At least you don't have to salute:
"Detroit braces for emergency manager’s arrival; Doubts, fears outweigh hope" by Bill Vlasic and Steven Yaccino | New York Times, March 24, 2013
DETROIT — The City Council is both anxious and defiant. Public employees’ unions are bracing for a showdown. Protests and lawsuits are promised. Meanwhile, the mayor has simply stopped talking about what is on nearly everyone’s mind in this troubled city.
Tension is building here as a state-appointed emergency manager prepares to take control of the city government on Monday and begin restructuring of its finances and operations.
‘‘There is anxiety. There is fear of the unknown,’’ said Yolanda Langston, president of a Service Employees International Union’s local in Detroit. ‘‘We don’t know which way he’s going to go.’’
Since Governor Rick Snyder announced the state takeover on March 1, there has been a dearth of information about the first steps in the long-awaited turnaround of Detroit.
But that will change at 12:01 a.m. Monday, when Kevyn D. Orr, a 54-year-old bankruptcy lawyer from Washington, is given the authority to fix the city however he sees fit.
Orr has spent the past week entrenched in a state office building in downtown Detroit, poring over briefing books and privately meeting with outside consultants and behind-the-scenes supporters in the city.
He has so far held back from talking with elected officials, union leaders, and creditors — even as speculation grows about how he will tackle the cash shortfalls and huge long-term liabilities that have crippled many city services for Detroit’s 700,000 residents.
Yet he knows that once he is on the job, he will have to generate cooperation for some painful measures, or force them on people who already resent his appointment....
The Republican governor’s decision to install an emergency manager for the Democratic-controlled city had been widely expected for months. Still, the reality of a state takeover of its largest city has left many here shocked and visibly nervous about the future.
At the City Council’s last meeting before the takeover, some residents vented their anger, while Council members wondered aloud if they would have any statutory powers at all once Orr took office.
‘‘I am angry, like so many thousands of other residents of Detroit,’’ said Kathy Montgomery, 64. ‘‘Angry that our governor and mayor decided we need an emergency manager. We must oppose them.’’
The emergency manager law gives Orr extraordinary powers to reshape the city, including eliminating City Council members’ salaries. ‘‘I don’t know what kind of role we can have,’’ said Brenda Jones, one of nine City Council members. ‘‘I feel that we are just sitting here as a symbolic symbol right now.’’
Mayor Dave Bing, who chose at the final hour not to oppose Orr’s appointment, will not publicly discuss what happens next. At a news conference on police initiatives, he declined to answer questions about Orr.
Resistance is building among some more vocal opponents, like the Council of Baptist Pastors, which has called for a lawsuit to block Orr’s appointment.
The president of the NAACP chapter, the Rev. Wendell Anthony, said he expected to see protests in the coming week. ‘‘It’s not about how we should brace for Mr. Orr,’’ he said. ‘‘Mr. Orr should brace for Detroit.’’
Reaction to Orr’s arrival has been more favorable among business leaders and other groups. Some union leaders said they hope dialogue can minimize job cuts.
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Related: Digging Up a Post About Detroit
"150 protest Detroit’s new overseer" Associated Press, March 26, 2013
DETROIT — Detroit’s new emergency manager offered an ‘‘olive branch’’ Monday to local leaders who fought against creating his job, even as a crowd of protesters rallied outside City Hall during his first day trying to revive the city’s beleaguered finances.
Kevyn Orr, a bankruptcy attorney and turnaround specialist who represented automaker Chrysler LLC during its successful restructuring, met with Mayor Dave Bing and at least two City Council members Monday as he began an 18-month term as emergency manager. Detroit is the nation’s largest city ever put under state control.
During a brief news conference, Orr said he offered to work together with city leaders. Outside City Hall, about 150 protesters argued that Orr’s presence takes away residents’ voting rights.
‘‘Anybody who believes the right to vote is sacred, ought to stand with us,’’ the Rev. Alexander Bullock told the growing crowd. ‘‘This is about a [governor’s] administration trying to destroy democracy. While we fight for democracy on foreign soil, we are being shackled at home.’’
Oh, is that why we are at war? Really??
Some on the council also have fiercely opposed an emergency manager coming to Detroit, despite the city’s $327 million budget deficit and more than $14 billion in long-term debt. Orr met privately in his new office in City Hall with Councilman James Tate and Council president Charles Pugh.
Orr’s spokesman, Bill Nowling, declined to reveal specifics from those conversations.
Orr was hired earlier this month after a national search by Governor Rick Snyder, who, along with a review board, determined that Detroit is in a financial emergency and has no adequate plan to address it.
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Related: Detroit emergency manager chosen
Detroit mayor won’t fight fiscal takeover
Past dictators:
"Detroit’s former mayor found guilty of corruption; Democrat spent $840k over city salary, IRS said" by Ed White | Associated Press, March 12, 2013
DETROIT — Former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was convicted Monday of corruption charges and sent to jail to await his prison sentence in yet another dramatic setback for a man who once was among the nation’s youngest big-city leaders.
Jurors convicted Kilpatrick of a raft of crimes, including racketeering conspiracy, which carries a maximum punishment of 20 years behind bars. He was portrayed during a five-month trial as an unscrupulous politician who took bribes, rigged contracts, and lived far beyond his means while in office until fall 2008.
In other words, he was just doing what most of them do. So whose toes did he step on?
Kilpatrick wore a surprised, puzzled look at times as US District Judge Nancy Edmunds read the jury’s verdict: guilty of 24 charges, not guilty on three, and no consensus on three more. Kilpatrick declined to speak to reporters as he left the courthouse.
Four hours later, he was handcuffed and led to jail after prosecutors asked the judge to revoke his bond. Edmunds said it was a ‘‘close call’’ but agreed that the scale under federal law tipped in favor of the government.
Prosecutors said Kilpatrick ran a ‘‘private profit machine’’ out of Detroit’s City Hall. The government presented evidence to show he got a share of the spoils after ensuring that Bobby Ferguson’s excavating company was awarded millions in work from the water department. Business owners said they were forced to hire Ferguson as a subcontractor or risk losing city contracts.
Separately, fund-raiser Emma Bell said she gave Kilpatrick more than $200,000 as his personal cut of political donations....
The trial occurred at a time of extraordinary crisis in Detroit. Population has fallen, and public finances are a mess and are in the red for billions of dollars, mostly future pension obligations.
I wonder how much of it is going for debt interest payments.
Half of property owners are overdue with their property taxes. Michigan’s governor, Rick Snyder, could appoint an emergency financial manager in a matter of days, making Detroit the largest city in the country to fail and be taken over by state government
Mayor Dave Bing said the verdict would allow the city to close ‘‘this negative chapter in Detroit’s history.’’
It’s ‘‘time for all of us to move forward,’’ Bing said.
Kwame Kilpatrick, who now lives near Dallas, declined to testify. He has long denied any wrongdoing, and defense attorney James Thomas told jurors his client often was showered with cash gifts from city workers and political supporters during holidays and birthdays.
The government said Kilpatrick abused the Civic Fund, a nonprofit fund he created to help distressed Detroit residents. There was evidence that it was used for yoga lessons, camps for his kids, golf clubs, and travel.
‘‘The scale of corruption was breathtaking,’’ Assistant US Attorney Mark Chutkow said in a closing argument on Feb. 15. ‘‘We cannot turn away and ignore the corruption that occurred in this city. It is time for the former mayor and his accomplices to be held accountable for their crimes — it is past time.’’
Related:
"Attorney General Eric Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the nation’s banks had become too big to jail. “The size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them,” Holder said at a hearing Wednesday. “If we do prosecute — if we do bring a criminal charges — it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.”"
Yeah, well... I keep putting that up because I think it will be one of the greatest quotes of the 21st century. As of right now, it IS the GREATEST QUOTE of the 21st century.
Kilpatrick, 42, was elected in 2001 at age 31. He resigned in 2008 and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in a different scandal involving sexually explicit text messages and an extramarital affair with his chief of staff. He spent 14 months in prison for violating probation in that case after a judge said he failed to report assets that could be use for his $1 million restitution to Detroit.
Voters booted his mother, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, from Congress in 2010, partly because of a negative perception stemming from her son.
Thanks, sonny. Guess we know where he learned his "craft."
Related: Marriage Counciling For Conyers
I think the voters of Michigan need it because he is still there.
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Related: Former Detroit mayor ordered to jail
Just another day in Detroit.
"Mich. woman, 75, convicted of murdering grandson" by Ed White | Associated Press, March 20, 2013
PONTIAC, Mich. — A suburban Detroit grandmother was convicted Tuesday of second-degree murder for killing her teenage grandson last spring, as jurors rejected her claim that she shot him six times in self-defense.
Sandra Layne, 75, cried quietly when she heard the verdict....
Outside of court, the teenager’s mother, Jennifer Hoffman, said that her mother is a ‘‘monster’’ who deserves to go to prison.
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Also see: Judge taking a look at Mich. gay marriage ban
