VOICE OF DETROIT: The city's independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

VOD: Tuesday is the target because that is when legislators will take final votes on the right to work legislation. To download a copy of the flier above, click on STOP RTW LAW.

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

We need your help to stop Gov. Rick Snyder and the Republican-controlled legislature from ramming through union-busting “right to work” laws.

This Tuesday, December 11th, we need you at an emergency rally to protest this anti-worker legislation and the underhanded tactics being used to get it passed. The rally starts at Lansing Center at 9:00am.

Please join us for this crucial rally.

We must make Lansing understand that this behavior is unacceptable. There will be buses leaving from Flint, Detroit, and Kalamazoo that are going to Lansing. Friends and family are welcome to join.

You can reserve a seat on the bus by clicking here.

In solidarity,

Al Garrett
Council 25 President

Michigan unionists packed the rotunda of the state Capitol in Lansing yesterday but the House passed a right to work bill. Protests continue today. Photo: AFT Michigan.

By Alix Gould-Werth

December 7, 2012  

Michigan unionists rallied and lobbied in the state capital yesterday to prevent right-to-work legislation. A bill has passed the House and Senate, and fear is that the governor will sign the bill during the lame-duck session. Republicans will lose five seats once the new legislature is seated in January, making defeat of right to work much more likely then.

Capitol police evicted some protesters yesterday, with arrests and Mace, and closed the building.

Here a member of one Michigan union explains how a state that was considered a union bastion came to this point.

Earlier this year I stood on a street corner, holding a clipboard for Proposal 2 and hoping that Michigan would be a trailblazer: the first state to make union rights constitutional rights. Today, I’m filling my tank for the drive to the state Capitol in Lansing, with the apprehension that Michigan will become the 24th state to end unionization as we know it.

The Republican-dominated legislature is poised to adopt “right-to-work” legislation. Yesterday hundreds of workers convened in the Capitol rotunda, chanting “hey hey, ho ho, right to work has got to go.” How did we get here?

Protest at Scott Waler fund-raiser in Troy, Michigan July 14, 2012.

Perhaps it began one state over, in Wisconsin. Michigan’s Governor Rick Snyder learned from the mistakes of his neighbor across the lake, Scott Walker. When Walker attacked unions in Wisconsin with a bludgeon, provoking intense opposition last year, Snyder was watching. He saw the powerful reaction of union-loyal Midwesterners faced with a clear threat.

So instead, Snyder and his allies in the legislature pursued a strategy of a thousand cuts. Instead of introducing a bill that would affect all unions, the Michigan legislators did it piecemeal: taking away teachers’ automatic dues deductions, defining university research assistants as non-workers, and other measures that wouldn’t rile everyone at once.

Campaign for Proposal 2: What is wrong with this picture?

Michigan labor went on offense, to pass a constitutional amendment that would have nullified all those laws-of-a-thousand-cuts and insulated us against new legislative threats, including “right to work.” We collected thousands of signatures for Proposal 2, made thousands of phone calls, and knocked on thousands of doors. In the week before the election we were neck and neck in the polls. And then Proposal 2 was defeated—57 to 42 percent.

There are many theories why we lost Proposal 2. Perhaps there were too many proposals on the ballot, perhaps it was the misleading ads financed by corporate interests, maybe we weren’t explicit enough about the threats to labor and the protections enshrined in the proposal.

Regardless, one month later, Governor Snyder, who previously had called right to work “divisive” and said it wasn’t a priority, now says he’ll sign this legislation if it crosses his desk during the lame duck session. The Chamber of Commerce is pushing it. Right-wing activist Dick DeVos of the Amway fortune started airing statewide TV ads Tuesday. The Republicans control both houses of the legislature and have the votes.

So where does this leave us? What’s on the table is the disappearance of union jobs from Michigan and the standard of living they have given workers, union and non-union alike. Last year Michigan was the state with the fifth highest percentage of unionized workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Back from Lansing, Liz DeLisle Rodrigues, communications chair of the Graduate Employees Organization, Teachers Local 3550, reported on the broad spectrum of workers who were there—teachers, electricians, construction workers, service workers, nurses, and more. Rodrigues observed simply: “Working people are getting the word out and banding together to fight.”

See you at the Capitol.

Alix Gould-Werth is a member of the Graduate Employees Organization, Teachers Local 3550, at the University of Michigan.

Protest at Scott Walker fund-raiser in Troy: demonstrators raise issue of public assistance cut-offs Apri 17, 2012.

VOD:  The photo above illustrates a major problem within the labor movement and the Democratic party in Michigan and nationally. When tens of thousands of families, largely women and children, were cut off public assistance by the Snyder administration last year, there was no GENERAL STRIKE to support them by labor; there was no BOYCOTT of Michigan called by Rev. Jesse Jackson of Rainbow PUSH (who gave a horrified “No” response to VOD’s question about such a boycott during a Michigan Welfare Rights Organization march), or the Democrats.

ALL OF US ARE NOW EXPERIENCING WHAT WAS DONE TO THE LEAST OF US THEN. The labor movement’s slogan used to be: An injury to one is an injury to all. Apparently not any more. Aside from AFSCME, the UAW and the rest of the labor movement took a “hands-off” approach to the campaign to defeat Public Act 4, on information and belief because it was an attack primarily on Michigan’s majority-Black cities. But PA 4 was defeated regardless. Now, however, the battle to effectuate the repeal has returned to the courts.

An interesting article in today’s Detroit News at http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121208/POLITICS02/212080346/How-right-work-got-table?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE makes one wonder whether labor leaders took that “hands off” approach to Prop 1 as a compromise with Snyder. Well, the end result illustrates just what compromises with the racist corporate elite, particularly at the expense of Black and Latino folks, get for poor and working people.

Collective bargaining was not won through a constitutional amendment. It was won through massive sit-down strikes across the country that virtually paralyzed the nation in the 1930’s. Until labor returns to those tactics, it will be more of the same.

December 6, 2012

©2012 Mitchell Jon MacKay

THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER as per Jimi Hendrix version, still relevant after all these years, is a facetious hypocritical tribute, as the George Gilder saying goes, by vice to virtue. It is illogical to maintain sovereign freedom with 25% of the world’s prisoners in a population of 5% of the whole.

Sure, there is still wonderful health care and some of the most incredible gadgetry, infrastructure everywhere, education of the highest kind, medical and pharmaceutical miracles. The cost of this however is as spiraling as the military budget for worldwide presence and cost of incarcerating or monitoring 1 in 31 American citizens via jail, prison, probation and parole.

Case in point, Michigan, which has no death penalty, does have the “other death penalty,” Life Without Parole, and a parole system at the whim of the elected Governor, a 4-year term. When Jennifer Granholm was Governor the state loosed thousands of prisoners through an expanded system of parole administered by a fuller body of Board and a supplemental group of Clemency advisors.

A global campaign stopped the death penalty for Mumia Abu-Jamal. But is life without parole–death in prison–much different? FREE MUMIA! END THE DEATH PENALTY AND LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE!

That system reduced the prison population dramatically allowing the closing of many prisons. Coincidently those closings affected communities economically but this is not the intent of prison, to foster a for-profit enterprise. Prison personnel are grossly overpaid for positions that require only a high school diploma and no prison record.

When Rick Snyder was elected Governor in 2009 the Parole Board was soon cut back to former numbers, the Advisory Committee abandoned, a moratorium on parole imposed. This of course ran parallel to the conservative mindset and was justified by the rhetoric of dispensing with “extra layers of bureaucracy”, a stopgap nuance between the lines of “less government”, a Tea Party favorite reissued by folk receiving government largesse in perfect hypocritical mode.

It is well known that monitoring society’s incorrigibles via tether and probation/parole personnel is way cheaper than jailing or imprisoning defendants and convicts alike.

Thesey youth were among 3,000 who marched on Gov. Rick Snyder’s home on MLK Day 2012. Black youth are the prime targets of the school-to-prison pipeline.

Statistics via press news state that since the advent of Rick Snyder as Governor the state prison system has regained some 1000 inmates. Since statistics are not forthcoming as to efficacy of parole, the rumor has been that the Governor is paroling none but some few aged moribund inmates for compassionate purport.

The status stands at a vague proposition that parole is not only in holding pattern but ostensibly nonexistent while this Governor holds office for this term. Actual word on the “yard”, i.e. in prison, is that this is the way of it, possibly relaxed during second term if that should occur though no guarantees of either.

To my immediate knowledge there are two prison inmates that were in line for parole, prepped and tested, aligned with the MPRI program, viz. Michigan Prisoner Reentry Initiative, upon which has been spent hefty amounts of tax dollars, yet the process was stalled and remains in limbo after these three years, these two considered-worthy prisoners being left high and dry with notice of a 5-year hiatus and unknown indeterminate sentence respectively.

Governor Rick Snyder, who passed a law giving unprecedented and dictatorial powers to unelected Emergency Financial Managers, was invited to be the Grand Marshall of Benton Harbor and St. Joseph’s annual Bloomtime Parade. Benton Harbor is the first municipality where new EMF powers have
been used to strip power from all of its elected officials. Hundreds of Michiganders from across the state came to Benton Harbor to protest Snyder. Photo: Diane Bukowski

The Why of this remains mysterious and necessarily inhumane as well as costly to the system. Both these inmates are considered highly worthy of parole, have backup upon release, and have no demerits on their records. It is pure deliberate indifference on the part of the Parole Board to suddenly ignore what has already been in progress and of course the catalyst falls upon the Governor because the Parole Board is seen as unwilling to pursue bureaucratic motions of parole if the Governor is known to be averse to signing parole recommendations.

Why waste time and energy, in other words? So at least two prisoners, and implicitly many more, wait in suspended animation with no discernible good reason for denial of a process already in motion.

The circumstance comes down to who sits in the driver’s seat, actually the passenger’s seat of a State Police squad car to the Capitol and back home each day, Ann Arbor to Lansing round trip. That does tend to imply a temporary situation, the tentative instigation of campaign rhetoric tightening of budgetary woes of the state fiscal annual catastrophe. Continue reading →

Debt ratings drop into dungeon

Council cops pummel protesting pastor

Mayor plans meeting at Council Tues. Dec. 4 10 a.m. 

By Diane Bukowski 

December 3, 2012 

DETROIT – In the wake of debt downgrades by Wall Street and Michigan officials’ denial of $30 million in loans to Detroit, Mayor Dave Bing dutifully went on the air in a CNN interview and denounced the people of his own city Nov. 28. 

Wastewater Treatment Plant workers struck Sept. 30 to stop an 81 percent cut in their workforce.

“We are in an environment, I think of entitlement,” Bing said. “We’ve got a lot of people who are city workers who for years and years, 20, 30 years think they’re entitled to a job and all that comes with it. Nobody wants to go backwards, but in order for us to move this city forward, I think we’re going to have to take a step or two backwards and then I think all of us have to participate in the pain that’s on us right now.” 

Bing said this about the people of the poorest city in the country, where unemployment runs over 60 percent in some neighborhoods, and where the state has cut thousands of women and children off cash assistance. 

His remarks incredibly recalled those of former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney Sept. 17. 

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president [Obama] no matter what,” Romney said at a secret fund-raiser. “All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them.” 

After Detroiters stormed the City Council Nov. 20 to demand that it vote NO on contracts with the EMA Group, which is recommending that 81 percent of the city’s water department workforce be cut, and the Miller-Canfield law firm, which helped draft the now-dead Public Act 4, among others, the Council finally complied to a degree. 

Bing getting ready to put his foot in his mouth like Mitt Romney.

But before Council President Charles Pugh dropped the closing gavel, Bing announced that the state was refusing to pay $30 million on a loan to the city due to the vote against the Miller-Canfield contract. He later announced forced furlough days and lay-offs of city workers in the New Year, claiming the city is running out of cash, knowing full well that the lion’s share of its cash in fiscal 2011, $579 million, went to the banks.

Bing called a disastrous special Council meeting for re-consideration Nov. 26, and has now set another session for Tues. Dec. 4 at 10 a.m., to discuss “Detroit’s economic situation.” The Nov. 26 meeting was shut down due to lack of an 18-hour notice required by the state’s Open Meetings Act. 

But that was not before a respected pastor, the Rev. Charles Williams, Sr. of Greater King Solomon Baptist Church, had had enough. He called out to Pugh, “You’ve been President for three years, and you still don’t know the meeting requirements?” 

Rev. Charles Williams Sr. speaks at protest demanding moratorium on city’s debt to the banks May 9, 2012.

He proceeded to leave, but called Pugh a “clown,” on the way out, whereupon a Council cop grabbed him and called in two others to pummel Williams against a wall before literally tossing him out. If Williams resisted, he had a right to do so, under the recent Michigan Supreme Court decision, People v. Moreno. The Court upheld the common-law right to resist illegal police conduct, including arrests.

Rev. Williams’ revolt reflected the widespread anger many Detroiters feel toward Bing and the “Fatal Five” on City Council, including Pugh. 

Pugh and Council members Gary Brown, Saunteel Jenkins, James Tate, and Kenneth Cockrel, Jr. voted for a disastrous PA4 “consent agreement” April 4 to ensure that the city’s $16.9 BILLION in debt would be paid. They ignored days of public demands that they wait for the anticipated defeat of PA4. 

(Video belows shows beating of Pastor Williams, Sr. by Council cops Nov. 26, 2012.)

(VOD editor Diane Bukowski has sent another letter to Bing and the Council to demand that they comply with the Open Meetings Act Dec. 4 by holding the meeting in the auditorium to allow all the attend. Click on OMA possible violations letter to Mayor Dave Bing et al related to COW meeting 12 4 12.)

The demand for payment of Detroit’s debt, and that of cities and countries across the world, during a period of global economic collapse, is behind attacks on working and poor people everywhere.  

Protest May 9, 2012 in downtown Detroit.

Moody’s, the Wall Street investor ratings firm, downgraded debt for the City of Detroit and the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department (DWSD) Nov. 28. City of Detroit General Obligation Unlimited Tax (GOULT) ratings plummeted from B3 to Caa1, while General Obligation Limited Tax (GOLT) fell from Caa1 to Caa2. (Click on Text of Moody Detroit downgrade 11 28 12 tp read full report.)

“These downgrades reflect the city’s ongoing precariously narrow cash position and a weakened state oversight framework following the repeal of Public Act 4 (PA 4),” Moody’s said. “The negative outlook on the . . . ratings is based on the rising possibility that the city could file for bankruptcy or default on an obligation over the next 12 to 24 months, the general uncertainty of state oversight as challenges to Public Act 72 (PA 72) persist following the repeal of PA 4, and the city’s ongoing inability to implement reforms necessary to regain financial stability.”

Despite the fact that DWSD is an enterprise agency not included in the deficit-ridden general fund, and is not itself in deficit, Moody’s went on to downgrade DWSD debt one notch.

Moody’s detailed what measures it wants Detroit to take, the same measures the state and Bing are trying to impose.

Stephen Murphy of Standard and Poor’s and Joe O’Keefe of Fitch Ratings flew in from Wall Street Jan. 31, 2004 to get the Detroit City Council to agree to a $1.5 BILLION loan.

Such downgrades make it more costly and difficult for the city to borrow money on its own, and allow lenders to profit greatly from higher interest rates.

Wall Street has run Detroit for years. When city clerical workers, many of whom are eligible for food stamps due to wage concessions made through the years, voted down a 10 percent pay cut in 1992, Wall Street downgraded the city’s debt the next day.

Wall Street was glorying in an orgy of predatory lending in 2004, before the bubble burst in 2008, when Standard and Poor’s and Fitch Ratings came to the Council table in Jan. 2004 to demand that the city borrow an astounding $1.5 BILLION in so-called pension obligation certificates. Detroit defaulted on that debt twice, and now both its state-revenue sharing funds and its income from casino taxes are funneled through the U.S. Bank of North America to ensure the debt gets paid.

Even though Detroit is not alone in this Wall Street-made crisis, its leaders have failed to stand up against its perpetrators to a degree greater than that in many other cities.

The City of Baltimore and other municipalities and states across the U.S. are suing global banks in a massive federal class action related to the LIBOR scandal. Banks, including UBS AG, which was the lender in the 2004 Detroit POC deal, were exposed for taking advantage of their role as part of the U.S. Board for the London-Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) panel to criminally manipulate interest rates. Plaintiffs in the LIBOR case are demanding the restitution of hundreds of millions in funds that should have gone to service their people instead.

Baltimore Mayor stephanie Rawlings announces participation in LIBOR lawsuit against global banks.

Detroit’s Mayor Frank Murphy demanded a 10-year moratorium on Detroit’s debt to the banks in the 1930’s, eventually winning national legislation to that effect. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the legislation, Detroit’s Common Council voted not to pay the interest on the city’s debt; when that was declared illegal, Murphy at least negotiated with the banks and won lower debt payments.

When will the leaders and people of Detroit decide they have had enough, as did Rev. Charles Williams Sr., and follow Frederick Douglass’ advice 150 years ago:

“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

By Christopher Palmeri & Mary Jane Credeur – Nov 30, 2012 9:38 AM ET

Bloomberg Business Week

(VOD–the strike continues as of today, Dec. 3, 2012. Workers say they are “entitled” to their jobs, which are being outsourced. Detroit Mayor Dave Bing told CNN the problem in Detroit is that city workers feel “entitled” to their jobs–apparently LA workers know what to do about that.)

California ports handling about a third of U.S. container shipments were largely closed because of a strike, stranding vessels carrying last-minute cargos for the holiday-shopping season.

Seven of eight terminals at the Port of Los Angeles are shut, Phillip Sanfield, a spokesman for the city-owned facility, said yesterday. At the adjacent Port of Long Beach, three of six are closed, according to its website. Clerical workers walked out Nov. 27 amid an impasse in contract talks, and longshoremen represented by the same union refused to cross the picket lines.

Day 6 of Cali dock strike, Dec. 3, 2012

The strike will disrupt shipments of clothes, furniture, electronics and other Asia-made goods during the year’s busiest shopping period. The National Retail Federation trade group asked President Barack Obama to intervene, saying a 10-day West Coast ports lockout in 2002 cost the economy about $1 billion a day and disrupted supply chains for as long as six months.

“It’s a logistics nightmare,” said John C. Martin, an economist at Martin Associates in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. “The problems mount exponentially the longer this goes on.”

If the strike lasts, ships will start diverting to Oakland, California, or Seattle, causing backups there as railroads, truckers and warehouse operators handle a surge in volume, Martin said. Perishables such as fruits and vegetables may begin to rot, and shipping lines will have to spend as much as $70,000 more a day to operate vessels, he said in a telephone interview.

Holiday-Shopping

Forty percent of U.S. shipping shut down by 800 clerical workers.

The strike comes after the peak of the holiday-shopping cargo rush, Sanfield said. Still, some deliveries are yet to be made, said Stanley Shen, a spokesman for Orient Overseas (International) Ltd. (316) The Hong Kong-based container line’s Long Beach terminal has been closed by the walkout.

“The Long Beach strike took us by surprise,” he said.“It will have tremendous disruption for all the Christmas shipments that are yet to arrive and be unloaded.”

Hanjin Shipping Co., whose Long Beach terminal closed yesterday, is still assessing the impact on operations, said Sonya Cho, a spokeswoman for the Seoul-based shipping line.

Los Angeles has 10 vessels at berth waiting to be serviced and more anchored nearby, according to Sanfield.

“We rarely have ships waiting, and more are due every day,” he said by phone.

Trucking companies and Union Pacific Corp. (UNP) and Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the two biggest western U.S. railroads, haul cargos from the California ports to destinations across the country.

‘Bargaining Table’

Union workers strike at the Port of Los Angeles on Nov. 28, 2012.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa sent a letter to the International Longshore & Warehouse Union, which represents the clerical workers, and the Los Angeles/Long Beach Harbor Employers Association, which negotiates for shippers, urging them to reach an agreement.

“The City of Los Angeles needs both of you to get back to the bargaining table this week, to work with a mediator, and to hammer out a settlement before further harm is done to our local economy,” Villaraigosa said. “There is no time to waste.”

Port Executive Director Geraldine Knatz echoed that call yesterday in a statement urging both sides to return to negotiations.

“We are starting to see ships divert to other ports, including to Mexico,” she said. “This dispute has impacted not only our port workforce but all stakeholders who ship goods through our complex.”

No Contract

The employers said in an update on the strike that clerical workers rejected a proposed increase in compensation to more than $190,000 in wages and benefits.

The 800 office and clerical employees have been working without a contract for 30 months, according to a statement on the union website.

Salaries aren’t the issue, the union said. More than 51 positions have been lost in recent years because of outsourcing to other locations including Costa Rica and Dallas, according to the statement.

The shippers say no clerical jobs have been sent overseas or elsewhere. The employers say they have offered protection against such actions.

“The real purpose behind this claim is to promote‘featherbedding’ — requiring employers to call in temporary employees and hire new permanent employees even when there is no work to perform,” the employers said in their statement.

Craig Merrilees, a spokesman for the longshoremen, said two of the 14 terminal operators working at the ports had signed agreements with the union and their facilities were operational. The two are Stevedoring Services of America and Pasha Stevedoring & Terminals.

Asked how long the strike would proceed, he said: “It will go on until the companies honestly face the issue of outsourcing and keep good jobs at home.”

Fourteen ports on the U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast, including New York and New Jersey, may also face a strike in January if a new contract with the International Longshoremen’s Association isn’t reached by year-end. The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service is involved in those discussions.

To contact the reporter on this story: Christopher Palmeri in Los Angeles at cpalmeri1@bloomberg.net; Mary Jane Credeur in Atlanta at mcredeur@bloomberg.net

Port of Los Angeles.

Protest at Aiyana’s home shortly after Detroit cop Joseph Weekley shot her to death May 16, 2010.

  Judge delays Weekley trial until April, 2013; wants Aiyana’s dad’s case “disposed of” first 

Gruesome re-enactment of police raid indefinitely postponed 

By Diane Bukowski 

December 1, 2012 

Aiyana Stanley Jones’ grandfather Jimmie Stanley (l) and mother Dominika Stanley (center) during protest at Frank Murphy Hall April 23, 2012.

DETROIT – Aiyana Stanley-Jones’ mother, grandmother, grandfather and aunt sat directly behind a stone-faced Joseph Weekley, the Detroit police officer who shot the sleeping seven-year-old child to death May 16, 2010, prior to another in a seemingly unending series of court hearings Nov. 30. 

Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway postponed delivering her decision on a defense motion to dismiss charges of “involuntary manslaughter” and “reckless use of a firearm” against Weekley until March 8, 2013, and set a trial date for April 8, 2013. Weekley, who was not charged until Oct. 14, 2011, was originally to have been tried April 30, 2012. 

“This is not fair to us, and it’s not fair to Aiyana,” the child’s maternal grandfather Jimmie Stanley told VOD before the hearing. “They’re treating us like we’re nothing. They think all we want is money from a lawsuit, but it’s not about money, it’s about closure. I miss Aiyana like crazy. Friends from all over the country keep calling to find out how we’re doing.” 

Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway.

The Michigan Code of Judicial Conduct states in Canon 3, section A 5, “A judge should dispose promptly of the business of the court.” 

Hathaway has repeatedly postponed Weekley’s trial, agreeing in open court with the prosecution and defense that Weekley should not be tried until after Aiyana’s father Charles Jones is tried on first-degree murder charges brought against him 17 months after Aiyana’s killing, in the death of Je’Rean Blake. 

Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Richard Skutt, who is handling that case, earlier barred the testimony of jail-house snitch Jay Schlenkerman against Jones. His trial has been postponed since an Appeals Court ruling which overturned that decision, as the parties await a Supreme Court ruling on the matter.

San Francisco police demonstrate use of “flash-bang” grenade.

Hathaway also indefinitely delayed a demonstration of the use of a “flash-bang” grenade like the one thrown through the window over Aiyana seconds before her death, due to insufficient notice.  The gruesome re-enactment had been set for Nov. 30, the date of the hearing, at an undisclosed address on Detroit’s impoverished east-side, to assist Hathaway in considering the defense motion to dismiss. The defense contends among other issues that Weekley was dis-oriented by the explosion when he entered the home. 

“I’ve watched the programs on TV where they train these cops,” Aiyana’s paternal grandmother Mertilla Jones told VOD. “They train them how to stay oriented while the grenade goes off. The ‘First 48’ calls Weekley ‘The Brain’ because he’s always the first to go in.”

Killer cop Joseph “Brain” Weekley on The First 48 website.

Jones was sleeping on the couch with Aiyana when Weekley burst in and shot the little girl through the top of her head. She said the grenade had already gone off and that Weekley did not appear dis-oriented. She herself was held by police for several days on claims that she “interfered” with Weekley, causing his gun to go off. 

The A&E reality cop show “The First 48,” which featured Weekley as a star, filmed the May 16, 2010 raid on Aiyana’s home. Re-runs of his shows are still playing on the A & E Channel through Blockbuster Home. 

Aiyana’s supporters say that the proposed “flash-bang” demonstration diverts attention away from the question of why the flash-bang and a military-style raid were used in the first place, at a home full of toddlers whose toys were strewn all over the yard. Her family said they want not only Weekley, but everyone involved in the raid and the police chain of command which ordered it, charged and tried in the child’s death.

Aiyana’s mother Dominika Stanley and her aunt LaKrystal Sanders were also present during the Nov. 30 hearing. 

Mertilla Jones, at Frank Murphy courthouse before previous Weekley hearing, shows her grandaughter’s photo.

Distressed family members said Assistant Prosecutor Robert Moran, who is prosecuting both Weekley and Jones in what the prosecutor’s office denies is a conflict of interest, has not spoken with them once about the case against Weekley. They said the Office of Victim’s Rights has not been in touch either, to notify them of hearings or other information. 

“There is nothing that would ethically preclude him from handling these two cases; there is no conflict of interest,” Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy’s chief of communications Maria Miller said in an email response to an inquiry from VOD. “They are two separate cases. I spoke to Mr. Moran and he indicated that he has not called Jones a companion case, it was the judge who used this language about the Jones case.” 

At a previous hearing, Moran called the Jones case a “companion” case to Weekley’s, but quickly corrected himself. He has however repeatedly said that the Weekley trial should be held after the Jones trial, despite Miller’s comments that the two are separate cases.

Aiyana Stanley-Jones (r) with little brothers. Her grandmother Mertilla Jones said cops trained guns on her brothers when they arrested her father Charles last year.

In a lengthy lecture to the electronic media, Judge Hathaway again made the two cases seem as one. Detroit police who raided the Jones home after midnight were looking for Chauncey Owens, who lived upstairs from the Jones family in a two-family flat, with a warrant related to the killing of Je’Rean Blake, 17, two days before. 

According to Attorney Geoffrey Fieger, who filed a civil suit against the police days after Aiyana’s killing, Owens left the house earlier in the day in full view of officers surveilling the place, and could easily have been arrested then.           

“I remind everyone, especially the family, friends and media, this is a situation where there are two children not alive anymore because they were killed,” Hathaway said at the beginning of the hearing. “This matter should be taken very seriously. Our case is related to another case that another judge has. We are waiting for that judge to dispose of that case so we can proceed with our trial.” 

Hathaway said someone from “the electronic media,” who she did not identify, had contacted her staff prior to the scheduled “flash-bang” re-enactment and insisted that they would be present despite her order excluding the media. She also said the prosecutor had not confirmed the time and location of the re-enactment until the day before. 

This was the home in which Detroit police killed Aiyana May 16, 2010. Her father Charles sits on porch behind her classmate, with toys that were all over yard when police invaded. Now the court is considering a “flash-bang” demo at a similar home.

Hathaway said not only she, but members of her staff and deputy sheriffs were to be present at the demonstration. She expressed concern for the safety of those individuals, but said nothing about the safety of neighbors or their reaction to watching such a spectacle in their neighborhood. 

Moran said during the hearing that the Michigan State Police had selected a house from among 200 houses on the east side identified by the Detroit Department of Buildings and Safety as “similar” to the Jones family’s home on Lillibridge near Mack at the time.

Sandra Hines (l) and other Detroiters pack City Council hallway prior to session Nov. 20, 2012. More and more kept arriving, but Council President Charles Pugh refused to move the meeting to the auditorium despite the willingness of the Zoning Appeals Board and a second event there to switch places. Hundreds including seniors and disabled people waited outside for hours, chanting, “Let us in or we’ll shut it down!” They were unable to see or hear the proceedings at all, in violation of the state’s Open Meetings Act, until allowed in to comment for one and a half minutes.

 EMA, MILLER-CANFIELD CONTRACTS GO DOWN, but Bing, top council officers still plot to get them passed

Other issues: Hantz and Henry Ford hospital land developments, D-DOT contracts, department closures

Pugh violates OMA, denying residents access to meeting for hours

Wall Street, Bing, state respond with further threats to workers, poor 

By Diane Bukowski 

November 23, 2012 

When Miller-Canfield speaks: Atty. Michael McGee (in blue suit) advises (l to r Detroit CFO Jack Martin, now disappeared Detroit COO Chris Brown, Mayor Dave Bing, and Deputy Mayor Kirk Lewis on matters involving Public Act 4 and the consent agreement June 12, 2012. He concurrently advised officials of the State of Michigan and the Michigan Finance Authority on the same matters, likely a gross violation of legal ethics.

Update: Diane Bukowski, VOD editor, has sent a four-page letter to Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh and members of the Council, cc’d to Mayor Dave Bing, Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon, and Law Department Attorney Dennis Mazurek notifying them of gross violations of the Open Meetings Act which took place Nov. 20, 2012, and may occur again Nov. 26, 2012. Click on OMA violations letter to Pugh et al signed to read letter. If members of the public wish to sign on to court actions regarding these violations, please notify Ms. Bukowski as soon as possible at diane_bukowski@hotmail.com, or by commenting on this story.

DETROIT – Wall Street, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and Detroit Mayor Dave Bing have begun a new assault on Detroit since the Detroit City Council disobeyed them Nov. 20. After a raucous three hours of public comment, the Council voted against a contract with the Miller Canfield law firm, co-author of the now dead Public Act 4, as well as the EMA contract that would cut 81 percent of the water department’s work force. 

Child at DPOA/Firefighters protest against imposed contracts July 26, 2012.

They did approve a contract with Ernst & Young, which has constantly claimed Detroit is running out of money, while at the same time reporting that the city paid $597 million on its debt to the banks in fiscal 2011. They earlier approved a contract with Milliman, which plans to gut the city’s pension system. 

State Treasurer Andy Dillon said he will withhold $30 million in bond money due to the city as a result of the Miller Canfield vote, a move which the Council voted to challenge in court. He and Governor Rick Snyder met Oct. 12 in New York with Wall Street agencies to beg them to restore the state’s AAA bond ratings, assuring them that the city’s PA 4 consent agreement will remain in place despite PA 4’s repeal. 

Frederick Douglass

Although even lawyers for the state-imposed Financial Advisory Board (FAB) said Nov. 12 that PA 4’s repeal restored the city’s duty to bargain with its unions, Bing announced he will unilaterally force unpaid furlough days on city workers beginning Jan. 1, 2013. 

Inside sources say he has recruited enough Council members to hold a special session to re-consider their votes including Miller-Canfiled, set for Mon. Nov. 26, at 1 p.m.

In the wake of the massive public turn-out at the Nov. 20 meetings of the Council, it remains to be seen whether the people will tolerate any further attacks. 

“We are calling on everyone to come back to Council Monday in even larger numbers,” Cecily McClellan of Free Detroit-No Consent told VOD. Sources also told VOD that people should come prepared to wait it out, because there may be plans to delay the session for several hours to get people to leave.

“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both,” renowned anti-slavery fighter Frederick Douglass said. “The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

Council President Charles Pugh upbraids audience as Pro-Tem Gary Brown averts gaze.

Hundreds of Detroiters who stormed the Council Nov. 20 chanted “Let us in or we’ll shut it down!” for hours.  

Council President Charles Pugh again refused to hold the meeting in the auditorium, leaving citizens including seniors and the disabled standing in the hallway outside Council chambers, unable to hear or observe the meeting, in violation of the Open Meetings Act (see sidebar and click on Michigan OMA and FOIA.)

The crowd, which included prominent community leaders and city workers, wore badges declaring “No on EMA,” “No on Milestone,” and “Recall Bing Now.” 

They said the the EMA and Miller Canfield contracts, as well as $58 million in contracts to companies which have decimated the city’s bus service, the largest land sale in the city’s history to Hantz Farms, Henry Ford Hospital’s takeover of neighboring homes, and the closure of federally-funded city departments will deal a death blow to Detroit. 

Jackie Taylor (second from left) addresses Council while audience demands a NO vote on EMA, other contracts.

“I am utterly opposed to the Milestone Agreement Mayor Bing signed with the state, without the Council’s approval,” Cecily McClellan of Free Detroit-No Consent said. That agreement, signed Nov. 13, includes the Miller-Canfield contract as a requirement for Detroit to obtain the remainder of the $137 million it borrowed from the state in April. 

Cecily McClellan

“There is no reason this body should even consider a contract that would give away the water department, particularly knowing about campaign finance money water contractors gave to [Council Pres. Pro-Tem] Gary Brown. Brown and Pugh are not working for this city; they’re working with the Board of Water Commissioners and Judge Sean Cox. As far as Miller Canfield, if Bing didn’t think he could resolve this city’s problems without their advice, he shouldn’t have run for office.” 

As part of a special “Roots Cause” committee established by right-wing U.S. District Court Judge Sean Cox, Pugh and Brown signed a Nov. 8 recommendation for total separation of DWSD from the city, to allow the implementation of the EMA contract regardless of the Council vote. Cox has not yet ruled on that recommendation. 

Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon tells Council she could NEVER approve Miller Canfield contract under state’s extortionate terms.

They also signed recommendations for partial separation and drastic anti-union measures which were part of Cox’s Nov. 4, 2011 order. That order is awaiting a decision from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on union challenges heard in oral arguments in Cincinnati Oct. 9, 2012. 

Testimony by Detroit Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon was key to the Miller Canfield vote. Her powers to enforce the city’s Home Rule charter were cemented by Detroiters’ approval of local proposal C Nov. 6. 

“There are a number of conflicts of interest [in the contract] that I cannot ethically advise this body on,” Crittendon said, after audience members applauded her entrance.

Dep. AG Mark Lockridge

“The Charter requires the Corporation Counsel to prepare or approve all contracts with outside legal firms. I did neither.” 

Discussion of the contract included revelations that Miller Canfield represented all sides, the city, the state and the Michigan Finance Authority, in preparing Public Act 4, the Fiscal Stability Agreement, and the $137 million bond documents. Deputy Auditor General Mark Lockridge testified that Miller Canfield forced him to sign a non-disclosure agreement before he reviewed their invoices to the city, and that he could not therefore reveal what he found to the Council. 

PMD “Kriss” Andrews

Asked by Councilwoman Brenda Jones if the Council would be violating the Charter if it approved the contract, Crittendon said, “My opinion is that you would be violating the Charter. 

Regarding the state’s threat to withhold $30 million in already approved bonds, Crittendon said she could NEVER ethically approve a contract extorted under those circumstances. 

Project Manager Walter “Kriss” Andrews, hired under terms of the FSA, said he was among the parties recommending approval of the contract. When the Council voted 8-1 against it (Gary Brown being the lone dissenter), he stormed out of the meeting. 

The status of the FSA itself since the repeal of Public Act 4 has been the subject of several closed sessions the Council has held with Crittendon, who may prepare a legal challenge to it. Her previous challenge, based on the state’s outstanding debt to the city of over $300 million, was denied by Ingham County Circuit Court Judge William Collette, who said she did not have standing to sue. 

Hantz Farms wants to plant 15,000 trees on Detroit land, uprooting 1200 homeowners and renters.

The Council also voted to delay the sale of 1500 parcels of Detroit land to Hantz Farms, two-thirds of it occupied by homeowners and renters, until after a public hearing Dec. 11, and pledged not to approve the Henry Ford Hospital development until a community benefits agreement is in place. But it was clear during the session that the push to approve both as soon as possible is still on.

TRU leader Ruth Johnson presents Council with “D” report card on bus service, as Susan Glaser listens.

Council voted against all but one of six D-DOT management contracts worth $58 million, but said they would allow emergency interim contracts until permanent management is found. Ruth Johnson, head of Transportation Riders United, presented the Council with a “D” report card on current transportation service under those managers. 

The Council also voted not to approve Bing’s Executive Organization Plan which axes the Detroit Health and Wellness, Human Services, and Workforce Development Departments. It was unclear what impact that would have as the departments have already been substantially shut down and privatized. 

Detroit Employment Solutions CEO Pamela Moore, formerly head of the Detroit Workforce Development Department, at Council Nov. 20. 2012.

Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Wendy Baxter recently ordered laid-off DWDD workers back to jobs with the privatized Detroit Employment Solutions, if employees currently there are performing the same work. However, DES CEO (also former DWDD department head)  Pamela Moore told the Council they have taken no action to re-hire them yet. 

Residents across the city who could not come to Council’s day-time and evening sessions watched on their TV’s and computers. 

“They tore the Council a new one,” one Detroiter remarked about the blistering three hours public comment during the day-time session, and more at a Council community meeting held at Mark Twain School that evening. 

Pugh, Council President Pro-Tem Gary Brown, and Councilman Kenneth Cockrel, Jr. in particular demonstrated utter contempt for the public in turn. 

Councilwoman JoAnn Watson demanded meeting be held in auditorium.

Pugh refused Councilwoman JoAnn Watson’s adamant demand to hold the session in the auditorium, slammed down his gavel, interrupted speakers every 30 seconds with a notice of their remaining time, and ignored them while focusing on his computer and other matters. 

He also confronted former Detroit school board member Marie Thornton when she called out “Where’s the grapes?” 

“There will be no grape-throwing and no disrespect of the process,” Pugh responded. How can you refer to one of the most disgraceful incidents in this city’s history, that you were part of?” Pugh told Thornton. 

Marie Thornton testifies.

He apparently confused her with Agnes Hitchcock, leader of Call ‘em Out, who threw what became known as “the grapes of wrath” at school board members who voted for the closing of 50 schools in 2004, the first of hundreds which have since devastated Detroit’s public school system. 

Brown said large swaths of the city need to be “mothballed,” with regard to the Hantz deal.  Cockrel, Jr. called the hundreds who came out to comment “the peanut gallery.” 

Ultimately, Detroit police, who had guarded Council doors to keep people out, expelled angry Detroiters including Sandra Hines and Morris Mays as they shouted out their condemnation of the Council members’ abuse, but not before they said what they came to say. 

Police put Sandra Hines (l) and Morris Mays (center) out of Council meeting.

Among many dozens of comments (please excuse name misspellings as it was not always possible to go to the speaker to get the correct spelling due to council security): 

Theo Broughton, Hood Research: “DWSD is the biggest asset the city has. This is nothing but vulture capitalism. They make the city borrow money and then suck it dry for its assets through rampant corruption.” 

Sandra Hines, Free Detroit-No Consent: “I outright oppose the Memorandum of Understanding [Milestone agreement between Bing and Dillon]. As Councilwoman Watson said, the city’s water is gold. Why would you take away from the people the very things we need to survive as a people?  Many of you made backroom and bedroom deals to give our city away.” 

Bing at press conference Feb. 22, 2012 announces hiring of Parsons Brinckerhoff, Envisurage, and Ronald Freeland to manage D-DOT. At far left is Bill Nojay, forced to resign as Freeland’s Deputy Director after a Hatch Act complaint was filed against him for running for public office in New York while overseeing federal funds.

Ruth Johnson, Transportation Riders United: “We just gave D-DOT a grade of D, up from our last report of D-. Buses are now 67 percent instead of 63 percent on time, despite the loss of service, the failure of the 4/15 plan on the major routes. Riders are left hanging on the phone after trying to reach customer service nine times.” 

Speaker wanted Treasurer Andy Dillon to come explain himself to Detroit residents; he is shown here being put through the wringer by them at meeting of the Financial Review Team.

Susan Glaser, SAAA, Pension Board, laid off city worker: “The EMA contract is about giving away the rest of the city, even though it has no money problems, before you hit the pension system by July 1. The vultures are swarming, civil service has been dismantled, and I am now laid off with no health benefits after 30 years with the city.” 

Richard March (sp?): “It is absolutely despicable to say that we will die as a city unless Miller Canfield, which wrote the consent agreement, is hired again. Have Andy Dillon come to the table and explain why.” 

Alice Burke, DWSD retiree: “EMA has not given you everything you need to know, including the cost of replacements and automation. The EPA asked for additional time to look over the contract, but I understand you have decided not to give it to them, so you’ll probably continue hearing from them about violations for the next 30 years if you approve this contract.” 

Speaker at right is brought to tears during public comment.

(Name?): “Where I live, people who have been in their homes for generations are getting new homes on the streets. You won’t pay attention to what the citizens are saying. We put you where you are, but you are putting us in the street with no benefits.” 

Phil Jones, chair of the Detroit Food Policy Council, on Hantz: “We are not about stopping development, but there is a need for proper process. Selling the land like this sets a precedent going forward. Any vote on this needs to be delayed at least a couple of months.” 

Board of West Grand Boulevard Collaborative; Mildred Robbins is center, bottom row.

Mildred Robbins of the West Grand Boulevard Collaborative and Community Coalition: “There must be transparent negotiations with the developers. They seem to think that because our homes are not grand, this is not necessary. They are receiving tax breaks and money from the federal and local levels. We want jobs and training for our residents and adequate city services. We ask for a no vote on this deal.” 

(Councilwoman Watson and residents of southwest Detroit near the Ambassador Bridge, who earlier blockaded the bridge to protest bridge owner Matty Moroun’s devastation of their neighborhood, all advocated Community Benefits Agreements for every land development deal.) 

Councilman Andre Spivey goes into outburst questioning Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon.

Marie Thornton, former school board member and precinct delegate: “Council members Charles Pugh and Gary Brown no longer represent us, since they signed the Root Cause agreement. You knew this meeting was taking place and you should have set up proper accommodations. You are in violation of the Open Meetings Act.” 

(Name?): “Dave Bing sitting at the table advised by McGee of Miller Canfield was a violation of the City Charter, and so is the Milestone Agreement. Outside counsel must be approved by the Corporation Counsel. Attorneys [Richard] Mack and [Herbert] Sanders [representing AFSCME], I hope you are entertaining filing a lawsuit against anyone on this council that votes in favor of this contract.” 

DWSD worker Joseph Rowland and Tyrone Travis

Tyrone Travis: “Everyone in the consent agreement including the Project Management Director, the CFO, the Financial Advisory Board and their staffs must be fired immediately. The community better get busy and be organized in 2013.” 

Valerie Burris: “A bloodless coup is taking place in Detroit, replacing a Home Rule city with private corporations under the name of ‘reform’ and ‘reconstruction.’ We must meet their violence by any means necessary. Hit the streets! Workers must fight for their jobs, retirees for their pensions, homeowners for their homes and schools. WE are our salvation, not these people in front of us!” 

Joseph Rowland on strike at Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Joseph Rowland, DWSD worker: “Vote NO on all these contracts, especially EMA. In Toronto, they were a disaster. They cut the staff at their pump and substations in half, and the city’s subway stations and homes and neighborhoods were flooded, costing the city $1.2 billion. They have been in Toronto for 16 years, and the same problems are still there.  We at the Wastewater Treatment Plant are the real public safety officers of this city. Our work affects 4.3 million people in Michigan. A simple mistake can cause a life-threatening disaster. EMA can’t manage Toronto’s water department, which is half the size of Detroit’s, so how can they manage Detroit’s?” 

Ed McNeil, assistant to Al Garrett, President of AFSCME Council 25: “We are requesting criminal and civil investigations of the ethics violations involved in letting millions of dollars of contracts, including Miller Canfield, the primary drafter of Public Act 4, the consent agreement, the bond agreement and the Milestone Agreement, all of which are slanted heavily in favor of the state.” 

This speaker told the Council off in no uncertain terms.

Marcella Slappey: “You must reconsider saving the Department of Human Services. The contractors are not providing services to the people, no one is monitoring the funds. This is a violation of our civil rights and we are filing lawsuits under Title VI and VII.” 

Greg Newsome: “I just recently purchased a home in the Hantz area. I am very concerned about the sale of the land with a lack of community engagement, and a lack of accountability.” 

(Name?): “Research needs to be done. The Council is accountable to the people. I am speaking on behalf of those who have had their homes foreclosed while a wealthy person buys up the land. This is not about money, it is about quality of life. Land and water mean wealth and power for the people.” 

Susan Ryan, Cheryl Minniefield, Charity Hicks at Council.

Susan Ryan, DWSD worker, AFSCME Local 207 officer: “There is no respect for democracy. A federal judge assisted by Charles Pugh and Gary Brown are ordering the future of our water department. If you can’t handle the heat [directed to Pugh and Brown] stay out of the kitchen.” 

Cheryl Minnifield, retired DWSD worker: “Before [Dennis] Archer opened the floodgates, knowledgeable employees and managers brought DWSD into compliance with EPA requirements and out of receivership. But now you are constantly taking from operations and maintenance staff to pay the water department’s debt and its contractors. There is no longer any competent management, technicians, chemists and others in place no longer have state licenses.” 

DWSD workers on strike Sept. 30, 2012.

Mike Mulholland, DWSD worker, secretary-treasurer AFSCME Local 207: “This process makes a mockery out of democracy, but people who want to take over Detroit want it this way, because no one will vote for what they are doing to our schools and city. I cannot believe any City Council member would sign a document to separate the water department from the city, even agreeing to give it its own Social Security number. There are hundreds in the hallway, wastewater treatment plant workers went on strike, the city is getting ready to blow!” 

Tia Lebhertz, Food and Water Watch: “According to research we have done, water rates increase an average of 15 percent a year when water departments are privatized. The understaffing proposed under the EMA contract will affect the quality of our water. Under the Board of Water Commissioners, there is a lack of transparency.” 

Speakers including Rhonda Anderson (center) and Marian Kramer of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization.

John Riehl, President AFSCME Local 207: “A recent study by the Detroit Engineering Society showed that DWSD needs more staffing, not less, to stay in compliance with the Clean Water Act. Gary Brown and Charles Pugh have signed off to give the judge more power by separating the water department and putting the EMA contract under the Board of Water Commissioners only. But keep in mind the battle is not over. [VOD: i.e. Cox has not signed off on the Root Cause Committee recommendations, the EPA has not issued its report despite Brown’s claim that DWSD Director Sue McCormick said in a letter that the EPA has OK’d the contract, the Sixth Circuit has not ruled on the unions’ lawsuits against Cox’s orders, and the numbers of people turning out to stop the destruction of Detroit are growing.] 

Councilman Kwame Kenyatta supported Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon and blasted Miller Canfield. He first exposed their role in authoring Public Act 4.

Valerie Glenn, Free Detroit-No Consent: “The Council cannot alter or infringe on the rights of our citizens, even if it and the Mayor have been bought. The entire Milestone Agreement is unconstitutional. The Council must not go forward with the Ernst & Young, Miller Canfield, and Milliman. Charles Pugh and Gary Brown, you committed TREASON when you signed the Root Cause letter.” 

Bill McMasters, Michigan Taxpayers United: “I represent 300 Detroit residents. The Public Health and Safety Committee (chaired by Brown) only yesterday voted out $58 million in D-DOT contracts with private firms, but you are allowing the public only one and a half minutes of comment.” 

Dozens of other citizens presented comments in similar vein on the various issues, but space is limited here. One said, “I’ll bet the CEO of Hantz Farms got more time than one and a half minutes when he discussed the largest land sale in the city’s history with you.” 

Students organized by BAMN protest at Michigan state capitol against Proposal 2, 2006.

• State students begin campaign to double minority enrollment now
• Plaintiffs say they welcome state AG’s appeal to U.S. Supreme Court
• Case connected to others from Texas, California

By Diane Bukowski 

November 18, 2012 

DETROIT – In a historic ruling Nov. 15, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit overturned Michigan’s anti-affirmative action ban, passed by state voters in 2006 as Proposal 2. By a close vote of 8-7, the full Sixth Circuit thereby rejected Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette’s appeal of the Court’s finding on July 1, 2011 that the ban violates the 14th “equal protection” Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 

ttorneys Shanta Driver. George Washington and Monica Smith announce affirmative action victory Nov. 15, 2012.

“Finally the University of Michigan, Michigan State and Wayne State Universities, along with colleges across the state, will be able to re-open their doors to Black and Latino students,” said attorney Shanta Driver during a press conference Nov. 15 in downtown Detroit. She and attorney George Washington argued the case on behalf of the lead plaintiff, the national Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, & Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality (BAMN). 

Attorney Shanta Driver of BAMN at press conference Nov. 15, 2012.

“This is a huge victory for BAMN and the new civil rights movement,” Driver explained. “It reflects the slow leftward direction most of the country wants to take. It brings an end to an era of using ballot proposals in a cynical way, at the expense of Black and Latino youth, and should convince opponents of affirmative action nationally that they cannot use ballot fraud and win.” 

Michigan voters passed Prop. 2, a state constitutional amendment, in Nov. 2006. It struck down all programs in public educational institutions granting “preferential treatment . . . to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.” 

That included not only students, but workers and businesses contracting with the institutions. Nine out of ten Black voters voted against Proposal 2, but it passed by 58 percent because white voters supported it two to one. 

Justice Ransey Guy Cole, Jr. of the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote the court’s majority decision.

Washington noted that since then, the U.S. is becoming a “majority-minority” country. 

“The decision means universities will be able to open their doors to the newly-emerging majority across the U.S,” he said. 

In its closely divided ruling, U.S. Sixth Circuit Court Justice Ransey Guy Cole, Jr. explained in basic terms the reason for the court’s ruling. 

“A student seeking to have her family’s alumni connections considered in her application to one of Michigan’s esteemed public universities could do one of four things to have the school adopt a legacy-conscious admissions policy. She could lobby the admissions committee, she could petition the leadership of the university, she could seek to influence the school’s governing board, or, as a measure of last resort, she could initiate a state-wide campaign to alter the state’s constitution.” 

Ward Conerly and Jennifer Gratz, initiators of MCRI. Conerly also helped sponsor California Proposition 209.

The last is what white student Jennifer Gratz resorted to, supported by California businessman Ward Conerly and funded by corporate right-wing think tanks.

Justice Cole continued, “The same cannot be said for a Black student seeking the adoption of a constitutionally-permissible race-conscious admissions policy. That student could do only one thing to effect change: she could attempt to amend the Michigan Constitution—a lengthy, expensive, and arduous process—to repeal the consequences of Proposal 2. The existence of such a comparative structural burden undermines the Equal Protection Clause’s guarantee that all citizens must have equal access to the tools of political change. We therefore REVERSE the judgment of the district court on this issue and find Proposal 2 unconstitutional.” (Read full decision at http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/12a0386p-06.pdf.) 

Michigan AG Bill Schuette

Cole wrote in the Court’s July 1 panel decision that two previous Supreme Court decisions, Seattle, 458 U.S. at 467, and Hunter, 393 U.S. at 393, clarify that equal protection of the law is also “an assurance that the majority may not manipulate the channels of change in a manner that places unique burdens on issues of importance to racial minorities . . . . an electoral minority is by definition disadvantaged in its attempts to pass legislation.” 

Schuette said he plans to appeal the en banc ruling on what he called “The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative” (MCRI), the name of the group that campaigned to put Proposal 2 on the Michigan ballot. Its petition-takers frequently told signers they were signing to support a pro-civil rights amendment.

Protest against Prop. 2 at U of M.

“MCRI embodies the fundamental premise of what America is all about: equal opportunity under the law,” he said in a release. “Entrance to our great universities must be based upon merit. We are prepared to take the fight for equality, fairness and the rule of law to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Driver, Washington and attorney Monica Smith of BAMN said they welcome that opportunity. They said it will aid the building of a national movement in conjunction with other states. A decision from the U.S. high court is pending on oral arguments held Oct. 10 in Fisher v. Texas, and an appeal of a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision supporting California’s Proposition 209,  is also pending before the USSC.

March to support affirmative action on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 2003, prior to USSC decision.

Attorney Monica Smith said she, along with her brother and cousin, graduated from Michigan universities only because of their affirmative action policies. U of M’s policies were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger.  BAMN and other groups brought 50,000 people, including many Michigan students, to the steps of the USSC in Washington, D.C. that year. 

Monica Smith (right) and other protesters confront Jennifer Gratz as she enters U.S. District Court in downtown Detroit to defend Proposal 2.

“I joined BAMN for this reason, to win affirmative action,” she said. “I was in the very last class of law students at Wayne State before Proposal 2 took effect. In my class, only 22 out of 300 students were Black. The following year, that number diminished to 11. This fight is our generation’s Brown v. the Board of Education.” 

Smith said that the small number of Black and Latin students in her class, even before Proposal 2, contributed many times to a hostile atmosphere based on race, in the middle of a city that is at least 82 percent Black. She said the following year’s drop in ‘minority’ enrollments also hurt white and poor students, because the size of the entire class diminished overall due to funding cutbacks. 

Police place Detroit Central High School youth on bus after mass raid inside school.

In previous years, even at the undergraduate level, the majority of students at WSU have been white, at one point comprising 83 percent of the student population. Meanwhile many Black students in Detroit and other cities across the state are denied admission and funneled into what the Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union termed “The School to Prison Pipeline” in a 2009 study, available at http://www.aclumich.org/sites/default/files/file/ACLUSTPP.pdf . 

The attorneys compiled statistics from university websites which showed the dramatic decline of the admission of students of color into Michigan’s three major universities from Sept. 2005 to Sept. 2010. U of M averaged a 31 percent decline at the undergraduate level, with a 46 percent decline at the graduate levels. Wayne State University’s Schools of Law and Medicine averaged a 37 percent decline. (Click on AA stats) for all figures. 

“This decision ought to at least double the number of ‘minority’ admissions to these schools pending the outcome of the appeal,” Driver said. 

Nearly 70 percent of Michigan’s prisoners sentenced to juvenile life without parole are Black and Latino.

“In the meantime, the lives of many Black and Latin students have been changed forever over the last six years,” Washington noted. “These policies have already ruined enough lives. It is crucial that we train a new generation of leaders for the new majority-minority country.” 

In the wake of the Sixth Circuit Court decision, BAMN is launching a statewide campaign, kicked off with a rally Dec. 7 at the U of M campus in Ann Arbor, to demand: 

• The University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Wayne State University, and all of Michigan’s universities act immediately on the Sixth Circuit decision and reinstate their affirmative action policies in this admissions cycle, and
• Michigan’s universities create Dream Scholarships, offer full access to financial aid and in-state tuition to undocumented students.  

They say they are aiming to double the enrollment of “under-represented minority” students in 2013-14. http://www.bamn.com/social-justice/reinstate-affirmative-action-in-michigan-now. 

For more information, contact the law offices of Scheff, Washington & Driver at 313-963-1921, or go to the BAMN website at http://www.bamn.com/ .

Sign petition for immediate compliance with Sixth Circuit Court ruling at https://docs.google.com/a/ueaa.net/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEt0dERzX2p3YjhCaDNGUTFIUHFfS1E6MQ

Sandra Hines speaks at rally in Lansing Feb. 23, 2011 which drew thousands of Detroiters out to protest state takeover moves that led to Public Act 4.

• Ask people to storm Council meetings Tues. Nov. 20, 9:30 a.m. & 7 p.m.
• Council Pres. Pugh, Pro-Tem Brown asked judge to sever DWSD from city Nov. 8

By Diane Bukowski 

November 19, 2012

Council Pro-Tem Gary Brown and President Charles Pugh during meeting April 3, 2012, a day before they voted to approve the city’s disastrous PA 4 consent agreement.

DETROIT – Detroit City Council Pres. Charles Pugh and Pres. Pro-tem Gary Brown have asked U.S. District Court Judge Sean Cox to completely separate the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department from city control, in order to effectuate the $48 million EMA Group plan to cut 81 percent of the department’s workforce.

The two were among five signers of a “Root Cause Committee” report Nov. 8 which asked Cox to thereby circumvent the Council’s power over the contract. DWSD asked him to approve the committee’s recommendation Nov. 15, but he has not yet taken action.

Judge Sean Cox

“If successfully implemented, the organizational optimization will result in a reduction of the number of employee classifications within the Department, leading to a more flexible workforce, with more training, and greater opportunities for career advancement for the staff,” says the document. “Further the Root Cause Committee has reviewed the due diligence materials prepared by the Board of Water Commissioners and acknowledges that EMA’s work has improved compliance efforts in other jurisdictions.” (Click on DWSD Root Cause 11 8 12 re EMA and on DWSD motion to approve Root Cause Cttee report 11 15 12. to read full documents.)

Councilwoman JoAnn Watson

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initiated the 1977 consent agreement under which a federal judge oversees DWSD Clean Water Act (CWA) compliance. It requested Oct. 16 that Cox delay any action on the EMA contract for 45 days. It said DWSD has been in federal compliance with the Act since November of last year.

At Brown’s Public Health and Safety Committee meeting Nov. 19, Detroiters including Councilwoman JoAnn Watson rose up in outrage. They called on people to storm the full Council meeting Nov. 20 at 9:30 a.m., where Brown said he wants the Council to vote the contract “up or down.” Watson said no vote should be held before the Council’s community public meeting that evening, from 7 p.m. to  8:30 p.m. at Mark Twain Elementary School.

Members of the public already flooded Council chambers to oppose the EMA contract at a “public hearing” which Council President Charles Pugh deliberately set at 9 a.m. Nov. 13, flowing out into the hallway. (VOD story on that hearing is still coming.)

DWSD workers conducted a five-day strike at the Wastewater Treatment Plant beginning Sept. 30, with the EMA contract a major issue of the strike.

Wastewater Treatment Plant rank-and-file workers led a five-day strike beginning Sept. 30, 2012 against EMA contract and other union-busting measures.

Despite that hearing and the strike, which had sympathetic news coverage nationally, the Board of Water Commissioners approved a $1,977,000 partial contract with EMA Nov. 13, ducking just under the threshold of $2 million needed for Council approval.

Cecily McClellan leads chants against PA 4 during first protest against EM’s in Benton Harbor.

“It is malfeasance to have Council members participate in a Root Cause Committee that recommended the separation of the water department,” said Cecily McClellan of Free Detroit-No Consent Nov. 19.  “Our Corporate Counsel needs to be listening very closely. There is not a deficit in DWSD. We don’t need a solution where a problem doesn’t exist. EMA is nothing but an opportunity for outsiders to get rich.”

Under the City Charter, and as confirmed by voters who approved Detroit Proposal C Nov. 6, Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon can bring legal action against city officials and others who violate the city’s Home Rule Charter. McClellan, who is also Vice-President of the Association of Professional and Technical Employees (APTE), told VOD earlier that no EMA “due diligence” documents were presented at a special meeting DWSD held with Council staff and union leaders in October.

AFSCME Local 207 VP Mike Mulholland protests EMA contract outside DWSD Huber facility in August, 2012.

“Someone on this Council wants us to approve this contract before Thanksgiving, and bust the unions, but the EPA has said the department is in full compliance,” Councilwoman Watson said.  “If it’s not broken, why fix it? This is nothing but a takeover, a power grab for the largest asset the city holds. It would be malfeasance for any elected official to advocate breaking it up, divvying it up. There is no drinking water in the country better than ours. DWSD is a magnificent asset, paid for by the citizens, owned by the citizens, and run by the citizens. This is a disgrace before God!”

Sandra Hines (shown in photo at head of story) added, “This is what a takeover looks like. We have to fire these people that are not working for us, making decisions that are detrimental to our children.  Water is gold, there are countries where people wish and pray they had the water we have. You are trying to put us back in slavery in modern-day times. Don’t let these few Black people who don’t understand Black power give up the little power that we have. This is nothing but racism.”

Strikers at Wastewater Treatment Plant raise EMA’s dramatic failure in Toronto.

Speakers at the hearing wore vivid “NO EMA” and “NO MILESTONES” ribbons during the meeting.

The last referred to the “Escrow Release Milestones Agreement” Bing and State Treasurer Andy Dillon signed Nov. 13 without Council approval. The document says the state will continue to hold the remainder of Detroit’s $137 million loan from the state hostage unless contracts with the firms of Miller Canfield, Ernst & Young, and Milliman are approved by Council Nov. 20.  It sets numerous other requirements, including the outsourcing of the city’s Public Lighting and Transportation departments. (Click on Milestone Agreement.)

Atty. Michael McGee represented Mayor Dave Bing in opposing Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon’s lawsuit against consent agreement July 13, 2012.

Miller Canfield’s attorney Michael McGee was a co-author of the “dictator law” Public Act 4, which was struck down by Michigan voters Nov. 6. Ernst & Young first claimed the city was running out of cash in a secret meeting with Council last November. Their financial report later showed the city paid $597 million on its $16.9 billion debt to the banks in 2011-12.

Milliman has drafted a plan to takeover and gut the city’s $6 billion pension system.

Cox established the “Root Cause Committee” in Feb. 2011, ostensibly to analyze the department’s non-compliance with Clean Water Act and state Department of Environmental Quality department standards.  Cox implemented their recommendations Nov. 4, 2011, partially separating DWSD from the city and implementing drastic anti-union measures.  (Click on Sean-Cox-DWSD-order-11-4-11).

DWSD unions are still waiting for a decision from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on their appeal of Cox’s order, in wake of a hearing held in Cincinnati Oct. 9.

DWSD Director Sue McCormick (l) and BOWC Chair James Fausone at BOWC meeting where EMA contract was approved.

Along with Pugh and Brown, other members of the committee who signed the document were DWSD Director Sue McCormick, appointed to head the department at the beginning of 2012, Walter Fausone, chair of the Board of Water Commissioners (BOWC), and Mayor Dave Bing’s Chief Operating Officer Chris Brown.

Channel 7 Action News said Nov. 9 that they had confirmed that Chris Brown had resigned as COO for undisclosed reasons.  VOD filed federal complaints in August against Brown, Bing, and former D-DOT Deputy Director Bill Nojay for Hatch Act violations related to Nojay’s run for state office in New York. The case is open and ongoing according to the federal Office of the Special Counsel.

The committee reports to Cox’s Special Master David Ottenwess, an attorney who has specialized in defending health institutions from medical malpractice lawsuits.

Why was Council Pres. Pro-Tem Gary Brown (r) in this picture of Mayor Dave Bing announcing the EMA contract and the elimination of 81 percent of DWSD jobs?

By Diane Bukowski 

Nov. 19, 2012

DETROIT — Council President Pro-Tem Gary Brown has been the chief Council member pressing for passage of the EMA contract, through the Public Health and Safety Committee which he chairs.

During that committee’s  hearing Nov. 19, many from the public asked who was paying Council members to sell off all of Detroit’s major assets.

Tyrone Travis, Detroit activist since the 1960’s, member of Free Detroit-No Consent, and founding member of the Coallition to Stop Privatization and Save Our City, at earlier Council meeting.

“All but two Council members have sold their souls to the corporations,” Tyrone Travis said. “Thomas Jefferson said that when you have a government that prevents you from pursuing life, liberty and happiness, you must get rid of that government. We have got a vested interest to organize, not to waste time appealing to people who have sold their souls to the devil. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. did not go before the council, or the courts. He organized people, he started a boycott and demonstrations, and the people won their demands in 30 days. They are taking our homes, they have shut our schools, they are stripping the city of its assets. We must organize now to shut the city down and take everything back.”

Aside from whatever secret dealings he has had as part of U.S. District Court Judge Sean Cox’s “Roots Cause Committee,” a review of Brown’s city council campaign finance documents shows strong connections with BOWC vice-chair James F. Thrower, and many Water Department contractors.

Former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (center) and former DWSD Director Victor Mercado, who has pleaded guilty to federal charges related to DWSD contracting, at the scene of the Macomb County sinkhole on 15 Mile in Sterling Heights in 2004, with contractors hired to repair the damage.

Most striking are the number of contributions from executives associated with the Lakeshore Group, Inland Waters Pollution Control, and Nth Consultants. They were all involved in the $50 million Macomb Interceptor sinkhole repair project which began in 2004, under the administration of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

Macomb County sued Lakeshore Engineering and Inland Waters for alleged overbilling of $25 million on the project. The project is also tied to the federal criminal trial of Kilpatrick, his father Bernard Kilpatrick, and Bobby Ferguson, another DWSD contractor.

A spokesperson for Lakeshore, Audrey Young, said however that Lakeshore had been dismissed from the lawsuit early on. VOD is still checking for court records on the case.

Lakeshore Engineering’s CEO Avinash Rachmale and its Vice-President Thomas Hardiman are currently testifying against the defendants in the Kilpatrick trial, claiming they were extorted by them to include Ferguson’s company in the project. It is possible that they and other corporate witnesses were threatened with federal charges in order to obtain their testimony.  (See recent Channel 7 report on their testimony below.)

Macomb County’s actions may have been directed to wrest control of DWSD from the City of Detroit, which they and Oakland County have partially done, with the compliance of Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, under a Feb. 2011 deal reached under Judge Sean Cox.

Gary Brown pushes for passage of EMA contract at City Council committee hearing Oct. 15, 2012.

But nonetheless they raise questions about dirty dealings behind large-scale private contracting everywhere.

Since he took office, contributions to Gary Brown from large-scale, mainly white-owned contractors who often do business with the Water Department, the Transportation Department and others have gone up dramatically, according to campaign finance reports which can now be accessed online at the Wayne County Clerk’s website at http://www.wccampaignfinance.com/.  Many of these contracts come through his committee before going to Council.

VOD looked at Brown’s reports submitted from 2009 to 2012, and pulled out contractors associated with the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, as shown in the chart below. The list is likely not complete due to time constraints. VOD will also research Council President Charles Pugh’s contributions this week.

Since this story was completed after-hours, Brown was not available for comment. But he owes the public which elected him an explanation at the Council meetings Nov. 20.

GARY BROWN’S CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS, 2009-2012 FROM THOSE WITH FINANCIAL INTERESTS IN THE DETROIT WATER DEPARTMENT.