Detroit Bankruptcy plan of adjustment filed

[corktownyuppie]

This is solid gold coverage here...including links from the liberal demos.org, the more conservative Forbes, and even from Che Guavara central at the Michigan Citizen [[which, IMHO, actually makes some interesting points, even if I don't fully subscribe to their thesis.)

If you really like to geek out on this stuff and really understand what's going on, go to http://www.nextchapterdetroit.com/li...of-adjustment/

At the minimum, it's a great place to find accurate sources to cite when trying to make your opinion.

Everyone is talking about the pension cuts vs. bond cuts. But I truly find exciting where the $1.2 Billion in needed investment is going: Blight Elimination and Deparment Retraining/Restructuring.

Interesting factoids...

The city of Detroit has no information technology system -- at all -- to manage its jails, according to the plan of adjustment.

35% of the time, Detroit Department of Transportation employees don't show up to work, according to the city's plan of adjustment.

Um wow.

I feel like Detroit is really getting the reality check it's been avoiding for my entire lifetime. It's really going to be an interesting 5 years coming up.

[A2Mike]

Which union are/were the general employees in? Surely their union brothers and sisters won't let them down. They'll sacrifice a little from their checks or from the union's funds to make their brothers and sisters whole.

Won't they? Solidarity, right?

Or is it more like, "Tough shit, I got mine, screw you, brother."

Exactly what they did to Delco pensioners!

[Cliffy]

Which union are/were the general employees in? Surely their union brothers and sisters won't let them down. They'll sacrifice a little from their checks or from the union's funds to make their brothers and sisters whole.

Won't they? Solidarity, right?

Or is it more like, "Tough shit, I got mine, screw you, brother."

You must love being a bootlicker of those old white guys that own all the industries. They have people like yourself doing all their dirty work.

[compn]

Is the Bankruptcy Plan of Adjustment on line somewhere so that it can
be read or downloaded for reading?

'ere you go.
http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C4218951221.PDF

[compn]

er thats not it.

can read it here:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...isclosure.html


or download pdf 440 pages
http://s3.documentcloud.org/document...-statement.pdf

[Hermod]

I feel like Detroit is really getting the reality check it's been avoiding for my entire lifetime. It's really going to be an interesting 5 years coming up.

It will only be effective when Orr uses his powers to override city civil service regulations to fire outright all of the deadwood, time servers, no shows, and empire builders. A 30% turnover in civil service should be a good target for him to aim at. Then re-introduce the long abandoned civil service examinations for new hires.

[compn]

Specifically, the City intends to incur expenses related to blight removal of [[a) $7.3 million in Fiscal Year 2014, [[b) $113.0 million in Fiscal Year 2015 and [[c) $100 million in each of the Fiscal Years 2016 through 2019.

reading between the lines it looks like kevin orr will be leaving detroit in 2014. let the next guy in 2015 take the fall for a $100m bill cleaning up blight in the d.

[[b) the "Hantz Woodlands" urban farming project

the wood forest is a GO!

First, Christie's proposed that the City could pledge
some or all of the Appraised Art as collateral for a loan or line of credit.

LOL and when the city cant pay its bills, up goes the art on auction. brilliant guys. this is the plot to robocop 2. christies 2nd and 3rd ideas are better [[sell art to other museums or make the art do a travelling festival circuit to other museums for money).

[[h) the approval of the DIA Settlement by the Attorney General for the State;

...

[compn]

Additionally the Income Tax Division is pursing, likely through a third-party collection agency, the collection of $42 million in past due income taxes.

yep, that will make people want to work in detroit, because you sent the collections agency after them for taxes.

so i guess we can abandon all of that hope that they would cut detroit into smaller towns and reduce the crazy amount of empty space that the city has to maintain.

THE PROJECTIONS WERE NOT PREPARED TO COMPLY WITH THE GUIDELINES FOR PROSPECTIVE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS, THE FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING STANDARDS BOARD, THE GOVERNMENTAL ACCOUNTING STANDARDS BOARD OR THE RULES AND REGULATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION.

or, translated into a shorter version 'these financial projections are bullshit and we'll be long gone by the time you figure this out'.

Property Tax. The City projects that property tax revenues will continue to decline through Fiscal Year 2020 as a result of ongoing reductions in assessed property values with modest increases beginning in Fiscal Year 2021

translated : detroit will be not good until at least 2021.

[compn]

maybe i am misunderstanding the page
City of Detroit
Ten-Year Plan of Adjustment
Restructuring and Reinvestment Initiatives - Consolidated by Department
Incremental Headcount

in 2014, the city will hire 162 firemen, 125 police and get rid of 41 people at the 36th district court. and will somehow get rid of 50-60 employees at the court each year for the following 7 years?

Includes fire recovery billing for false alarms, vehicle fires, vehicle accidents
if the fire department shows up, you get to pay a bill...

Increased collections from false alarm calls, new cost recovery, and adoption of State Motor Vehicle Code for greater capture of moving violation fees
dpd is going to be writing a MAJOR amount of traffic tickets. say good bye to all those blue state police cars in detroit.

Primarily related to parking violation fee increases and added parking enforcement officers to generate additional ticket volume
$60million over 10 years of parking tickets. that will really entice people to move into the city.

the city is projecting that more people will move into the city, and thus more people to tax. the city cant increase the tax [[because of laws) so it wants to increase the amount of people it can tax. the city thinks they can get people to move into detroit by having police and fire services and removing blight. thats the entire 10 year plan.

for some reason they think a million people are going to get tired of living in the suburbs and move into ... the $10k crackhouses that had all of its wiring and plumbing stripped years ago. or maybe they think people will build new houses next door to the burnt out houses that will take 10+ years to demolish? thats a wise investment.

[compn]

what happens in 3-5 years when the "projection" completely fails and the population remains steady at 700k?

will the state pull the life support plug? another bankruptcy? a bailout? [[haha no.)
wayne county goes bankrupt on its own or with detroit this time ?
the state finally comes in with someone with a brain and cuts the city into smaller blocks?

is this a pre-bankruptcy bankruptcy? get the city ready, privatize and sell things for the big one? make a few bux in between bankruptcies before the cash cow gets sold for magic beans?

[compn]

this is the big plan and yet all of the news stories focus on the pensions?

forget the pensioners for a second and think about the 700,000 detroiters and the 5million metro area residents.

the plans' only income is selling one building to a non profit, revenue sharing with the state, tax collection, parking meters, moving violations.

the plan wants to spend 100 million a year on demolishing houses.

wheres it going to get that kind of money?

anyone out there?

[mwilbert]

the plans' only income is selling one building to a non profit, revenue sharing with the state, tax collection, parking meters, moving violations.

What sources of income do you think are available? The city can't raise the property tax, which is already ridiculous. The income tax is too high now. Presumably reassessment will reduce the income from the property tax.

So what can Detroit do? Collect a higher proportion of the taxes owed. Collect more fines. Try to get more money from the state. That is what is in the plan, and there aren't a lot of other options available in that world.

The other approach is to increase the revenue base by making the city more attractive--improving safety and other services. And that is what the plan says the city is going to do, trying to pay for it by reducing costs, including things like debt service and retirement obligations. It may be that this won't work--that whatever improvements get made don't attract enough people to provide adequate revenue to run the city at a sustainable level of service provision--but it isn't like the city has a lot of options.

[Wesley Mouch]

...35% of DDOT employees don't show up each day.

And even more fascinating, 100% don't get fired. That's the amazing stat for those of you who think Detroit just needs some more state money and everything will be alright.

[mwilbert]

I believe, and have always believed, that the city needs vast administrative reform, but DDOT needs to be folded into a real regional transit system. I don't think fixing DDOT would solve the city's public transit problems when so much of the necessary travel is across city lines.

[corktownyuppie]

this is the big plan and yet all of the news stories focus on the pensions?

forget the pensioners for a second and think about the 700,000 detroiters and the 5million metro area residents.

the plans' only income is selling one building to a non profit, revenue sharing with the state, tax collection, parking meters, moving violations.

the plan wants to spend 100 million a year on demolishing houses.

wheres it going to get that kind of money?

anyone out there?

[[1) Well there's going to be a whole lot more money available when you're no longer spending 40-50% of your tax revenue on debt.

[[2) 100 million/yr on demolishing houses isn't an annual operatiing cost. It's a capital expense paid over the course a few years. Once it's done it's done.

[[3) The city will grow again. I'm sure of it. I'm not sure by how fast it will grow, but it will. It just needs to be smart growth. If you don't believe it will happen, just look at the greater downtown area. It's growing so fast that supply can barely keep up with demand.

That type of growth will come again when you have an optimal combination of:

- Better policing
- Better city services
- Low enough real estate prices

That's why Midtown exploded. WSUPS upped their policing. Financial barriers and costs came down. Boom.

Detroit is not going to be 2,000,000 people. But it was 900,000 10 years ago, so that number is reachable. The key is that it has to be productive taxpayers living in a city designed to provide services efficiently.

I think it's very doable. It might take 20 years, 10 if you're really optimistic. But it's doable.

[ABetterDetroit]

If your good, really good, it happens fast. Detroit has been left out of that lesson for awhile but I have a feeling... That's going to change.

[Gistok]

If your good, really good, it happens fast. Detroit has been left out of that lesson for awhile but I have a feeling... That's going to change.

Not as long as you have people like these living in the city. Sadly, it sort of explains why some folks still want to move to 34 Mile Rd...

http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthr...ing-in-Detroit

[Honky Tonk]

Not as long as you have people like these living in the city. Sadly, it sort of explains why some folks still want to move to 34 Mile Rd...

http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthr...ing-in-Detroit

Unfortunately sometimes not even moving to 34 Mile helps.....

http://grossepointe.patch.com/groups...-strangulation

[compn]

[[2) 100 million/yr on demolishing houses isn't an annual operatiing cost. It's a capital expense paid over the course a few years. Once it's done it's done.

[[3) The city will grow again. I'm sure of it. I'm not sure by how fast it will grow, but it will. It just needs to be smart growth. If you don't believe it will happen, just look at the greater downtown area. It's growing so fast that supply can barely keep up with demand.

I think it's very doable. It might take 20 years, 10 if you're really optimistic. But it's doable.

[[2) yes, its $100 million for 2015, $100 mil for 2016, $100mil for 2017, $100mil for 2018 and $100mil for 2019. 5 year $500mil plan.

[[3) downtown and midtown arent neighborhoods full of abandoned burned out houses. but i think we can agree if they knocked down all of those houses and kept up the police and fire, the city would grow again.

the dpd numbers are abysmal. unfortunately , adding 120 police wont fix the dpd. neither will upgrading the police computers fix the dpd.

this plan is like a band-aid on a gunshot wound.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

It is better than most expected, I think, and while everyone has to take a hit it seems that this puts the people ahead of the banks

They should be ahead of the banks anyway. Banks have screwed people and then get bailed out by the Government.

[Gistok]

Unfortunately sometimes not even moving to 34 Mile helps.....

http://grossepointe.patch.com/groups...-strangulation

Ummm... I don't think that Wayburn St., one street outside of Detroit constitutes the same thing as moving to 34 Mile Rd....

[corktownyuppie]

this plan is like a band-aid on a gunshot wound.

I disagree with your conclusion, but I guess we'll just have to see. The one thing that I am concerned about is that we still need to find a way to make 200-300,000 people employable again.

That is where the hurdle is going to lie once the finances are straightened out.

[Hypestyles]

I think it's very doable. It might take 20 years, 10 if you're really optimistic. But it's doable.

Good fortune to whoever's sticking around that long. I've heard some form of "it's going to take 20 years [[to get the city back in shape)" for the past 20 years; it's not worth it to me anymore.

[corktownyuppie]

Good fortune to whoever's sticking around that long. I've heard some form of "it's going to take 20 years [[to get the city back in shape)" for the past 20 years; it's not worth it to me anymore.

You don't need to stay, but you have to admit, this is the first time in 20 years we're unloading $3 Billion in debt payments. You know things are turning around when Republican suburban money is buying up property and redeveloping it.

But you don't take my word for it. We'll just have to see.

[Honky Tonk]

I hear you. Give Mike 6 month's though......