L. Brooks is not my favorite person. But he is not Detroit's Imperial Overlord. It is not his fault that Detroit has high crime & high taxes. He does not go up to Detroit students and tell them to drop out. He does not impose addiction on a large portion of our population. He hasn't been destroying our streetlights for a generation. He hasn't been stealing from the city and directing no-bid contracts to friends and family.

I know that scapegoating is a convenient way to avoid hard choices. But Detroit does not have the problems it has because of low self-esteem brought about by L. Brooks Patterson. Most of Detroit's problems were caused by our citizens, voters and politicians. There are 2 things we should do about L. Brooks Patterson: ignore his comments, and prove him wrong by making this city a place people do want to visit, work and live in. And we don't need to trash Oakland County. Birmingham, Royal Oak and Ferndale have great downtowns. The whole county has wonderful parks. Residents keep up their homes and property. They do have [[relative to Detroit) low crime. Great schools in many districts. Lots of businesses thrive there, which pays a lot of taxes and a lot of employees. Detroit shouldn't rebel against those things, we should emulate them.