Rally Protests Detroit Cuts With ex-EM, Governor Outside DIA
Kyla Smith and Mark Hicks
The Detroit News
10:35 p.m. EDT October 13, 2015
Demonstrators angry over pension cuts and other moves instituted under the city’s bankruptcy blared bullhorns and carried signs saying “Go Home Jones Day” while former Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr and Gov. Rick Snyder attended a private event Tuesday night at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Orr and city officials attended the event celebrating the Cleveland-based Jones Day Law Firm opening offices on West Jefferson in Detroit.
The Jones Day law firm represented Detroit in its Chapter 9 bankruptcy organization.
Moratorium Now! Coalition called on city officials to give back pensions that were reduced in the bankruptcy.
“This is outrageous. We voted against an emergency manager and the city looted $7 billion from us,” said Abayomi Azikiwe, member of Moratorium Now!. “Call it what you want, but it’s theft.”
Protester Chris Griffith of Detroit stood outside waiting for guests to arrive.
“Justice or else,” she said. “They gave away Detroit. They took Belle Isle, they took everything from us. It’s not fair. I won’t have anything to leave my heirs. You work your entire life and this is what you get.”
Donald-Ray Smith, who worked for the city of Detroit for 38 years, was close to tears when he found out $719 was cut from his monthly pension check.
“The city told us to keep working and keep working, you will get all of that money back when you retire,” said Smith, who worked in planning and development for the city of Detroit. “The first year was OK, but after that, I was left with an amount I can hardly live off of. I can’t begin to describe how I feel.”
Officials involved in the bankruptcy restructuring defended the efforts Tuesday.
Bill Nowling, a former spokesman for Orr – who returned to Jones Day after the city exited bankruptcy – acknowledged that the pension cuts to some 20,000 retirees in the city’s two pension funds were unfortunate, but could have been worse.
“Because of the work that the emergency manager’s restructuring team did, instead of having an 18 percent reduction or more in pension benefits, you have a 4 percent reduction for general employees ... and a zero percent reduction for police and fire retirees,” he said Tuesday night.
Under the bankruptcy’s pension cut plan, pensions of police and firefighters stayed intact, but their annual 2.25 percent cost-of-living adjustment was reduced to about 1 percent. General workers saw a 4.5 percent base cut in pensions and the elimination of an annual cost-of-living increase, beginning March 1.
Critics of the pension cuts said it would set a precedent for the rest of the country for what cities would be able to do in bankruptcy with retiree pensions.
Orr also oversaw the controversial long-term lease of Belle Isle to the state and the development of a regional water authority that maintains Detroit’s ownership of its water and sewage system but grants a 40-year, $50 million-a-year lease to suburbs.
Nowling added that the moves also were intended to help Detroit in the future.
“The point of the restructuring was to position the city so it that can move forward in away… that allowed it to be able to invest in essential services but also invest in the city in terms of improving services,” he said.
“The work that was done by the restructuring team freed up over $150 million a year over the next 10 years that has been freed up in terms of debt service that the city no longer has to pay that now can be pumped back into the general fund.
“That’s a $1.5 billion investment in city services over the next 10 years that the city would not have been able to make had it not gone through bankruptcy restructuring.”
The Detroit News
10:35 p.m. EDT October 13, 2015
Demonstrators angry over pension cuts and other moves instituted under the city’s bankruptcy blared bullhorns and carried signs saying “Go Home Jones Day” while former Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr and Gov. Rick Snyder attended a private event Tuesday night at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Orr and city officials attended the event celebrating the Cleveland-based Jones Day Law Firm opening offices on West Jefferson in Detroit.
The Jones Day law firm represented Detroit in its Chapter 9 bankruptcy organization.
Moratorium Now! Coalition called on city officials to give back pensions that were reduced in the bankruptcy.
“This is outrageous. We voted against an emergency manager and the city looted $7 billion from us,” said Abayomi Azikiwe, member of Moratorium Now!. “Call it what you want, but it’s theft.”
Protester Chris Griffith of Detroit stood outside waiting for guests to arrive.
“Justice or else,” she said. “They gave away Detroit. They took Belle Isle, they took everything from us. It’s not fair. I won’t have anything to leave my heirs. You work your entire life and this is what you get.”
Donald-Ray Smith, who worked for the city of Detroit for 38 years, was close to tears when he found out $719 was cut from his monthly pension check.
“The city told us to keep working and keep working, you will get all of that money back when you retire,” said Smith, who worked in planning and development for the city of Detroit. “The first year was OK, but after that, I was left with an amount I can hardly live off of. I can’t begin to describe how I feel.”
Officials involved in the bankruptcy restructuring defended the efforts Tuesday.
Bill Nowling, a former spokesman for Orr – who returned to Jones Day after the city exited bankruptcy – acknowledged that the pension cuts to some 20,000 retirees in the city’s two pension funds were unfortunate, but could have been worse.
“Because of the work that the emergency manager’s restructuring team did, instead of having an 18 percent reduction or more in pension benefits, you have a 4 percent reduction for general employees ... and a zero percent reduction for police and fire retirees,” he said Tuesday night.
Under the bankruptcy’s pension cut plan, pensions of police and firefighters stayed intact, but their annual 2.25 percent cost-of-living adjustment was reduced to about 1 percent. General workers saw a 4.5 percent base cut in pensions and the elimination of an annual cost-of-living increase, beginning March 1.
Critics of the pension cuts said it would set a precedent for the rest of the country for what cities would be able to do in bankruptcy with retiree pensions.
Orr also oversaw the controversial long-term lease of Belle Isle to the state and the development of a regional water authority that maintains Detroit’s ownership of its water and sewage system but grants a 40-year, $50 million-a-year lease to suburbs.
Nowling added that the moves also were intended to help Detroit in the future.
“The point of the restructuring was to position the city so it that can move forward in away… that allowed it to be able to invest in essential services but also invest in the city in terms of improving services,” he said.
“The work that was done by the restructuring team freed up over $150 million a year over the next 10 years that has been freed up in terms of debt service that the city no longer has to pay that now can be pumped back into the general fund.
“That’s a $1.5 billion investment in city services over the next 10 years that the city would not have been able to make had it not gone through bankruptcy restructuring.”
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