Quote Originally Posted by Detroitnerd View Post
Everyone is gangbusters for "relieving" other people of democracy. Just wait until it happens to you. Just wait until somebody comes to "reasonably" take your democracy.
I'm a resident of Detroit and have been for 21 years, so just let me say...I don't want it to happen to me.

But, I also don't want THIS to happen to me, either...

Then Prichard did something that pension experts say they have never seen before: it stopped sending monthly pension checks to its 150 retired workers, breaking a state law requiring it to pay its promised retirement benefits in full.

Since then, Nettie Banks, 68, a retired Prichard police and fire dispatcher, has filed for bankruptcy. Alfred Arnold, a 66-year-old retired fire captain, has gone back to work as a shopping mall security guard to try to keep his house. Eddie Ragland, 59, a retired police captain, accepted help from colleagues, bake sales and collection jars after he was shot by a robber, leaving him badly wounded and unable to get to his new job as a police officer at the regional airport.
And it's not like it was a surprise...

This struggling small city on the outskirts of Mobile was warned for years that if it did nothing, its pension fund would run out of money by 2009. Right on schedule, its fund ran dry.
Wesley, btw, Prichard is 83% black with median income at $19,000, and so my bet is they're not racing to vote in republicans.

Good points have been raised about how down cycles of the economy disproportionately hurt the most vulnerable in society. And there is a high correlation between the most vulnerable with: the least educated and the lowest income.

Again, we can avoid an EM/EFM...we just need to do what needs to be done to prevent what's happening in Prichard from happening here.

And frankly, if I'm Gov. Snyder, I would say to Detroit, "I will not an appoint an EM/EFM until I get a resolution signed by the Mayor and the majority of the City Council."

It's not "us" vs. "them". It's what we're willing to do vs. what needs to be done.