His thick skull finally gets the message. To an extent this does give DetroitDad's point some light.
http://www.freep.com/article/2009091...rson-roots-for
Oakland exec says region depends on city
The fate of Detroit directly affects the fiscal health of other metro Detroit communities, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said Friday in explaining his desire to see the city stay out of receivership.
"The word receivership ricochets like a bullet around Wall Street," he said during the Tri-County Summit in Dearborn, an annual gathering of elected officials from the counties of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb and the City of Detroit.
Patterson went to Wall Street about six weeks ago to have analysts rate a bond for improvements in Birmingham. The analysts seemed more interested in talking about the possibility of receivership for Detroit.
"I'm sandwiched between Flint and Detroit. If the schools or the city go into receivership, I'll lose my AAA bond rating," Patterson said. "So I'm Dave Bing's biggest fan. I'm rooting for Dave and I'm rooting for the Detroit Public Schools."
An AAA bond rating is the highest a municipality can get and results in lower interest costs for the communities.
Bing said the city's financial state is dire and he'll spend the weekend reviewing recommendations from his Crisis Turnaround Team to deal with a projected $300-million deficit. Bing said 1,000 employees, 10% of the city's workforce, will be gone by the end of 2009.
"We're going to do what we have to do to keep our city stable," Bing said.
Patterson and Bing were joined by the other two members of the so-called Big Four -- Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano and Paul Gieleghem, chairman of the Macomb County Board of Commissioners.
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