Detroit Council proposing drastic cuts to various city services

[mam2009]

1. I don't live in the city of Detroit, but as Detroit goes, so goes the state. When Detroit fails, it pulls the surrounding communities with it; that's why I care. Plus of course, I love Detroit and don't like to see it fail.

2. You seem to be more upset at someone "bashing" your elected body than you do at the poor job your elected body has done. Do you not see the mess that Detroit is and do you not think that the elected body [[over the years, not just the current crop) is at least partially responsible? Your idea that elected officials deserve your support is odd; they are there to serve and support you, not the other way around.

I didn't say you shouldn't care or even have a say if you don't live here. My entire point was that those who seek to criticize the Council [[the body, not the individuals) should not rely on the media as their sole source of information about what happens during City Council meetings. There are many other ways to get "straight from the horse's mouth" info. And if you can't bother to pick up the phone, watch via internet, etc, then do not spout misinformation about my elected representative body.

I am not trying to defend any individual members. I am, however, supporting the folks who are elected to represent me. I didn't vote for all of those individuals. I don't like all of those individuals. I don't agree with all of those individuals. But at the same time, I pay attention and I don't have a problem e-mailing them, talking to them at community meetings, and watching the sessions for myself. If you don't live here, the very least you can do is give the body the benefit of the doubt when you hear something on tv that sounds too outrageous to be logical. That's when you should seek clarification. Those of us who live here have an incentive to seek clarification so that we know whether we should vote for individual members in the future. Those of you who don't live here should at least cool down your venomous and half-informed assumptions since you haven't taken the time to seek the facts.

I'm not naive. The Council has made decisions I don't agree with, but I will not denegrate the body that represents me. And I would appreciate it if you didn't either.

To Buy American: When you start being as critical of the Fire Dpt union as you are of the City Council, then I would believe that you are not overly biased against the Council.

And I ask again, Buy American, have there been no promotions of City employees since 2008? And don't promotions normally come with a raise? Pugh's staffer was promoted from a position of less responsibility to the position of Chief of Staff. Yes, it is bad judgement, in my opinion, for him to give the guy a higher pay with his elevated title at THIS time. But the bottom line is that Council as a whole HAS proposed to cut their own office budgets AGAIN by 16% for THIS fiscal year after cutting their office budgets at the beginning of THIS fiscal year by 5%. That's a 21% cut for THIS fiscal year. This is the first time that Council has ever cut their budget in the 17 years that the Fiscal Analyst has been with the Council. How do I know that? BECAUSE I ASKED THE FISCAL ANALYST MYSELF. And I heard Ken Cockrel propose just last week that they take an additional 5% cut for NEXT fiscal year. That sounds like leadership to me.