Detroit’s future, and ours

Jack Lessenberry asks who wins if the state takes over Detroit. The answer is everyone except members of the incompetent political machine that has been running the city for 40 years. Of course this assumes the state appoints an emergency financial manager with the backbone to stand against the entrenched bureaucrats and labor unions blocking regulatory reform and the resizing of the city’s work force to match a declining population.

For an example of what might happen, we need to look no farther than Hamtramck which experienced the appointment of an emergency financial manager. Louis Schimmel was appointed in 2000 to clean up a mess left by years of insufficient leadership from elected mayors and city council members. In four years, Schimmel balanced the budget, improved services and eliminated waste. Is Hamtramck a utopia now? Not even close. But unlike Detroit, it is no longer imploding because professional, hard-nosed managers straightened out the mess of incompetent politicians.

As far as Lessenberry’s claim that “citizens would be politically powerless”, I say “Welcome to the club.” I have worked in the city for several years while forcibly contributing 1.5% of my income to the treasury. In that time, I have been allowed to vote zero times for the officials who determine how that money will be spent.

In order to succeed, the city of Detroit needs professional management, not a bloated city council and a mayor prone to “mistakes.”

[Letter to the Editor - Metro Times. Published 11/23/2005]