Senate ready to give Detroit City Council another chance at Cobo

[rjk]

If nothing else, this interval has allowed us to see that the structure of that authority is not viable, IMO.

To allow any individual/entity the power to stand firm and thereby deadlock something so vital just does not make sense. The authority must have a majority rule structure or we will just have more of the same.

Only if a nut like MC or BRC will be placed on the board. The same nuts who laughed off the 20 million in the legislation because they said the value of the Cobo land was worth 1.6 billion?

Saying that this board won't be functional because of the problems of the recent past is like saying that a jump rope doesn't work because a mentally handicapped person can't make a go of it. It's surprising how well something can work when you have reasonable and intelligent people at the helm.

[Locke09]

Only if a nut like MC or BRC will be placed on the board. The same nuts who laughed off the 20 million in the legislation because they said the value of the Cobo land was worth 1.6 billion?

Saying that this board won't be functional because of the problems of the recent past is like saying that a jump rope doesn't work because a mentally handicapped person can't make a go of it. It's surprising how well something can work when you have reasonable and intelligent people at the helm.

As I was careful to articulate, it has nothing to do with "who" is on the authority. There is a reason a decision-making body is typically made up of an odd-number of people with a "majority rules" voting structure. It prevents deadlocks. Again, name a similar authority with everyone having veto power. Not an authority that is just advising or developing plans that then must be approved by someone else. But an authority that owns and controls assets and funds. You won't find it in government. You won't find it in private industry. There must be a tie-breaker to avoid stalemates. It has nothing to do with whether or not you think the individuals are intelligent and reasonable. Intelligent and reasonable people often disagree, sometimes strongly, with each other.

BTW, are we asserting that Patterson is reasonable?

[Irvine Laird]

If we want true regionalism in Detroit [[and I use "Detroit" as a reference to the metropolitan region), we must have a regional government over the city and county governments. This is the only way to assure that personalities do not upset regional cooperation. As it is, a loose confederation is the best we can do. As long as that persists, people like Conyers and Patterson will have great power.

The "every stakeholder has a veto" system is a bad system, but it is the only system that has a chance of becoming law under the circumstances. We should take it if we can get it and recognize it as history in the making.