask the question, Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society…
(VOD: as we celebrate the national Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday today, Dr. King’s speech below describes the present as well as the situation in 1967.)
Black infant mortality still far exceeds that of white infants today.
Now, in order to answer the question, Where do we go from here? which is our theme, we must first honestly recognize where we are now. When the Constitution was written, a strange formula to determine taxes and representation declared that the Negro was sixty percent of a person. Today another curious formula seems to declare that he is fifty percent of a person.
Of the good things in life, the Negro has approximately one half those of whites. Of the bad things of life, he has twice those of whites. Thus half of all Negroes live in substandard housing. And Negroes have half the income of whites. When we view the negative experiences of life, the Negro has a double share. There are twice as many unemployed. The rate of infant mortality among Negroes is double that of whites and there are twice as many Negroes dying in Vietnam as whites in proportion to their size in the population.
Child in May 7, 2011 protest in Benton Harbor, taken over by Snyder EM,
In other spheres, the figures are equally alarming. In elementary schools, Negroes lag one to three years behind whites, and their segregated schools receive substantially less money per student than the white schools. One-twentieth as many Negroes as whites attend college. Of employed Negroes, seventy-five percent hold menial jobs.
This is where we are. Where do we go from here? First, we must massively assert our dignity and worth. We must stand up amidst a system that still oppresses us and develop an unassailable and majestic sense of values. We must no longer be ashamed of being black. The job of arousing manhood within a people that have been taught for so many centuries that they are nobody is not easy.
Protesters against Zimmerman murder of Trayvon Martin in downtown Detroit May 26, 2012.
Even semantics have conspired to make that which is black seem ugly and degrading. In Roget’s Thesaurus there are 120 synonyms for blackness and at least sixty of them are offensive, as for example, blot, soot, grim, devil and foul. And there are some 134 synoyms for whiteness and all are favorable, expressed in such words as purity, cleanliness, chastity and innocence. A white lie is better than a black lie. The most degenerate member of a family is a black sheep. Ossie Davis has suggested that maybe the English language should be reconstructed so that teachers will not be forced to teach the Negro child sixty ways to despise himself, and thereby perpetuate his false sense of inferiority, and the white child 134 ways to adore himself, and thereby perpetuate his false sense of superiority.
In this Oct. 16, 1968, file photo, United States gold medalist Tommie Smith, center, and bronze medalist John Carlos, right, stare downward while extending their gloved hands skyward in racial protest alongside Australian silver medalist Peter Norman during the playing of “The Star Spangled Banner.”
The tendency to ignore the Negro’s contribution to American life and to strip him of his personhood is as old as the earliest history books and as contemporary as the morning’s newspaper. To upset this cultural homicide, the Negro must rise up with an affirmation of his own Olympian manhood. Any movement for the Negro’s freedom that overlooks this necessity is only waiting to be buried. As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free. Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery.
No Lincolnian emancipation proclamation or Johnsonian civil rights bill can totally bring this kind of freedom. The negro will only be free when he reaches down to the inner depths of his own being and signs with the pen and ink of assertive manhood his own emancipation proclamation. And, with a spirit straining toward true self-esteem, the Negro must boldly throw off the manacles of self-abegnation and say to himself and to the world, I am somebody. I am a person. I am a man with dignity and honor. I have a rich and noble history. How painful and exploited that history has been. Yes, I was a slave through my foreparents and I am not ashamed of that. I’m ashamed of the people who were so sinful to make me a slave. Yes, we must stand up and say, I’m black and I’m beautiful, and this self-affirmation is the black man’s need, made compelling by the white man’s crimes against him.
Rally to save Detroit’s Belle Isle from state takeover Sept. 22,2012.
Another basic challenge is to discover how to organize our strength in terms of economic and political power. No one can deny that the Negro is in dire need of this kind of legitimate power. Indeed, one of the great problems that the Negro confronts is his lack of power. From old plantations of the South to newer ghettoes of the North, the Negro has been confined to a life of voicelessness and powerlessness. Stripped of the right to make decisions concerning his life and destiny he has been subject to the authoritarian and sometimes whimsical decisions of this white power structure. Continue reading →
If Dr. King were alive today, there might be a Black president, but he or she would certainly not get MLK’s support if he behaved like Barack Obama. Dr. King would oppose Obama’s wars, “make Wall Street scream, and attempt to render the nation ungovernable under the dictatorship of the Lords of Capital.”
Back in 1964, under prodding from a BBC interviewer, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. predicted that a Black person might be elected president“in 25 years or less.” Four years later, shortly before his assassination, King confided to actor/activist Harry Belafonte that he had “come to believe we’re integrating into a burning house.” We now see that the two notions are not at all contradictory. At least some African Americans have achieved deep penetration of the very pinnacles of white power structures – integrating the White House, itself – while conditions of life for masses of Black folks deteriorate and the society as a whole falls into deep decay.
The fires lit by the “giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism” that Dr. King identified in his 1967 “Beyond Vietnam: Breaking the Silence [10]” speech are consuming the world, now stoked by a Black arsonist-in-chief. Domestic poverty hovers only a fraction of a percentage below the levels of 1965 [11], with “extreme poverty” the highest on record. Black household wealth has collapsed to one-twentieth that of whites. Today, more Black men are under the control of the criminal justice system than were slaves in the decade before the Civil War, according to Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow.
The intervening years have shown that Dr. King’s 1960s visions were not in conflict: the rooms at the top floors of the national house may have been integrated, but the building still burns.
In this March 19, 2011 file photo, supporters of besieged Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi cheer as they rally in support of him in the city of Bamako, Mali. Libya was Obama’s war on Africa. Now the U.S. military has boots on the ground all over the continent.
The deepening crisis of capitalism, the triumph of Wall Street finance over industrial capital, the increasing imperial reversion to international lawlessness in a desperate bid to maintain global supremacy – all this was predictable under the laws of political economy. Had the assassin’s bullet not found him, Dr. King would have continued his implacable resistance to these unfolding evils, rejecting Barack Obama’s invasions, drones and Kill Lists with the same moral fervor and political courage that he broke with Lyndon Johnson over the Vietnam War. Absolutely nothing in King’s life and work indicates otherwise.
“The very notion of a grand austerity bargain with the Right would have been anathema to MLK.”
One school of thought holds that corporate servants like Obama could not have taken root in Black America if Dr. King, Malcolm X and a whole cadre of slain and imprisoned leaders of the Sixties had not been replaced by opportunistic representatives of a grasping Black acquisitive class. In any event, had King survived, his break with Obama would have come early.
Surely, the Dr. King who, in his 1967 “Where Do We Go from Here” speech called for a guaranteed annual income would never have abided Obama’s targeting of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in the weeks before his 2009 inauguration. Forty-five years ago, King’s position was clear: “Our emphasis must be twofold: We must create full employment, or we must create incomes.” The very notion of a grand austerity bargain with the Right would have been anathema to MLK.
Were Martin alive, he would skewer the putative leftists and their “lesser evil” rationales for backing the corporatist, warmongering Obama. As both a theologian and a “revolutionary democrat,” as Temple University’s Prof. Anthony Monteiro has described him, MLK had no problem calling evil by its name – and in explicate triplicate. His militant approach to non-violent direct action required him to confront the underlying contradictions of society through the methodical application of creative tension. He would make Wall Street scream, and attempt to render the nation ungovernable under the dictatorship of the Lords of Capital. And he would deliver a withering condemnation of the base corruption and self-serving that saturates the Black Misleadership Class.
He would spend his birthday preparing a massive, disruptive action at the Inauguration.
PARTICIPANTS IN RAPE OF DETROIT (from top clockwise): WALL STREET, MICH. GOV. RICK SNYDER, DETROIT PMD KRISS ANDREWS, MILLER CANFIELD ATTY. MICHAEL MCGEE, COUNCILMAN KEN COCKREL, JR, COUNCILWOMAN SAUNTEEL JENKINS, FISCAL ANALYST IRVIN CORLEY, COUNCILMEN JAMES TATE, ANDRE SPIVEY, MILLIMAN CEO STEVEN WHITE, STIFEL CEO RON KRUSJEWSKI, FAB LEADERS KEN WHIPPLE, SANDRA PIERCE, COUNCIL LEADERS GARY BROWN, CHARLES PUGH, MAYOR DAVE BING, STATE TREASURER ANDY DILLON.
Stifel Financial, being sued for securities fraud in cases across the U.S., will be city’s “investment banker,” sell assets
Other shady firms get millions to carry out de-structuring of city
Residents, workers to pay with huge wage, pension and benefits cuts, increased fees, loss of city assets including Belle Isle
Banks to profit from debt re-financing, no moratorium
January 15, 2013
By Diane Bukowski
Officers with the Detroit Police Department Gang Squad keep the peace as crowds wait outside Cobo Center in Detroit. Detroit residents were seeking applications for federal assistance money for the homeless. The city received nearly $15.2 million in federal dollars under the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program, which is for temporary financial assistance and housing services to individuals and families who are homeless, or who would be homeless without this help. Photos taken on Wednesday, October 7, 2009. ( John T. Greilick / The Detroit News )
DETROIT – The Wall Street gang rape of Detroit, the nation’s poorest and Blackest major city, for its assets, resources, and $2.5 billion budget proceeded full speed ahead over the holiday break and into the New Year of 2013.
Participants in the rape (shown above) are Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, State Treasurer Andy Dillon, Mayor Dave Bing, Program Management Director Kriss Andrews, City Council Fiscal Analysis Director Irving Corley, and Council members Charles Pugh, Gary Brown, Kenneth Cockrel, Jr., Saunteel Jenkins, James Tate, and Andre Spivey.
The Council members are the Rogue Six who met with the Detroit News and Free Press prior to the holidays, purporting to represent the entire Council of nine members.
“You are by far the most fascist, tyrannical sitting body in history,” Valerie Glenn told the Six at the body’s first meeting of the year Jan. 8, 2013. “You are firing Krystal Crittendon, you are not protecting our assets, including Belle Isle, and you support the Emergency Manager laws.”
Valerie Glenn at City Council meeting Aug. 7, 2012.
Chris Griffiths said, “This is a death threat to us, to eliminate democracy, sell our assets, bust our unions, and eliminate our vote. This is a plan for domination and dictatorship. I say to you will go down in history as responsible for resurrecting Hitler from the dead. Krystal Crittendon has done a wonderful job. She should be applauded for protecting the City Charter.”
Crittendon’s firing, done at the behest of Bing and Snyder, overshadowed a stunning “Joint Mayor and City Council Plan to Address the City’s Current Cash Flow Crisis by June 30, 2013,” never approved by Council, which Corley brought to the body that day. It says the administration in concert with the new Financial Review Team and others, is planning to implement:
Increased fees for services, stepping up income tax collections, selling assets, etc. No mention of collection of $800 million corporations owe the city, and over $240 million the state owes Detroit. State Treasurer Andy Dillon has confirmed both amounts.
At least 400 more city lay-offs.
Additional 20 percent pay cuts for city workers on top of earlier 10 perent.
Forty percent health care premium-sharing for active employees, 60 percent for retirees;
Elimination of dental and vision benefits for active and retired workers;
Unilateral imposition of new contracts June 30, 2013;
Revisiting Belle Isle lease;
Outsurcing vehicle maintenance and possibly law, IT, finance, DDOT;
All recreation centers to be turned over to non-profits.
Ten percent price reduction for vendors; decrease purchases by 10%;
Long term debt-refinancing to reduce interest rates on outstanding debt (investment banker to be retained), POC [pension obligation certificates] swap restructuring, OPEB restructuring and pension restructuring. (VOD: Debt re-financing means higher interest rates for the banks. No mention is made of a moratorium on the city’s massive debt to the banks, or even negotiations to lower principal and interest payments.)
City Council Fiscal Analyst Irvin Corley.
Corley says the plan was concocted by a “working group including representatives of the Bing Administration, President Pugh, Pro Tem Brown, Councilman Cockrel, and Fiscal Analysis Division staff [during] the last few weeks to address the current cash flow crisis by June 30, 2013” to avoid appointments of either an emergency financial manager or an emergency manager, and to avoid bankruptcy. (Link to full report at end of story.)
Councilman Andre Spivey inadvertently gave the lie to Corley’s contention that only three Council members were involved, blurting out that he had spent his entire holiday break in the meetings. Jenkins and Tate were also likely involved, since they were part of the Rogue Six that met with the News and Free Press.
Detroit City Councilman Kwame Kenyatta.
Outraged, Council members JoAnn Watson, Brenda Jones and Kwame Kenyatta said no one had contacted them about the holiday meetings, although they were available to attend. Kenyatta said all actions by the group must therefore be nullified under the Open Meetings Act.
During the meeting, the Council Six approved contracts with five law firms and corporate restructuring entities, worth over $14 million. The re-structuring firms have little or no experience in the public sector.
The $1.8 million “investment banker’ contract is with New York-based Miller, Buckfire and Co., now a part of St. Louis, Missouri-based Stifel Financial.
“Miller Buckfire will act as the City’s investment banker and will provide financial advisory services, including possible strategic asset sales and related refinancing actions,” says Corley’s report.
Councilwoman JoAnn Watson pointed out that Miller Buckfire no longer exists.
“On Jan. 1, Miller Buckfire was wholly taken over by another firm, Stifel Financial, 100 percent,” Watson said. “They can’t even sign a contract. How can they restructure Detroit when they cannot restructure themselves?”
Andrews scoffed at Watson’s concerns, saying, “Jack [Martin, Detroit CFO], and I are in contact with them constantly. I don’t understand why that affects their ability to assist Detroit.”
(Bloomberg) Oct. 23, 2012 — Hunter Keay, an analyst at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., talks with Bloomberg’s Mark Crumpton about US Airways Group Inc.’s decision to cut 1,000 jobs and the outlook for the airline industry, calling “head count reduction” an area of “low-hanging fruit.)
Due diligence on the administration and Council’s part would have disclosed the following about Stifel’s shady history.
Stifel execs on Wall Street, including CEO Ron Krusjewski (2nd from l). Business Insider said: “Stifel’s analysts made the worst [stock] calls for Bank of America, Cisco Systems, Coca-Cola, Intel, and Microsoft, which weighed heavily on their score. However, the firm had the most accurate analyst covering AT&T.”
The company manages $91 billion in assets world-wide and has been gobbling up dozens of other companies, including 56 branches of UBS Wealth Care Management, acquired in 2009. UBS just paid a $1.5 billion fine to the U.S. Department of Justice, admitting to fraudulent interest-rate rigging on a global scale.
The South Florida Business Journal reported in April, 2012, “Florida regulators told Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. [a subsidiary of Stifel Financial] to “cease and desist” from violating securities laws pertaining to the sale of auction-rate securities (ARS) and to repurchase those securities from customers who were misled.
In March 2012, Stifel paid a $350,000 fine to settle an action brought against it by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), due to a fraudulent Ponzi scheme run in its home state of Missouri by one of its brokers. They also agreed to pay $250,000 plus interest in restitution to customers affected by the scheme.
Students walked out of school in Wisconsin to protest union-busting and cutbacks during historic state uprising in 2010.
In an ongoing 2011 case,’’ the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Stifel with “defrauding five Wisconsin school districts by selling them unsuitably risky and complex investments funded largely with borrowed money,” totaling $200 million. “Stifel . . . . abused their longstanding relationships of trust with the school districts by fraudulently peddling these inappropriate products to them, Elaine C. Greenberg, Chief of the SEC Division of Enforcement’s Municipal Securities and Public Pensions Unit, said in a release. They were clearly aware that the school districts could ill afford to bear the risk of catastrophic loss if these investments failed,” as they did.
In 2009, Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, a Republican, brought an administrative complaint for securities fraud against Stiffel, charging that the firm failed to disclose risks on $55 miliion that 142 individuals in Indiana invested.
“A little child shall lead them”: Workers at Detroit’s Wastewater Treatment Plant struck Sept. 30, 2012 to protest Water Dept. giveaway, deep wage and pension cuts.
“Today, we are further in debt since state has been in city of Detroit,” Ed McNeil, executive assistant to Al Garrett, head of the state-wide AFSCME Council 25, told the Council. “You are paying $1.4 million for state officials [appointed under the consent agreement]. . . . I confronted Andy Dillon on the $800 million in receivables outstanding and he acknowledged it. But has anybody gone to get the money? You would rather lay off employees, and slash their wages and benefits. The Ernst Young contract started off at $4 million, it is now $7.8 million after five change orders. Now you’re going to give Miller Canfield another $20 million, and the State Treasurer is holding our escrow money unless we agree to these contracts.”
Ernst & Young, as VOD has repeatedly pointed out, is being sued by the states of New York and New Jersey for losses they sustained due to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which triggered a global economic meltdown in 2008. Ernst & Young, which now maintains a glitzy office building in downtown Detroit, was the bookkeeper for Lehman Brothers.
“By the end of January, Miller Canfield should complete its legal analysis on retiree healthcare,” Corley says in his report regarding Miller Canfield. “At minimum, Miller Canfield needs to review all labor contracts/ordinances that possibly impact the provision of retiree healthcare and retiree benefits. There is Michigan case law where retiree healthcare is protected. Private sector employers have been successful in eliminating retiree health benefits but this process has only begun taking root. in the public sector in recent years. Stockton, CA was able to eliminate retiree healthcare recently but through bankruptcy proceedings.”
(VOD: NOTE WHAT NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES A MUNICIPAL BANKRUPTCY FILING, ADVOCATED BY SOME DETROITERS, COULD HAVE.)
Atty. Michael McGee of Miller Canfield (center) plots out details of CET, imposed city contract, with (l) now disappeared COO Chris Brown and (r) PMD Kriss Andrews, before June 28, 2012 Financial Advisory Board meeting.
Miller Canfield has already been well-exposed as a co-author of Snyder’s Public Act 4, and the city Consent and Milestone Agreements. It also represented the city AND the state in negotiating the April state loan of $137 million to Detroit, a conflict of interest which caused the Council at first to vote down its contract 8-1 Nov. 20, only to later reverse itself and approve it Dec. 11.
Another elephant in the room is a contract with Seattle-based Milliman, Inc. for a total of $332, 500, “to evaluate pension and health care cost reduction alternatives.”
Milliman is one of the largest actuarial and business consulting firms in the world. with revenues of $676 million in 2010. It operates 54 offices worldwide with 2,500 employees.
Milliman has done several national studies on public pension plans, claiming in one issued Oct. 15, 2012, that “the aggregate funded status of the 100 largest U.S. public pension plans is nearly $300 billion worse than what the plans state in their annual reports,.” Another report, however, basically says the plans are adequately managed.
However, according to a Maryland Appeals Court, Milliman itself was responsible for underfunding the Maryland State Retirement System.
On July 20, 2011, an appeals court for the state of Maryland upheld an earlier decision by the State Board of Contract Appeals, “which determined that Milliman, Inc., . . had breached contracts to provide actuarial services to the Maryland State Retirement System . . . allegedly resulting in approximately $73 million in losses to the System.”
Retired teachers from Maryland at Lobby Day 2011.
In Milliman v. State Retirement, 25 A.3d 988 (2011) 421 MD. 130, the COA agreed with the state board that Milliman “had understated the contributions required to fund three of the State’s ten retirement and pension systems because of the actuary’s misinterpretation of a particular data code. . . .and that the System was entitled to recover ‘$34.2 million in contributions that would have been received but for Milliman’s errors, and $38.8 million in lost income that would have been earned on those contributions.’ ”
In conjunction with the Milliman contract, says Corley, “the Administration is requesting that your Honorable Body pass a resolution indicating the City should move away from its current structure of providing retiree health care toward an alternative model structured to better match the provision of retiree health care benefits with the City’s ability to pay the benefits in a sustainable fashion.”
Jan. 13, 2013. Members of Free Detroit-No Consent picketed the home of the Council Member Andre Spivey, who broke ranks with council members who voted against the Consent Agreement to vote for the discharge of Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon, which required six votes, and the contracts discussed in this article. They first went to his church, St. Paul’s, at Chene and Hunt, but a minister there announced Spivey called him at 8 a.m. that morning to say he had the flu. However, no one appeared to be home during this protest. Spivey recently bought this home at 4303 Yorkshire, moving there from the west side to be able to run for Council in District 4. A Lexus parked in the back sported a sticker for University Liggett School in Grosse Pointe Woods. Spivey’s home is in East English Village, which borders the Grosse Pointes.
Says Mayor Bing, Council Six are disrespecting the will of Detroiters
Announces she will explore formation of slate in addition to Mayoral run
By Diane Bukowski
January 15, 2013
DETROIT – In an exclusive phone interview with VOD Monday night, Attorney Krystal Crittendon expanded on remarks she made earlier that day on WCHB Radio, announcing the formation of a committee to explore a mayoral run rthis year.
Detroit city attorney Krystal Crittendon.
“People in the community have always supported me,” Attorney Crittendon said. “When I came to work this morning at CAYMC, a security guard gave me a big hug, and people lined up waiting to pay their taxes, including seniors, sent up a cheer.”
Attorney Crittendon explained further how she plans to collect what State Treasurer Andy Dillon has admitted are $800 million in funds owed by corporations and others to the city, if she is elected. She had said on WCHB that she would launch an immediate review of the city’s books, including outstanding debts owed to and by the city.
“The Mayor came out last week with a statement that we don’t know exactly how much people owe us due to our bookkeeping methods. However, for instance, in the case of the Red Wings and Mike Illitch [which the Detroit News recently reported owes Detroit $70 million], we have the right to audit Illitch Holdings accounts ourselves. They owe us concession fees, television and other fees. The statute of limitations on such debts goes back six years. After you figure out what the number is, penalties and interest are added.”
Protester at DWSD Huber plant Aug. 15, 2012.
Crittendon said a culture of indifference has existed among the city’s debtors, because they face no significant consequences for non-payment, and therefore they continue not to pay.
Crittendon said another reason she is considering a mayoral run is her concern over who Bing will appoint as Corporation Counsel to replace her.
“About a month ago, the Mayor went to the City Council and told them he wants his own counsel, so they voted for the Miller Canfield contract. Now the Mayor’s going to appoint another person to represent the city [as Corporation Counsel]. He’s got his own lawyers; there should be no need to do so.
“Now that he has removed me for supporting the provisions of the Charter the peopled voted for, this will have a chilling effect on anyone who replaces me; they will be afraid they will be removed from office. This nullifies the fact that we had a Charter revision process, which sought to ensure that the office of Corporation Counsel could not be politicized. The people of Detroit further confirmed this in November by voting overwhelmingly for Detroit’s Proposal 3.”
That proposal further solidified the powers of the Corporation Counsel, which Ingham County Circuit Court Judge William Collette ignored when he dismissed Crittendon’s lawsuit against the city’s Public Act 4 consent agreement in May. Collette said he had his mind made up from the beginning because he did not believe a Corporation Counsel could act independently of a Mayor.
Detroiters including Sandra Hines (l) line up in City Council hallway Nov. 20, 2012 to attend meeting. Most were not allowed in for full meeting.
“In addition to being a City employee, I’m also a resident,” Crittendon said. “The Mayor and City Council represent me as well, and I am concerned that the will of the people is not being honored and respected.”
Throughout 2012, hundreds of residents packed City Council meetings to oppose the consent agreement, the Miller Canfield contract, the Milestone Agreement, and the Hantz Farms contract, among other matters. Three days of hearings were held on the consent agreement before the Council passed it 5-4 on April 4, with virtually every speaker condemning it.. Over 600 people packed an east-side church to oppose what they said was a blatant land grab by Hantz Farms.
Pugh cuts speaker off during public comment at meeting July 16, 2012.
During hearings in Council chambers, hundreds of people were consigned to the hallway, unable to see or hear proceedings, because Pugh refused to move them to the auditorium. (VOD is still seeking attorneys to represent the public in an Open Meetings Act lawsuit, in particular with regard to the Council’s Dec. 11 meeting. The public has six months to file such a suit.)
Judi Briggs, a VOD reader who was at the Hantz Farms hearing, posted the following comment Dec. 31.
“I must comment, at the Hantz Farm hearing, I went to the side hallway and held the door open for someone who was coming out and he [Pugh] went barreling past both of us into the hallway before either of us could move and started ordering people around like he owned the place,” Briggs said. “‘We need someone to get out here and keep people from walking BEHIND THE TABLE, They have NO BUSINESS on our side of the table!’ I was startled that a politician had so little awareness of how he appeared to his presumed constituents.”
Council members Gary Brown and Charles Pugh were disdainful of 600 Detroiters who turned out for the Hantz Farms hearing Dec. 10, 2012, voting the next day for it even though it was not mandated by the state.
Before Detroiter Marie Thornton conducted a civil rights-style sit-in at the Council’s Dec. 11 meeting, Pugh remarked that the reason he doesn’t hold Council meetings in the auditorium is that he is afraid of actions by the people.
He referred specifically to the famous “grapes of wrath” incident at a 2004 Detroit Board of Education meeting, where Agnes Hitchcock of Call ‘em Out tossed a handful of grapes at the stage after the Board voted to close 50 schools, the first in a long series of public school closings and privatization that has devastated the district.
Crittendon said she favors transparency with the public, and that she would prefer that large meetings be held in the Council auditorium.
DWSD worker Andrew Daniels-El demands that the City Charter be respected at Call em’ Out meeting Jan. 28, 2009. The Charter still says the people as a whole must vote on any giveaway or sale of Water Department or D-DOT assets. However, the City Council voted later to sell DWSD’s massive Macomb County Interceptor.without a popular vote.
“I have not been a politician,” she said. “I’ve just been trying to represent the city of Detroit as a lawyer. People don’t vote for the Corporation Counsel, but they did vote for the Charter. I believe everything we do should benefit the people of Detroit. In addition to a run for Mayor, I have also begun exploring a the possibility of a slate in order to get people who can work together for the people [on the Council]. “
Since Crittendon has indicated she would take on powerful entities like the corporations, VOD asked her what she would do to mobilize the people to support actions she takes.
“I have no political favors to repay,” she said. “I am not a retread. I am just trying to do the right thing. I am not compromised, and as the people become energized and mobilized by my campaign, I believe they will remain so once I take office. People have become disconnected from city politics because of the actions of many current leaders. People began coming up to me last year and telling me, ‘I have hope now.” As long as I continue to stand with them, they will stand with me.”
“Belle Isle belongs to all of the people of Detroit, not just a mayor and six council people. It is the residents who must decide their jewel’s fate,” said Barrow. “Despite multiple alternate proposals surrounding Belle Isle, including one detailed submission by Citizens for Detroit’s Future calling for a city/suburban controlled Belle Isle Park Authority, none have been considered or vetted except the governor’s plan.”
Ernst & Young, as VOD has repeatedly pointed out, is being sued by the states of New York and New Jersey for losses they sustained due to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which triggered a global economic meltdown in 2008. Ernst & Young, which now maintains a glitzy office building in downtown Detroit, was the bookkeeper for Lehman Brothers. 
Milliman has done several national studies on public pension plans, claiming in one issued Oct. 15, 2012, that “the aggregate funded status of the 100 largest U.S. public pension plans is nearly $300 billion worse than what the plans state in their annual reports,.” Another report, however, basically says the plans are adequately managed. 
