Quote Originally Posted by mam2009 View Post
"When" is right. Once the Mayor starts to try to get contracts approved by the Council for outside counsel rather than using the resources of the Law Department, the gauntlet will have been thrown. There's no way they are going to approve of that -- as the ultimate approving authority for contracts. Then it'll be said by the Mayor or the Program Manager that approval of those contracts is necessary to fulfill the terms of the consent agreement so the Council will be accused of defaulting on the consent agreement, then the Council will ask the Corporation Counsel to go back to court saying, again, that the consent agreement is invalid, then the State will say, "To hell with all this!" and declare the Program Manager or the CFO as the Emergency Manager.

Of course, none of that takes into account all of the other variables such as the potential suspension of PA 4, the lawsuits that are bound to brought by every City of Detroit union due to the suspension of collective bargaining rights by PA 4 as of July 1...and the continued budget mess that will exist because few of the cost-saving measures [[layoffs, union contract re-structuring, department closures and consolidations, process improvements, technology updates) will not happen because everyone will be pre-occupied with fighting rather than working together collaboratively.

Public Act 4 and its implementation has made for very bad public policy. I do believe that there is a place for Emergency Managers and a place for Consent Agreements. It has become more and more apparent that Public Act 4 was tailor made to assist Mayor Bing in reigning in the finances of Detroit. But, it seems, somewhere between its passing in early 2011 and November 2011 [[probably starting with the whole Kirk Lewis becoming DPS EM debacle -- likely Gov Snyder's first experience with the flip-flopping Bing) the Governor and the Mayor's relationship broke down. [[More conjecture on my part -- probably because the Governor no longer was looking toward the Mayor being the EM of the Detroit due to his flip-floppiness.)

In my history of posting on this message board, I think I've tried my best not to discuss individual elected officials in a negative way -- not even the former Mayor. I sympathize greatly with elected officials because it is very tough to make very public decisions while trying to seem sensitive to all of your constituency's points of view while being subjected to, often, cruel assessments of every decision you make -- again very publicly. But I finally see that this really is the end of elected leadership in this city for a little while and I'm absolutely disgusted by that. The impending loss of self-governance was avoidable [[even under the bad policy that is PA 4). This mayor made a bad deal [[I'm guessing) with the Governor in helping to craft PA 4 [[bad policy) and then realized he was getting burned by it, resisted it and that resistance is what has ultimately gotten us to where we are. His resistance made him drag his feed on drafting the consent agreement, so we ended up with a rushed and legally flawed document. This mayor's leadership is ultimately responsible for what I think is the loss of self-governance for the City of Detroit and as a public policy professional and a true believer in government by the people, I am beyond disappointed. This consent agreement could've allowed the City to remain self-governed -- with the State there to provide serious consequences for non-compliance, but this Mayor [[joined by five members of the City Council) blew it big time!!!
Well put. - CTY