Detroit Needs Unity and Mass Struggle to Defeat Attempted State Takeover

Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, holding a leaflet at Cobo Conference Center in downtown Detroit. MECAWI won a federal court order related to its ability to distribute information on the foreclosure crisis. (Photo: Cheryl LaBash)., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Detroit Needs Unity and Mass Struggle to Defeat Attempted State Takeover

Financial review began on December 6 may lead to emergency manager

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Michigan State Treasurer Andy Dillon began a “review” of the City of Detroit’s finances during the first full week of December. Dillon, a former leader of the Democratic Party legislators in Lansing, is now working on behalf of the Republican Governor Rick Snyder.

The financial review process is the first stage in the possible appointment of an “emergency manager” with broad powers to remove elected officials, cancel labor union contracts and seize municipal pension funds and public assets. Other cities in Michigan such as Flint, Benton Harbor, Ecorse and Pontiac have already been taken over through the implementation of Public Act 4.

Public Act 4 is often referred to as the “dictator law” since its wipes out any semblance of bourgeois democracy for cities and school districts where an emergency manager is appointed by the governor. There is no evidence that the placing of a local state-appointed czar will have any impact on improving the finances or services of a city or school system.

In fact evidence exists that the conditions for the workers, youth and the community as a whole worsens under emergency management. In Detroit the school system was taken over by the state in 1999 when the district had a surplus of $3 billion and when the people were allowed once again to vote for their school board, the system was essentially bankrupt.

Again in March 2009, under Public Act 72, the predecessor of the current law passed earlier this year, an emergency financial manager was imposed on the Detroit school district. The district’s deficit increased along with the decline of student enrolment, the laying-off and firing of teachers and educational administrators and the lowering of salaries.

Under the school district’s emergency management more schools have been closed and class sizes have actually increased. There has been no improvement in the conditions under which students and teachers work and corruption is even more rampant than before.

The Need for a Broad-based Alliance to Fight a Takeover

Although the majority of people within and without the city government oppose the imposition of an emergency manager, the corporate-driven state administration is determined to continue with the process. One example of this political determination by Governor Snyder and his cohorts in the legislature in Lansing is their response to the petition drive aimed at nullifying Public Act 4.

Reports have repeatedly surfaced that a petition drive to place a referendum on the ballot in November 2011 for a yes or no vote on the legitimacy of the emergency manager law is likely to succeed in garnering the necessary signatures. In response to this political situation, Republican legislators are discussing the drafting of yet another law to render the referendum that would take place next November invalid.

In addition to the petition drive to place a referendum on the state ballot, there is a lawsuit that has been filed by the Sugar Law Center challenging the legality of Public Act 4 under the Michigan Constitution. There are 28 plaintiffs from various regions of Michigan who are requesting that the law be rendered unconstitutional.

However, the law in all likelihood will not be defeated solely through the courts and the ballot box. Therefore calls for mass rallies and demonstrations have been made over the last week.

Ministers associated with the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and the National Action Network are set to lead a demonstration in Superior Township, the home of Governor Snyder. Rev. Charles Williams of the Historic King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit told the Detroit Free Press that “We’ve been fighting the dictator bill since its passing, all the time knowing it was meant for a unilateral opportunity to take over Detroit just like it did in Benton Harbor.” (Free Press, Dec. 12)

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shut-offs has held two meetings to focus on the need to build a mass struggle in opposition to the potential of a consent agreement and a state takeover which could possibly follow. The Moratorium NOW! Coalition has focused on the role of the banks in the destruction of Detroit.

The organization is calling for a moratorium on the payment of debt-service to the banks. This idea is gaining broader exposure through weekly meetings and local African American owned media.

A meeting of various organizations committed to stopping both a consent agreement and a state takeover through emergency management was held on December 9 at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center (City Hall). Representatives of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition, We the People, the Sugar Law Center and other community groups were present at the gathering.

The City Hall meeting planned to hold a citywide mass rally as a first step in mounting an offensive aimed at halting the imposition of an emergency manager. In addition to focusing on the $220-580 million in state revenue sharing funds owed to the city, the coalition is raising the issue of suspending debt-service payments as well as making an appeal for assistance to the Obama administration and Congress.

A proper location for this mass rally is being discussed among various community organizations. The participants feel that thousands of people need to be brought into the struggle to save the city from seizure by the state and its corporate allies.

Anger Mounts As Legacy of Struggle Evoked

Detroit has the largest proportion of African Americans of any other city with a population in excess of 100,000. This is why people have stated that Public Act 4 has racist intent and ramifications.

Although Governor Snyder says that his aim is not to run Detroit but to assist the city in getting its finances in order, objectively the forcing of a consent agreement and the imposition of an emergency manager would be a direct assault on the right to self-determination of the African American people in Detroit.

This factor was noted in a recent article published by Bloomberg which stated that “Four Michigan cities are controlled by emergency managers. All have populations that are mostly black.” (Bloomberg, Dec. 7)

This same article continues by pointing out that “If Detroit joins them, 49.7 percent of the state’s black residents would live under city governments in which they have little say.” These sentiments have been expressed by people within the city government as well as community organizations.

Bloomberg also quotes George Galster, professor of urban affairs at Wayne State University in Detroit, who said that “the racial divide there is the deepest of any major U.S. city. Armed troops quelled riots there in 1836, 1863, 1943 and 1967.”

Galster went on to observe that “This town has been steeped in racial hatred for so long, white folks and black folks have a real hard time cooperating.”

The imposition of a consent agreement and an emergency manager will exacerbate these divisions and could lead to other demonstrations that may not be peaceful.