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

Detroit’s “Gang of Four” plus one: (l to r) LR director Lamont Satchel, Police Chief Ralph Godbee, COO and city’s defacto mayor Chris Brown, CFO Jack Martin, and Program Mgt. Director Kriss Andrews, at Council table 7/16/12.

Detroit City Council “no” vote on imposed contract likely to0 late 

By Diane Bukowski 

July 18, 2012 

DETROIT – Despite Detroit City Council’s 5-4 “no” vote on a corporate-sponsored assault on city workers July 17, a union-busting “City Employment Terms”  (CET) contract will likely take effect in 30 days, under terms of the city’s Public Act 4 “consent agreement.”

Council President Charles Pugh said he was the deciding “No” vote on the CET. By the same reasoning his was the deciding “Yes” vote on the consent agreement, the poisonous tree from which all subsequent actions have fallen. The consent agreement clearly spelled out its union-busting intent.

Sheila Pennington, President AFSCME Local 1023, calls CET “wrong, low-down and dirty.”

Detroit’s new “Gang of Four,” Chief Operating Officer (COO) Chris Brown, Program Management Director Kriss Andrews, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Jack Martin, and Labor Relations Director Lamont Satchel, along with Police Chief Ralph Godbee, presented the CET package to Council July 16. It includes even more severe cuts than those in a package sent to unions earlier.

“All the time, you are talking like the sky is falling and there are going to be payless paydays,” Sheila Pennington, President of AFSCME Local 1023, told the Gang of Four. “We went to the table with you, Chris and you, Chief Godbee, and negotiated a tentative agreement, but it didn’t see the light of day. You have torn apart and destroyed our contract without any input at all from us. We have NOT lost the right to collective bargaining. This is WRONG, DIRTY AND LOW DOWN.”

Pennington represents civilian workers at the Police Department.

Tyrone Travis of Free Detroit-No Consent, previously with Coalition to Stop Privatization and Save Our City, working-class activist since the 1960’s.

“According to the Charter, the Financial Stability [consent] agreement doesn’t exist.” Tyrone Travis, of Free Detroit-No Consent, said. “You are giving all the jobs in the city to the suburbs and private contractors. We will no longer agree to proposals you put on the ballot. Say NO to the DIA! Put any funds owed to the state in escrow!”

The CET  includes a 10 percent wage cut and other financial cuts, with more possible in the future, an assault on the city’s pension plans and retirees, including elimination of dental and vision care after Jan. 1, 2013, a 20 percent annual premium co-pay on health care, elimination of seniority rights in promotions and transfers, work rule changes at the city’s whim, and cuts in union representation rights, to cite a few.

(See chart and link to 7/16/12 CET package at end of article.)

Detroit PMD Kriss Andrews (r) glares at camera as COO Chris Brown (l) discusses proposed CET with Atty.Michael McGee, a co-author of PA4, before FAB meeting June 28, 2012.

The plan allegedly will save the city $102 million in labor costs.  The city’s PA4 Financial Advisory Board (FAB) vetted and approved it earlier in three closed sessions with State Treasurer Andy Dillon, Brown, Andrews, and Satchel also present. Under the consent agreement, the FAB can impose the contract regardless of the Council’s vote.

A coalition of city unions earlier bargained a contract that would have saved the city $180.2 million, according to its chief negotiator Ed McNeil, but Gov. Rick Snyder and State Treasurer Andy Dillon would not agree to let the Council finalize it.

This was the first time city workers and union officials even saw the current plan.

Al Garrett, Pres. AFSCME Council 25 (in red shirt), with COO Chris Brown (l, looking bored), chief negotiator Ed Mcneil at Garrett’s right, Richard Mack at far right, during Council meeting July 16, 2012.

“I’m amazed at what you don’t know,” Al Garret, President of AFSCME Council 25, stood to say. “The consent agreement says if there is a collective bargaining agreement and they bring it to you, you can put it in place. There AIN’T no collective bargaining agreement. This has gone too damn far. At some point, you are going to have to stand up. Don’t vote for this, let them impose it.”

Councilwoman JoAnn Watson at table July 16, 2012, says city needs to re-negotiate debt to banks.

Councilwoman JoAnn Watson said the City Charter requires collective bargaining, and that the consent agreement does not pre-empt that obligation under three sections of the Public Employee Relations Act (PERA) not barred by Public Act 4.

“Folks are acting like Michigan has a right-to-work [anti-union] law in effect,” Watson said. “It does not. Detroit is the home of organized labor. This package throws all respect for the legacy of the unions out the window.”

She also brought up the possibility of a moratorium on the city’s debt.

Linda Willis at demonstration calling for a moratorium on Detroit debt to the banks, held May 9, 2012 in downtown Detroit.

“Why was there no effort to re-negotiate the city’s huge debt load to Wall Street bondholders who got bailed out by the taxpayers to the tune of trillions of dollars?” she asked. “You want to get tough with the working class, but you won’t confront Wall Street.  Power concedes nothing without a demand.”

The city paid $597 million to the banks in the 2011-12 fiscal year, and carries a total debt load of $12.6 billion.

Watson added that Gov. Rick Snyder should restore residency requirements for city workers to increase the city’s revenue base. She asked why the Law Department, headed by Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon, had not been consulted on the package since it must approve all contracts.

City officials admitted that the law firms of Butzel Long, Miller Canfield, and Ernst & Young have been retained instead to advise on the contracts, at millions of dollars in expense to taypayers, let alone the costs for the salaries and staff of the CFO, the PMD, and the FAB.

Council members JoAnn Watson (l), Brenda Jones, (center) Kwame Kenyatta (r) consult after consent agreement vote April 4, 2012.

Council members Pugh, Gary Brown and Saunteel Jenkins contended that an emergency manager would have been worse.

“We’ve basically got 14 emergency managers in place already [referring to the FAB, the CFO, the PMD, Dillon and Snyder among others],” countered Councilwoman Brenda Jones. Unless we change things at the top, someone can give the city $1 billion and we would be in the same place. It is not the employees’ fault.”

Brown, a former DTE executive and international privatizer, said, “Things are not the same. It may not be fair, but it’s necessary. The market is not providing these services anymore.”

Detroit’s defacto first white mayor, COO Chris Brown, smirks at Council table July 16, 2012.

Neither Mayor Dave Bing nor Deputy Mayor Kirk Lewis were at the table. Brown, who led the administration’s presentation at the opposite end of the table from Council President Charles Pugh, appears to be the city’s first white mayor, de facto.

Andrews was most recently Chief Financial Officer at Energy Conversion Devices, which filed for bankruptcy in February.

Neither he nor Brown have had any prior experience dealing with the public sector. Under the consent agreement, Andrews has veto power.

“We are looking at the possibility of more reductions in force, significant reductions in overtime, and using selective furlough weeks,” he noted. “We are going to re-evaluate retiree health care coverage as a whole. We retained a third party actuary to deal with things in the most ‘humane’ way.”

Jack Martin, also former Highland Park schools EM, chewed out by Highland Park parents.

Martin was a member of the Detroit financial review team Snyder appointed and also Highland Park Schools EM. He previously served under U.S. President George W. Bush as CFO for the U.S. Department of Education, where he helped implement the pro-charter school No Child Left Behind Program. He is making $224,000 as the City’s CFO, also with veto power under the consent agreement.

“It’s Doomsday,” he said. “No matter what happens with Public Act 4, the bottom line is that we are running out of cash and we don’t want to file bankruptcy. We may have to shut down parts of the city. The only way we can survive and prosper is to take actions like this.”

Labor Relations Director Lamont Satchel (l) listens intently to COO Chris Brown at Council table July 16, 2012.

Martin did not produce any financial documents detailing evidence of projected cash flow shortages.

“The most significant part of this package is the management rights clause,” Satchel said. “Management reserves the right to make any changes as it deems necessary to act to achieve its desired goals. We will sit down with the unions to inform them of the changes if there is time.”

Satchel insisted that the Labor Relations Division and department heads were responsible, in “collaboration” with the FAB, for producing the meat of the CET.

Jan Winters, Snyder’s director of Office of State Employer.

However, Ed McNeil, chief assistant to AFSCME Council 25 President Al Garrett, said that State Treasurer Dillon told him that Jan Winters, head of the Office of the State Employer (as she was under former Gov. John Engler), oversaw the drafting of the package.

Satchel also repeatedly insisted that the “duty to bargain has been suspended” under PA4. However, Attorney Richard Mack, representing AFSCME, cited three clauses in PERA that were not suspended.

“In the next 30 days that the consent agreement gives you, have the Corporation Counsel look at specific sections of state labor law that say that the city still has to bargain with the unions,” Mack said. You made a mistake last time not getting her advice.”

Detroit Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon

Mack and AFSCME Council 25 have asked Crittendon to review the proposed CET and issue a legal opinion, in a letter sent July 16. He also gave Council a copy of the letter.

“With this letter, the Coalition of Detroit Unions formally asks you, Madam Corporation Counsel, to issue a legal opinion indicating that the City of Detroit may not impose employment terms on its unionized workforce, because of the city’s duty to bargain with the unions,” the seven-page letter begins. “This duty is found expressly in the City Charter . . . . If the leadership of the City refuses to comply with your opinion of an existing duty to bargain, we then ask that you seek ‘judicial action’ to require such bargaining. Charter 7.5-209.” (Click below for full copy of letter.)

Michael McGee advising Council on PA4 consent agreement April 4, 2012.

When it voted 5-4 for the consent agreement, which allowed the current scenario to take place, the Council instead listened to legal advice rendered by Attorney Michael McGee of Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone. Council member Kwame Kenyatta exposed McGee as a co-author of the language in Public Act 4, a contention confirmed by McGee himself in an article for the Michigan Municipal Advisory Council newsletter.

SAAA Vice-President Greg Murray said, “This is tyranny, a way to pay the corporate interests first. When will Detroit’s greatest assets—its people and workers—be used? We didn’t vote for this consent agreement. Stop this subjugation! This 21^st century document amounts to indentured servitude, taking the city back to the 1800’s.”

EMS tech Joseph Barney (r), tells Council, “People are dying out here because we can’t get to them!”

Joseph Barney, an EMS technician and union representative with the Fire Department, said, “People are dying out here! EMS is killing them because we can’t get to them. There are no ambulances in southwest Detroit. We are 60 technicians below budget. This is not a collective bargaining agreement, it’s nothing but getting rid of the workers while you still have too many managers.”

Click on City CET Council Discussion Document 2012-07-16_1_5 to read entire package.

Click on AFSCME 25 letter to Krystal Crittendon to read entire letter.

Georgia prison hunger strikers facing death.

By: Deborah Dupre

July 16, 2012

Nine prisoners face death on a hunger strike for human rights that began June 11 at Georgia’s massive Diagnostic and Classification prison, where Troy Davis was murdered last year and where men are tortured in solitary confinement.

“It has been 33 days since these men have eaten. We must move swiftly or people are going to start dying,” writes Delma Jackson, wife of the inmate who leads the strike, Miguel Jackson.

Miguel Jackson, GA. prisoner beaten with hammers by guards, 12/31/10. Photo courtesy Final Call.

Miguel Jackson is the prisoner beaten with a hammer-like object in retaliation for his role in the December 2010 mass sit-down strike to raise awareness about slave labor and other atrocities at Georgia’s massive Diagnostic and Classification prison, what CBS Atlanta reported the inmates call “unreasonable and inhumane treatment by prison guards and officials.”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, based on claims by the Georgia Department of Corrections, reported Tuesday that the strike is over:

“A hunger strike by 10 inmates at the Georgia Classification & Diagnostic Prison has ended, according to the Department of Corrections. The strike, which sparked a protest at the state capitol building Monday, lasted from June 10 to July 6. Corrections is also denying claims that it mistreated the striking prisoners.The hunger strike ended when inmates requested food from GDC officials,’ said Dabney Weems, a public relations official.”

Georgia prisoner in pool of blood on cell floor. Photo courtesy Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World

Families and an attorney for the prisoners, however, “insist that the nine hunger strikers remain resolved and continue to insist on administrative review of their status, adequate medical care, and access to mail and visitation privileges with their families and attorneys which have been arbitrarily denied them,” reports San Francisco Bay View News, based on the story by Bruce A. Dixon, managing editor at Black Agenda Report where this story first appeared.

Dixon is a member of the state committee of the Georgia Green Party and is heard on Black Agenda Radio Commentaries.

(Listen to Bruce Dixon’s commentary on the Georgia prison strike here.)

Georgia Classification and Diagnostic Prison, location of hunger strike. Troy Davis, who received world-wide support, was executed here.

Georgia’s Green Party called on Americans to fast for one day in solidarity with the prisoners, saying in a written statement:

“Eighteen months after Georgia Department of Corrections employees brutally suppressed a non-violent work stoppage led by inmates in as many as eleven of the state’s 34 prisons, it is believed that the “Hidden-37″ have been in solitary confinement ever since. The Georgia Green Party today called on Governor Deal to end the torture; and on Georgians to join hunger striking Georgia inmates in a one day solidarity fast.”

“Prison officials are surprised at the level of outside support the inmates enjoy despite a virtual news whiteout,” states Bruce Dixon, editor of The Black Agenda Report.

Georgia denies inmates hygiene and medical treatment for injuries inflicted 18 months ago

“Miguel and other inmates at Georgia Diagnostics have been denied access to proper hygiene [and] medical treatment for their numerous and severe injuries, many of which were inflicted 18 months ago,” wrote Delma Jackson in a Change.org petition.

Jackson’s family alleges that he was beaten by prison guards at Smith State Prison in December 2010, transferred in 2011 to the Georgia Classification & Diagnostic Prison where he has been kept in solitary confinement for the past 18 months.

Protest outside Detroit’s Mound Rd. prison on Dec. 14, 2010, to support striking Georgia prisoners, nine of whom are now on hunger strike facing death.

The Department of Corrections denied those allegations in a statement to the AJC.

“[The Georgia Bureau of Investigation] investigated the claim filed by inmate Miguel Jackson regarding the 2010 Smith State Prison incident and found no validity to the inmate’s complaint,” stated Dabney Weems, a public relations official.

According to the ACJ,the department also said Jackson has not been in solitary confinement.

Bruce Dixon, editor Black Agenda Report.

In a petition that citizens of faith and conscience are asked to sign, The Black Agenda Report states about solitary confinement torture:

“As the international community has examined the research, including over a century of scientific studies suggesting that prolonged solitary confinement leads to irreversable mental degradation, experts have found that use of segregation for period in excess of fifteen days constitutes torture and cannot be supported under existing international standards for human rights.”

Many of the men now on hunger strike were involved in a hunger strike launched in December 2010. Continue reading →

Maura Corrigan, Director of Michigan Department of Human Services.

By Diane Bukowski 

July 16, 2012 

DETROIT –Genessee County Circuit Court Judge Geoffrey Neithercut today threatened to hold Maura Corrigan, director of the state’s Department of Human Services, in contempt of court if the state does not process all outstanding re-applications for state public assistance by Aug. 10.

“These cases [were] not being processed in a timely manner in spite of DHS promises that they would be expedited, and families are suffering as a result,” said Jackie Doig, Senior Staff Attorney for the Center for Civil Justice (CCJ).  “DHS created a slow, cumbersome process for handling class members’ applications, with the end result that they still are not receiving assistance because of the unlawful policy.”

Attorney Jacqueline Doig, who won State Bar of Michigan’s Champion of Justice award.

The Saginaw-based CCJ filed the state lawsuit after U.S. District Court Judge Paul Borman said he could not rule on state issues in their original case, filed on behalf of thousands of families cut off beginning last November.

Another hearing is set for Aug. 20 in front of Neithercut, in the 7th Circuit Court in Flint,  to assess the state’s compliance.

Families were allowed to re-apply for Family Independence Assistance (FIP) after Neithercut earlier barred the state from cutting them off based on time limits counted from  prior to October 1, 2007.

That was the date former Governor Jennifer Granholm’s  2006 order cutting off lifetime assistance after four years went into effect.  In August, 2011, Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation re-affirming her order and adding tougher provisions.

Neithercut’s order was overturned July 3 by the Court of Appeals (COA), but the Center for Civil Justice said July 16 that it plans to appeal the case  to the Michigan Supreme Court.

Family waits for housing assistance at local non-profit agency.

Because the COA denied the state’s order for immediate effect, the CCJ said it will not go into effect until at least Aug. 8, and certain families can still re-apply in the interim. (See link to CCJ story at end of this article for more information.)

Last year, a Detroit mother of eight, “Cathy Smith,” told VOD that she feared her children would be forced into the life of abusive foster care she led from the age of 2 if her benefits remained cut-off. Smith has severe health problems including a back injury, diabetes, asthma, a kidney disorder, and carpal tunnel syndrome, which ended her ten-year career as a waitress.

“Two of my sons have graduated from high school and are working, so they can help us out,” she said. “I have two other children in high school, one in middle school, and two in elementary school. They have zero absences. They go to school every day, because I want to make sure that they have it better than I did.”

She said she fears the state’s Child Protective Services division will take the six children still at home if she loses her ability to provide a roof over their heads.

The state reported earlier that it currently has a large budget surplus, but is battling all attempts by poor families, as well as cities like Detroit to which it allegedly owes over $307 million, to benefit from that surplus.

Click on JUDGE ORDERS DHS TO PROCESS 100 PERCENT OF APPLICATIONS BY AUGUST 10, 2012 for further information from Center for Civil Justice. The CCJ website is at http://ccj-mi.org/. Its phone number is 800-724-7441.

Plaintiffs’ attorney Herbert Sanders, backed by some of dozens who packed the courtroom to support lawsuit against Detroit consent agreement, speaks to media after hearing July 13, 2012.

Next hearing Thurs. July 26; state high court to hear case against PA4 referendum Wed. July 25 

By Diane Bukowski 

July 15, 2012

Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Amy Hathaway listens to arguments in earlier case against city filed by AFSCME. Atty. Herbert Sanders is at left. Hathaway is runnning for re-election this year.

DETROIT – Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Amy Hathaway ordered a two-week delay July 13 on an emergency hearing in a citizens’ lawsuit against the city’s PA4 consent agreement.  The request for a declaratory judgment in Rose Roots, Yolanda King and Yvonne Ross v. the City of Detroit, Mayor Dave Bing, and the City Council, is now to be heard Thurs. July 26 at 9 a.m.

She denied requests by the defendants to further delay or quash the suit, took under advisement a motion by attorneys for Mayor Dave Bing to bar the Corporation Counsel’s office from representing the City in the suit, and granted a state motion to intervene.

The lawsuit alleges that city officials did not have the right to enter into the April 4 “Fiscal Stability Agreement” with the state because the state owes the city over $307 million in revenue sharing payments, water and electric bills, and other debts.

Atty. Herbert Sanders, with plaintiff Yolanda King in back, speaks to media.

The allegations are the same made by Detroit Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon in her suit against the consent agreement, which targets the state of Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder, and Treasurer Andy Dillon as defendants.

“We are asking the court to uphold the rights of the people with regard to the consent agreement,” attorney Herbert Sanders, who represents the plaintiffs, said. “The plaintiffs are saying city officials had no authority to enter into it in the first place. The State has no affidavits or other proof saying they don’t owe the debt involved, but we have affidavits and city records kept in the normal course of business. The state is in default to us.”

Sanders called the delay “unfortunate.”

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Detroit Mayor Dave Bing are “joined at the hip,” according to an earlier comment from Bing.

“The Mayor and state attorneys used the same tactics being used to challenge the peoples’ right to vote on the referendum to repeal Public Act 4. But we will continue to fight this battle in the courts and on the streets.”

Earlier, on July 11, over 400 opponents of Public Act 4 once again occupied Cadillac Place, the state’s office building in Detroit, demanding that the State Court of Appeals get Stand Up for Democracy’s  referendum on the ballot in time for the November election.

In contrast, the state’s Supreme Court moved swiftly to set a hearing on an application for leave to appeal by Citizens  for Fiscal Responsibility. The group, which filed the initial challenge to the referendum, is asking that the high court strike down the appeals court ruling that the referendum is valid. That hearing is to take place Wed. July 25, at 10 a.m.

Hundreds occupy Cadillac Place June 28, demanding “Let the People Vote Now!”

“Each side will have 30 minutes for oral argument,” the Supreme Court said in its order. “At oral argument, the parties shall address: (1) whether plaintiff actually complied with the 14-point type requirement in MCL 168.482(2), specifically given the terms “point” and “type;” and (2) if not, whether substantial compliance with the 14-point type requirement in § 482(2) is sufficient to give plaintiff a clear legal right to certification of the petition.”

The same Supreme Court has yet to hear arguments in a lawsuit filed on behalf of plaintiffs around the state in 2011 asking that Public Act 4 be declared unconstitutional and struck from the books.

Plaintiffs Yvonne Ross (l) and Yolanda King speak to media July 13, 2012.

“My parents fought for civil rights in the South,” Yolanda King, a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the city, said July 13 after the hearing. “But now we are going back to the days where we had no right to vote. The money the state owes us would get the city out of the red. We are facing hundreds of lay-offs, the closing of recreation centers, the health department and other vital services.  We don’t have the right leaders. There is no way they should have entered into an agreement giving away our power, our jewels and our right to vote.”

Co-plaintiff Yvonne Ross said, “We have expressed our displeasure beginning with the formation of the financial review team. We feel everybody including the state of Michigan ought to follow the rules. It is illegal to contract with an entity in default to the city.”

King and Ross are both city workers and taxpayers. The third plaintiff, Rose Roots, is a city retiree.

Attorney Michael McGee, representing Mayor Bing, rushes past VOD trying to avoid being photographed after court hearing July 13, 2012.

Mayor Dave Bing, the City Council and the state sent a battery of attorneys to the courtroom to fight to maintain the consent agreement, which guts city officials’ authority over everything. It has now led to the union-busting unilateral “City Employment Terms” contract being presented to the City Council July 13 by the Financial Advisory Board.

Bing’s attorneys from the law firm of Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone, including Michael McGee, a co-author of Public Act 4, asked that the office of the Corporation Counsel be barred from representing the city during the proceedings.

McGee has been omnipresent, appearing at City Council to tout the consent agreement, at Financial Advisory Board meetings, and in Ingham County Circuit Court during a hearing on Crittendon’s lawsuit. Asked to comment, he rushed past VOD trying to avoid having his photo taken.

Lawsuit supporters discuss hearing afterwards.Tyrone Travis, a member of Free Detroit, No Consent, at center, is suing City Council President Charles Pugh for ousting him from City Council meeting in violation of Open Meetings Act.

“It’s a good question where the money to pay Miller Canfield is coming from,” Sanders said. “We are not aware that the Corporation Counsel hired anybody. “From my understanding, Attorney McGee helped draft Public Act 4 and was also involved in the drafting of the consent agreement. It is ironic that they are now representing the Mayor, giving at least an appearance of impropriety.”

Under the current City Charter, the Corporation Counsel must approve any outside counsel hired to represent the city.

Assistant Corporation Counsel James Noseda on behalf of City of Detroit arguing against consent agreement in front of Ingham County Circuit Court Judge WIlliam Collette June 13, 2012.

Assistant Corporation Counsel James Noseda, present to defend the City of Detroit, admitted that the plaintiffs’ grounds are identical to the grounds cited in Corporation Counsel Crittendon’s lawsuit, but said his office is still entitled under terms of the Charter to represent its clients, which include the City of Detroit as a whole, and the Mayor and City Council as requested.

Hathaway said she would rule later on whether the Corporation Counsel’s office can represent the city at the hearings.

She granted a motion by the State of Michigan to intervene in the case.

“I objected to the state intervening,” Sanders said. “In Corporation Counsel’s lawsuit, the state argued that they could not be sued because they have sovereign immunity, trying to get out of the suit. But now they are arguing that they want to be in this case.”

Judge William Collette at hearing June 13, 2012.

Ingham County Circuit Court Judge William Collette summarily dismissed both Crittendon’s suit and her motion for reconsideration, the last on July 12. She has 21 days to file an appeal from the Court of Claims to the state’s Court of Appeals. Crittendon met in closed session with the City Council and its Research and Analysis Division July 11 to discuss the appeal.

“Take it to the bank, she must and will appeal as is required by our city’s charter,” former Mayoral candidate Tom Barrow commented. “The Judge is simply wrong and she knows it. She gave him a chance to correct his obvious mistake and he refused. She is correct to follow the law to its ultimate conclusion and that means an appeal.”

Tom Barrow (l) is backed by dozens of supporters during Wayne County Board of Canvassers hearing in which he challenged validity of 2010 mayoral election.

Barrow said he has appealed his challenge to the 2009 Mayoral election to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Wayne County Board of Canvassers declared over 51 percent of the ballots cast in that election “unrecountable” due to gross irregularities.

Major media outlets continue to blame Crittendon’s suit as well as other “legal proceedings” for Wall Street bond ratings agencies continued downgrading of Detroit’s status. However, it is the bond ratings agencies themselves who are attacking Detroit to get the last drop of blood out of the city. The banks who pay them got $597 million in payments on the city’s debt in the 2011-12 fiscal years.

The city’s budget for 2012-13 sets aside $106,911,659 for a 2009 POC Swap Hedge Fund payment, aside from the remainder of outstanding debt. That payment results from an agreement the city entered into to avoid defaulting on a $1.5 billion Pension Obligation Certificates loan in 2005, under former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

That loan was foisted on the city by representatives of Standard and Poor’s and Fitch Ratings, who came to the City Council table and threatened the city with bond downgrades if they didn’t agree to the deal.

Instead of making the workers and residents of Detroit pay for Wall Street’s greed, many in the city are demanding a moratorium on Detroit’s debt to the banks.

To read lawsuit, click on Root v Bing – 1st Amend Complaint.

Stephen Murphy of Standard and Poor’s and Joe O’Keefe of Fitfch Ratings at City Council in 2005 foisting $1.5 billion pension obligation bond on city.

Detroit’s “Financial Advisory Board” in its meeting June 28, 2012. Its main agenda item was a closed session to discuss “upcoming contract” issues. Also present in the closed session were State Treasurer Andy Dillon, PA4 co-author Attorney Michael McGee, and Detroit COO Chris Brown.

CITY COUNCIL TO DISCUSS ‘CET’ MON. JULY 16, 1:30 pm

By Diane Bukowski 

July 15, 2012 

DETROIT – This past week, the daily media declared that the city’s Financial Advisory Board (FAB) set up under its PA4 consent agreement had “agreed” to Mayor Dave Bing’s imposed set of “City Employment Terms” (CET). The CET involves drastic cuts in services, as well as wages, benefits and terms of employment for workers and retirees, and a complete abrogation of union contracts.

City Council is to discuss this “CET” Mon. July 16, 2012 at 1:30 p.m., with public comment to follow.

It is a complete falsehood that Mayor Bing presented this CET to the FAB. From its first meeting, held after the City Council approved the final two members of the FAB, this virtual cabal has met three times primarily to draft the document.

It, not the City Council, the Mayor, or the unions has the absolute power under the consent agreement to dictate and approve this CET, which then is subject to final approval by State Treasurer Andy Dillon and Gov. Rick Snyder.

The FAB is dominated entirely by banking and corporate interests. (See sidebar). State Treasurer Andy Dillon, PA4 co-author attorney Michael McGee, of the law firm of Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone, Detroit Chief Operating Officer Chris Brown, and Labor Relations Director Lamont Satchel were all present at the FAB’s second meeting. Along with their staff, they went into the closed session on the CET and never came back out.

“These lawless people are on a fast track to dismantle the entire City of Detroit,” Cecily McClellan, vice-president of the Association of Professional and Technical Employees (APTE), said. “The terms of the CET are brutal, particularly for retirees.”

Cecily McClellan participates in first Benton Harbor protest against PA4.

Yvonne Ross is a city employee and taxpayer who is a co-litigant in a civil lawsuit against the consent agreement.

After a hearing on the suit July 13 (see story below), she said “We are facing huge lay-offs, the closing of our recreation centers, the health department and other vital services. The state needs to give us the money they owe us so this doesn’t have to happen. Detroit is a jewel, a money-maker. That’s why they want it.”

Ross, Rose Roots and Yolanda King sued the city, Bing, and the City Council for approving the consent agreement while the state is in default to the city for over $307 million as determined by Detroit Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon.

Detroit Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon

The so-called CET is headed by the hypocritical term “Agreement.” There was no agreement by city residents or workers to the Financial Stability [consent] Agreement, and there has certainly been no “agreement” by city workers or their union leaders to the CET. (Link to CET at end of article.)

“Any provisions in the most recently expired Collective Bargaining Agreements . . . .that are not expressly referenced in this CET or any addendum and are inconsistent with the terms of this CET or any addendum are null and void as of the effective date of this CET,” the document begins.

It does not acknowledge the decades-long provisions and protection that Civil Service laws provide.

While following the familiar pattern and language of previous contracts, the CET actually guts them.

AFSCME and Coalition of Black Trade Unionists members demonstrate at CAYMC May 27, 2010.

It declares that all city workers will be subject to an immediate 10 percent pay cut, and eliminates furlough days. It wipes out annual longevity payments and merit and step increases in pay, a long-time part of city employment terms under Civil Service.

It says workers will still contribute five percent of their annual pay to a retirement plan, but then astonishingly states that the workers’ contributions will be considered the CITY’s contributions, eliminating the city’s obligation to pay separately into the fund.

It eliminates the 35-hour work week.  It doesn’t guarantee a lunch hour, only two 15-minute breaks. It sets up a two tier system for workers hired after Sept. 28, 2010, cutting their available sick and vacation time.

Dave Bing with Blue Cross Blue Shield officials; photo is from city’s website.

The CET emphasizes the role of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Caremark plan, although workers are allowed to opt for other plans. They will be forced to pay 20 percent of the premium cost for all plans, and doctor visit and prescription fees will also increase.

This is especially galling to the coalition of city unions who presented a proposal to City Council Dec. 1, 2011 which cited among other savings the amount the city could save by cutting the use of Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Protest outside BCBS building in North Dakota.

“The city could achieve agreements with the major Detroit-based hospital chains to offer the option of employees signing up to have their medical care performed by the doctors at that hospital chain,” the union proposal said.

“ . . .the rate will likely be cheaper to the City and its employees than the rate charged by Blue Cross Blue Shield. The administrative fees and stop loss fees that the City paid to BCBS, during the 2009-10 contract year, were estimated at more than $14 million. . . For the last six months, the Administration has promised to seek bids from other health insurance companies, to see if the rates received from Blue Cross Blue Shield are competitive. This bid request has not been sent out, and therefore BCBSM continues to maintain its virtual monopoly.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to Memphis to support striking AFSCME sanitation workers and was assassinated there shortly after he marched with them in 1968.

Coverage for sponsored dependents of city workers and retirees is cut, as is coverage for the spouses of retirees if they marry after retirement.

But for workers hired after Sept. 28, 2010, all hospital/medical and prescription benefits shall cease for retirees and their dependents after the retiree turns 65. Prescription drugs for “health habits, reproductive (fertility) and lifestyle prescription drugs except for smoking cessation and weight loss” will not be covered.

In the CET, the city reserves the absolute right to change all terms of the contract without consent of the unions. Ironically, the CET bars strikes although at the same time the consent agreement says city workers will no longer be covered under the Public Employee Relations Act, which while providing some protections for workers, has been the chief mechanism to bar strikes.

It says the city will have the absolute right to contract out and eliminate services and departments.

It says, “This CET, nor any other terms and conditions of City employment regardless of sources shall not be binding upon the successors and assignees of the Employer by the consolidation, merger, sale, transfer, lease or assignment of the Employer in any respect whatsoever by a change of any kind of the ownership of management of either party hereto of any separable, independent segment of any party hereto.”

It thus eliminates in one fell swoop the time-honored “successor clause” from all union contracts.

Despite the fact that the city has more than 40 unions, each with their own contract, and some with supplemental agreements, the CET purports to be the sole “contract” for all city workers.

The response of city unions and their workers to this outright union-busting document remains to be seen.

Click on City Employment Terms to read entire document.

Marchers support Jennifer Britt, protest Fannie Mae and Flagstar Bank outside Detroit federal McNamara Building July 9, 2012.

By Diane Bukowski 

July 11, 2012 

Jennifer Britt at her family’s home in Detroit.

DETROIT – Over one hundred marchers targeted Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in front of the McNamara Federal Building in downtown Detroit July 9, on behalf of Jennifer Britt and thousands of others who are facing evictions by the two agencies. The agencies, now controlled by the federal government, now own or guarantee over 70 percent of all mortgages in the country.

Protesters chanted, “Hey, hey Fannie Mae, how many families did you evict today?”

Attorney Jerome Goldberg of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition against Foreclosures, Evictions and Shut-offs, who represents many clients facing foreclosure, explained the situation.

Attorney Jerry Goldberg explains how most evictions now carried out through taxpayer dollars by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were fully taken over by the federal government in 2008, under the Federal Housing Finance Agency,” Goldberg said. “They bought up more than $5 trillion in toxic mortgage loans for their full value. When you go to to 36^th District Court, you see that the majority of evictions taking place are being done by these agencies. But they are hiding the fact that the banks have ultimate control. This is an outrageous policy of bailing out the banks and evicting people. We are calling on President Barack Obama to issue an executive order halting all foreclosures.”

According to Detroit Eviction Defense, federal agencies now own or guarantee more than 70 percent of all single-family mortgages, in the wake of the housing collapse. Fannie Mae by itself has cost taxpayers over $116 billion for its mortgage bail-outs.

Jennifer Britt thanks protesters as Jerome Jackson (in yellow shirt) who is also facing eviction, listens.

Jennifer Britt lives with her 78-year-old mentally ill uncle, her 74-year-old mother, and her 19-year-old daughter in home in the Rosedale Park neighborhood.

“I would like Fannie Mae to reconsider the offer they made on my home,” Britt told VOD. “They need to let it go for the appraised value, not hold me to a mortgage they told me wasn’t even mine.”

Flagstar Bank first foreclosed on Britt when her husband, a member of UAW Local 600, died in 2006. She paid $26,000 from his life insurance to forestall eviction. Flagstar refused to put the mortgage in her name and negotiate a loan modification.  Then it raised monthly payments on the home from $1,550 to $1,975 by the time Britt lost her own job in 2008.

Apostle Linda (r) campaigns for Jennifer Britt and family.

Fannie Mae told the non-profit agency Southwest Solutions, which offered to buy the home on Britt’s behalf for its appraised value, that it would accept nothing less than the $121,000 full value of the mortgage.

“The average sale price for foreclosed homes in Detroit is $11,300,” says Detroit Eviction Defense in their flier. “Fannie Mae will never be able to sell Jennifer’s home for ten times that amount, meaning taxpayers will receive nothing and the house will go empty—with all the negative consequences that such blight brings for neighbors and homeowners.”

Britt and a representative tried to gain access to the McNamara Building to meet with Fannie Mae representatives, but were stopped immediately by guards on the first floor.

Jennifer Britt (center) and representative (r) are interviewed on TV.

Apostle Linda, of a group which has been advocating for Britt, said the actions of Flagstar and Fannie Mae in Britt’s case are unconscionable.

“Jennifer Britt and I sat down and figured out that her family has paid $118,000 over the course of the years on her home,” Apostle Linda said. “Every day when she’s at work, she doesn’t know if she’ll be getting a phone call that another elder in her family is dead because of the stress of this situation.”

Detroit Eviction Defense is conducting daily vigils at Britt’s home, located at 15701 Warwick at Midland, south of Grand River, anticipating that they may have to protect her from eviction any day. They are also conducting a call in and email campaign demanding that Fannie Mae accept the actual value of the home. For more information see below.

Contact numbers for the call-in campaign are:

Fannie Mae Chicago Office:                       312-368-6200

Fannie Mae Mortgage Help Center:        866-442-8572

Email: Chicago_mhc@fanniemae.com

 They are asking supporters also to call the offices of the following U.S. Congresspeople on Britt’s behalf: 

Senator Debbie Stabenow                        313-961-4330

Senator Carl Levin                                      313-226-6020

Congressman John Conyers                     313-961-5670

Congressman Hansen Clarke                    313-962-7700

Congressman Gary Peters                         247-273-4227

Congressman John Dingell                       313-278-2936

For more information, email DetroitEvictionDefense@gmail.com or go to the People Before Banks website at http://peoplebeforebanks.org/.

Spanish miners enter Madrid after marching huge distances from their mines to protest austerity measures after bank bailout, July 10, 2012. AP photo

July 10, 2012

The Associated Press reports from Madrid — Spanish coal miners angered by huge cuts in government subsidies for their industry converged on Madrid Tuesday for protest rallies after walking nearly three weeks under a blazing sun from the pits where they eke out a living.

The miners, wearing hard hats with lamps, were joined by thousands of sympathizers in the city. One group of about 160 miners walked all the way from the northern Asturias and Leon regions, as many as 250 miles away from Madrid, and about 40 made an almost equally long trek from the northeastern Aragon region. Read the full story.

Related content:

Spain’s economic crisis turns middle-class families into illegal squatters

Faces of the Spanish crisis

More photos of protests in Spain on PhotoBlog

Appeals Court hearing set for Tues. July 10, at 10 a.m

By Diane Bukowski

July 9, 2012

Maryanne Godboldo spoke at rally in Hartford Memorial Church only days after her release from jail in 2010.

DETROIT – After the extreme mental and physical torture that Detroiters Maryanne Godboldo, Mubarak Hakim, and their daughter Ariana Godboldo-Hakim experienced since a horrific police assault on Godboldo’s home in March, 2010, and the kidnapping and forced medication of Ariana, prosecutors for the Wayne County Juvenile Court and the County are not done with them yet.

The Department of Human Services (DHS), represented by the state attorney general’s office, has challenged the parents’ right to Ariana’s custody in cases to be heard in the Michigan Court of Appeals Detroit office Tues. July 10 at 10 a.m. The office is located in the State Building (known as Cadillac Place), located at W. Grand Blvd. and Second, on the 14th floor.

The family is asking supporters to attend.

Attorney Allison Folmar speaks to media after Godboldo criminal court hearing July 8, 2011.

“We are continuing to fight, and my attorney Allison Folmar has pulled a small group of attorneys together to focus on combatting the illegal, court-sanctioned abduction of Michigan’s children,” Godboldo told VOD. “But it is not easy. Ariana is still suffering from the effects of her forced confinement and medication at Hawthorn Psychiatric Hospital. We just try to hang in there from day to day.”

Not only was Ariana forcibly medicated for six weeks with at least four anti-psychotic drugs, Hawthorn staff took away her prostethic leg. Her mother has filed a police report that she also was infected with a sexually-transmitted disease (STD) while at Hawthorn.

World-wide support has buoyed the Godboldo-Hakim family during their ordeal. Their case exposed for the first time Wayne County Juvenile Court’s stunning long-standing practice of removing children without judicial review or a judge’s order as required by state law. A social worker simply brought in an order for removal, got a probation officer to stamp the Juvenile Court Chief Judge’s name on the order, and then called the police to summarily remove the child(ren) in question.

Wayne County Juvenile Court Judge Lynne Pierce, under severe public and media scrutiny, finally ended DHS supervision of Ariana in a ruling Dec. 12, saying medical plans for the child under Dr. Margaret Betts appeared to be more than adequate. The same day, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Gregory Bill emphatically dismissed all criminal charges against Godboldo, replicating 36th District Court Judge Ronald Giles’ earlier action.

DPS Child Protective Services worker Mia Wenk (Facebook photo)

Godboldo said the custody appeals stem from a continuing vendetta by Wayne County Juvenile Court Prosecutor Deborah Carley and DHS worker Mia Wenk. Prevented from contesting medical plans for Ariana, they have focused on what they say are insufficiencies in her education. Another hearing will consider whether the court order used to take Ariana from her home was valid, Godboldo said.

The case began when Godboldo had Ariana immunized in preparation for her return to regular schooling. Ariana’s reaction to the immunizations was severe. Godboldo took her to the New Oakland Child Adolescent and Family Center, not knowing it was a research facility for testing new drugs, as an administrator admitted to VOD.

She signed a consent form allowing Ariana to be medicated with Risperdal. The drug has since been exposed nationally as a dangerous anti-psychotic drug with severe adverse side effects, including extreme weight gain, the formation of breasts in males, and mental disorientation.

The form said Godboldo could take Ariana off the drug at any time. When Ariana began experiencing the side effects, Godboldo took her to a private doctor who weaned her off the drug. However, when she told The New Oakland Center, they and another agency, the Children’s Center, reported her to Child Protective Services.

Wenk, who has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and had been on the job for only three years, admitted during the custody trial that her reason for removing Ariana was “because her mother wouldn’t give her the medication.”

Attorney David Robinson filed an eloquent civil lawsuit May 10 on behalf of the family. Defendants are the City of Detroit and the police officers involved in Ariana’s removal, Wayne County and various employees, Mia Wenk and her supervisors at Child Protective Services, as well as Hawthorn Psychiatric Center and its employees.

Attorney David Robinson

He cites a “court system policy and procedure that allowed, supported and condoned the entry of perfunctory court orders for extraction of minor children from their parents to be the product of rubber-stamped justice.”

He adds, “This case is as well about governmental agencies . . . .who failed in their diligence to properly investigate allegations of neglect or to adequately probe the background of a minor child’s history instead looking only to find biased support for hapless allegations in order to place a mother and her child in the clutches of an indifferent system, and about a police system itself ignorant of its own rules and authority that conspired to arrest, extract and separate the nurturing bond between the mother and her child.”

Robinson condemned Wenk in no uncertain terms.

“Mia Wenk, devoid of proper medical or psychiatric training . . . .knowing how easy it was to have an unauthorized court employees stamp a judge’s signature on an order of custody for the minor, impulsively and grossly negligently petitioned the court securing what she alleged to the police to be a ‘warrant’ improperly directing Thomas Trewhella, Michael Nied, Kevin Simpson, Robert.Stankiewicz, and Ahmed Morsy to wrongfully engage Godboldo in an unconstitutional 4th amendment patently wrong invasion into her home resulting in her apprehension.”

Godboldo faced multiple criminal charges stemming from her refusal to leave her home so the police could take her child, including two-year felony charges of assaulting, battering, wounding, resisting, obstructing, opposing or endangering the officers involved.

Angel Moreno Jr. The Michigan Supreme Court dismissed all charges against him April 20, 2012, upholding the common-law right to resist illegal police conduct.

For a time, hearings on those charges were stayed by 36th District Court Judge Paula Humphries because a Michigan Supreme Court decision citing the statute involved, MCL 750.81(d), was pending. Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Edward Ewell overturned the stay, subjecting Godboldo to a grueling criminal trial in addition to the custody battle.

Ironically, the Michigan Supreme Court finally upheld “the common-law right to resist”
unlawful arrests, warrantless home invasions, and other unlawful conduct by the police, in a landmark 5-2 decision, People v. Moreno, on April 20, 2012. It overturned an earlier appeals court decision in People v. Ventura that claimed the statute outlawed resistance even to illegal police conduct.

Despite that fact, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy has not withdrawn her appeal, filed months late, of Judge Bill’s decision dismissing the criminal charges. The Court of Appeals has not decided whether it will allow the appeal, but the case remains open on its docket.

To read lawsuit filed by David Robinson on behalf of Godboldo family, click on godboldo complaint.

The Justice4Maryanne Committee’s website is at http://www.justice4maryanne .

“Free Ariana NOW!” Petition on Change.org

http://www.change.org/petitions/free-ariana-now

FROM SHEILA CROWELL  

SHEILA CROWELL

Homeowner, resident, mother, advocate, community leader, a woman whom is afraid of nothing, “except being burned to death”!!!

July 9, 2012

To the City of Detroit Council Members, To All In Lansing Who Represent “OUR FAMILIES in the City of Detroit”:

IMPORTANT Please Read! Please Save our Fire Stations!!

I am writing to each of you and all that you know, asking/begging that you please “Stop the Closing of Our Firehouses.” Decisions such as these are not keeping our families safe in any manner. Without our fighters, our homes and our lives are in more danger everyday.

As many of you know I live in the 48210 Claytown Neighborhood, with 400 or more burned houses. Our hard working “Ladder 22” men run themselves back and forth, not only doing their very best to save our homes and lives, at the same time going to what other areas they are called to help put out another fire. Our firefighters are not a group that picks and chooses a house to save, they save all they can!!

I was at a rally on Friday to save Engine 33. This is the 48209 area, as I stood there chanting to save Engine 33, all I could think of was 48209 will become 48210 in no time at all. Meaning homes will burn one after another, lives will come to an end, many asking why would the City of Detroit make decisions to close a another Fire Station, again putting more lives in “DANGER?”

Think of it like this: How many of you are under stress because you can’t or will not do what is needed for the City of Detroit, so these decisions are “eating at you” day and night? Change places with our firefighters, you are doing your very best to do their jobs as a firefighter, you are so worn thin and under stress from fire stations begin closed one after another, you at that moment in time as a firefighter wasn’t thinking as a firefighter does with each call they make, not only did a building/home burn to the ground, a life/lives came to an end, and how many of our strong firefighters lives had been placed in more danger or died?

How many of the City Council members has ever gone to the families of a firefighter and had to tell them their “Husband, father, brother, sister, granddad” died in a fire saving others lives and homes? Think of it like this, you’re sitting around that table making more decisions and the City building is burning, who would come to your aid, knowing you were the ones to close the doors on the fire stations?

“The Firefighters” would be there to save your lives, not looking at you as a bad guy, taking your hand doing what ever they could to save your lives, think about that!! At the same time, one or two of our neighborhoods are going up in flames, will there be enough stations/firefighters to save everyone’s lives? Who do they have choose? How could you place that on another to have to make that decision??

“Please we are asking/begging to each of you, Stop Closing Our Fire Stations.

I can stand outside of my home with my hose in my hand screaming, crying, choking to death, while trying to spaying water from my hose pipe, but never could I replace a firefighter, “NEVER”…

I was told Ladder 22 is on a temporary days, did you forget the $22.3 million dollar school that was built “across the street from Ladder 22”. Children will fill that school this fall, their lives lay in your hands. Remember the school is just across the street; by the way the DPS doesn’t have its own Fire Department. Dingeman Park was set on fire by a M80 just a few weeks ago, who put the fire out that was heading for our homes on Cecil? No one but “Our Ladder 22”!!

As for you in Lansing:  By passing a bill that fireworks can be sold, brought, and set off, did you think before you held up your hands, saying yes to this bill? Without firefighters to put the fires out, what will happen to Detroit? Homes will go up, people will die, the City of Detroit doors will be closed for ever. I must ask, has a plan been set to get rid of the people in Detroit, no matter what the plans are for the people?