Representing the People of the City of Detroit

Something seems to be lost in the City of Detroit witness list submitted April 18 to the bankruptcy court -- REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE'S INTERESTS. Corporate interests are well represented through the list provided to the court, as shown in the document below.

4.18.14 Amended City Witness List by WDET 101.9 FM

The city has done well with bringing corporate interests as witnesses to the bankruptcy, however the city is a government body elected BY THE PEOPLE to represent CITIZENS whom are both PUBLIC and corporate. Corporate interests such as the following are not public-serving employees of the city, nor the affected public. These are contracted "guns-for-hire" with a mission to strip Detroit assets and leave its residents destitute.

• Conway MacKenzie - financial restructuring advisors stating the plan is in good faith (yet proposes sacrificing constitutional rights of the people), is equitable, and in best interests of the city's citizens.

How dare they say it is in our best interest - have they spoke with the public? There has been no public hearing regarding the bankruptcy by the City Council or Mayor. No publicly elected official of the people of Detroit brought this bankruptcy filing to the court. It is a violation of the bankruptcy code. (NO Governor Rick Snyder is not the Mayor of Detroit or pseudo-official[fascist position] as such). 

• Ernst & Young - contracted to discuss ability to provide adequate levels of municipal services.
• Milliman, Inc - contracted actuarial advisors to provide valuation and funding issues of the General Retirement System and Police and Fire Retirement System.
• DIA board members whom have various corporate affiliations and stories of interest.
• Eugene Gargaro - Michigan Manufacturers Association, Merillat L.P., Metaldyne Precision Forming, and more
• Graham Beal - received $103,000 in bonuses and a $155,000 loan from the DIA, plus is "downscaling" his Detroit house [article link]
• Roger S. Penske - representing "importance from a  business and investment standpoint of the City’s ability to capitalize and  build on the efforts contemplated in the Plan post bankruptcy." Better stated as how can Penske Corporation profit from going through municipal bankruptcy.
• Daniel Gilbert - again representing the ability to capitalize for Rock Ventures and Quicken Loans. Note the appointment to the fabricated Blight Authority.

The date for court is May 30, 2014. The people need to bring forward a list of fact witnesses which could be added to the city's list, and possibly forwarded to the bankruptcy court as well demanding representation from the residents.

Remember objections to the plan of adjustments can be filed before May 1. This is the week to file your objection! Anyone can file an objection. Get more information from Moratorium Now website [people's objection instructions] [objection form]

Watch the Bankruptcy Court website for updates [audio files]

Recording from April 21 Conference Call

Detroit City Council meeting 10:00am on Tuesday on the 13th Floor at Coleman A Young Municipal Center, 2 Woodward Ave, Detroit MI 48226. Arrive early and request a comment card - put your name on the card to be able to speak. The cards are issued before the meeting and collected within the first 5-10 minutes of the meeting at latest,. Public comments happen FIRST at a meeting of the whole council.

• Request public hearing regarding Bankruptcy to understand fully why and how.
• Request public hearing regarding Bankruptcy Witness List (referenced above) and lack of public representation. Demand an additional amendment to the list.

Protest Illitch's Water Bill at Joe Louis Arena on the Riverwalk entrance at 6:30pm - Hockeytown owes $80,000 for outstanding water bill, yet was awarded large parcels of downtown real estate pushing elders and low-income citizens to the curb. Wear red because the opening of playoffs is starting. Facebook event link | People's Water Board Coalition

Connect to http://d-rem.org (Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management) to get more information on May Day plans and get to know the Peoples Plan regarding the Bankruptcy.

Overturning Emergency Manager In Detroit!

We oppose Emergency Managers because they rob us of our right to elect our own local representatives and deny democratic self rule at the local level. We are demand our elected leadership remember that they were elected by the same people who will vote in this referendum on Nov. 6th, 2012. We demand that you abide by their decision. Now were working to "Overturning Emergency Manager In Detroit!"

We ask you to sign our "White House Petition:

1. End the Consent Agreement/ No Emergency Manager. 
2. Begin the Justice Department Intervention, and 
3. Stop Voter Suppression and Constitutional Violations. 

We also ask you to join us in our:

1. Our Mass demonstration, rallies, press conferences to protest and denounce the actions of Governor Snyder and his collaborators; 
2. To expose the criminal nature of the banks and the corporation who are at the root of the financial crisis in Detroit and throughout the State of Michigan; 
3. We must link this struggle in Detroit with the plight of other cities throughout Michigan like Benton Harbor, Flint, Highland Park, Inkster, Ecorse, Muskegon. As well as dozens of other cities in the USA like California, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Rhode Island and many others facing similar crisis. 

A No Struggle, No Development Production! By Kenny Snodgrass, Activist, Photographer, Videographer, Author of 1} From Victimization To Empowerment... www.trafford.com/07-0913 eBook available at www.ebookstore.sony.com
2} The World As I've Seen It! My Greatest Experience! {Photo Book}
YouTube: I have over 390 Video's, over 133,300 hits averaging 4,700 a month on my YouTube channel @ www.YouTube.com/KennySnod

Monday Rally at Spirit of Detroit

Please come to a rally at the Spirit of Detroit in front of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center (City County Building) Monday to to show your support of efforts to defeat the Michigan Emergency Manager law.

Where: Spirit of Detroit in front of the Coleman A Young Municipal Center (City County Building)
When: March 25th at 11:00AM

Urge your family and friends whom are outside Detroit and Michigan to sign the petition to the White House and Department of Justice requesting intervention on behalf of the people of Detroit and Michigan.

PASS IT ON TO FAMILY AND FRIENDS!!!

PEOPLE FOR A BETTER DETROIT

Detroit School Board Meeting Wednesday, Student Rally Saturday

Facebook Cover Image - please share

Full Sheet Info
(click to view/print)

We stand at a point for action at this time. Our schools, our future, and our city will never be the same if the current flow of actions are left to continue. We need your presence at this crucial meeting. We need your information shared and to share information with you.

We live in revolutionary times and the message takes place at a given date, time, and location. Those involved set the stage for action.

AT THIS BOARD MEETING

- Detroit School for the Arts has a spokesperson at the event. The true story.
- The EAA has several spokespersons...the true story.
- We still need someone from the EAA gradeschools: calling all parents and students and teachers!
- The MEAP scores will be deconstructed
- The finances will be deconstructed
- The legal update will be explained
- Teachers, come talk about your contract if you wish; there will be committee assignments for all students, parents and Detroit voters and tax payers to sign up.

We will win but WE HAVE TO FIGHT. 

If we fight, we will win.

Where: Detroit Public Library 5201 Woodward Detroit MAIN LIBRARY
When: Starts at 5:00 p.m., end by 8:30 p.m.

STAND UP FOR Detroit STUDENTS!!

---

Detroit Youth Takeover March

On Saturday March 23rd at 1:00 pm help Detroit Youth Voice stand up for education and say no to incarceration! No funding for learning but there is funding for prisons?! It is time DETROIT YOUTH take over and for adults to hear solutions to stop the school to prison pipeline! All ages are welcome! Make sure you email RSVP so we can send you all the info at detroitYOUTHtakeover@gmail.com

The location is 2727 Second Ave at Cass Park! Be there at 1pm! We will march to Wayne County Jail at 1:30pm (it is a mile away).

If you're bringing a car please email DetroitYOUTHtakeover@gmail.com so that we know you're coming for parking purposes.

Message Kayla Mason if you want to help out on the day.

Facebook event link

War Declared on Black Detroit

Detroit Rallies Against Emergency Manager Law

Sunday March 10 we are asking everyone to come to the rally at Michigan and Third/Bagley, south of the DTE Energy building and cross-corner from MGM Grand Casino. The rally begins at noon and will carry on for several hours.

Learn more about the issues through this article "WAR DECLARED ON BLACK DETROIT" at the Voice of Detroit.

Facebook event posting
Contact phone is with AFSCME Local 25 at 313-964-1711 ext 2223.

Publicity Flyers

B&W copy for print

Color copy

Anti-Emergency Manager Traffic Blockade

Thursday March 7, 2013 activists in Detroit staged a rolling traffic blockade on I-75 between 8 Mile and Warren in protest of the Emergency Manager Law. Our position is if the system has chosen to silence the people by listening to business, then we must make conducting business more difficult. Governor Snyder it is time to admit that the removal of civil rights in the poorest communities of Michigan amounts to FASCIST RULE. The people will request your acts of domestic terrorism be held accountable in a court of law. We realize the courts of Michigan are unwilling to move appropriately on the matters at hand. Therefore we are petitioning the Department of Justice to step in. We are ready to prosecute those leading the State government on conspiracy charges.

News Reported 

From WDIV at 4:10 pm ... We have BREAKING NEWS right here at home. There is a traffic situation on I-75 that might affect your drive home. Michigan State Police are trying to get several cars to move off the shoulder of southbound I-75 near I-94. It's backed up traffic in both directions on I-75. Vehicles are getting by, but they're starting to slow down so it's beginning to affect all of the traffic there.

Notice the signs in the windows show the various cities that are currently under Emergency Manager rule. The motorcade destination is the Theodore Levin Federal Courthouse at 211 Fort, Detroit.

March on City Hall

We must march on City Hall and demand justice delivered as promised through the vote November 6, 2012. The Emergency Manager Law (Public Act 4 of 2011) has been repealed. Public Act 72 of 1990 was repealed in 2011 and according to the law CANNOT BE REVIVED.

Detroit refuses to be a puppet to State Government demands. We must gather and create a Citizen's Reform Agenda, but that requires access to our government - something this administration and those preceding it have made very difficult.

Monday November 19 9:00am rally at Spirit of Detroit

The Public Health & Safety Standing Committee will be held at 10:00am, the 13th floor at Coleman A Young Municipal Center will be packed. Click here for the agenda.

Tuesday November 20 9:00am rally at Spirit of Detroit

The last Council of the Whole meeting will be held at 10:00am on the 13th floor. The agenda is packed and we suspect the entire day until 4pm will be spent in session. Click here for the agenda.

The Call To March

November 6th we watched the votes tally - We saw Michigan Democrats win the Senate. We saw the re-election of President Barack Obama and saw Proposal 1 come in with a NO vote. The next morning we found …

• The Emergency Manager Law had been repealed
  (but nothing changed)
• Detroit’s Proposal C to ensure Corporation Counsel retained independence and the ability to prosecute Mayor Bing
  (and the Mayor continues supporting the Financial Stability Agreement born through Public Act 4, which was claimed to not conform with the requirements of Detroit City Charter)

... and what we did not get was a CELEBRATION in the streets and JUSTICE NOW. We thought certainly someone would start the celebration. We realize now that WE ARE THE ONES to start the celebration!! WE MUST DEMAND JUSTICE NOW!

WE ARE *MARCHING ON* CITY HALL MONDAY & TUESDAY MORNING AT 9AM
WE ARE *CALLING ON YOU* TO STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS AND PARTICIPATE – sitting through a revolution was never the way of accomplishing what is needed.

• We are NOT WAITING 30 days to claim victory.
• We are NOT WAITING for Detroit to have more services farmed out to private business by terms of a contract. 
• We are NOT WAITING for land grabs to be complete and departments to be shut-down sending our residents into unemployment.
• We are NOT WAITING for our public buses to be privatized, or our water, or our lighting, or other departments.
• We are NOT WAITING for more of our schools to be yanked from our hands and have our children attending EAA schools established and controlled through Jim Crow Laws.
• We are NOT WAITING for the State of Michigan to push through new Emergency Manager Laws to “save us” from bankruptcy court.
• We are NOT WAITING for our elected officials to take orders from the State of Michigan on next steps in dismantling our local governments and schools.

Both Monday and Tuesday have critical items coming before City Council committees and the final meeting of City Council for the year until 2012. There will be limited room available on the 13th floor - we need people on the street picketing the issues. Get on the text messaging group by composing a message to the number 23559 with the word @honorMIvote and send the message.

WE ARE THE PEOPLE OF DETROIT and

WE ARE NOT WAITING ANY MORE!

Moving vans ready for eviction

EXERCISE OUR RIGHT TO ASSEMBLE, TO PLAN, TO PARTICIPATE IN GOVERNMENT, TO BE AWARE
EXERCISE SELF-GOVERNANCE THROUGH OUR HOME-RULE CHARTER
EXERCISE WITH OUR FEET IN THE STREET
EXERCISE OUR VOICES HELD HIGH IN REASON AND PROTEST
EXERCISE THE FREEDOM OUR COUNTRY HAS FOUGHT FOR CENTURIES TO MAINTAIN – not overseas, here at home! Our fight for freedom is here at home! We will not be slaves to a state of confusion and despair. Our children deserve to know the hope and spirit of a brighter future. We are not sacrificing to the burdens of devastation placed on us by a CORPO-GOVERNMENT declared state of emergency.

Government SERVES the People – it is their oath of office, it is time to serve as the public demanded through a general election and insist the courts and law-makers of this land follow the will of the people. WE WILL NOT BE UNDONE BY A SYSTEM NOT OF OUR OWN CHOOSING!

Assist us by inviting those that love Detroit to march, to be THE ONES that proclaim the City of Detroit is a held by THE PEOPLE and we will not back-down.

NOTE: Recall Mayor Bing petitions will be circulating while the march is taking place. Detroit voting residents we encourage action!

Taste The Dirty Water

Time To Give Management A Taste Of What's Coming

AFSCME reports there will be a picket held at 9300 Jefferson Ave, outside the Water Treatment Plant. They are urging workers from around the city to join them TODAY from 3:30pm to 5:00pm. According to the Local 207 Organizer from July 19 (see below | click to download/print) the city has crossed the line into Union Busting and it is time to organize in protest.

In negotiations on Tuesday July 17, DWSD Management presented us with a new “offer” on our contract. The outrageous details are below. Management is also threatening to impose on DWSD the same non-union, Jim Crow conditions which Bing and Snyder are imposing on the rest of city workers.

The Contract They Want Us to Accept (Offered to AFSCME on Tuesday July 17, 2012)

• 10% Base Rate Pay Cut
• PENSIONS: If hired after July 1, 2012, Defined Contribution Pension will replace the current Defined Benefit Pension. If hired before July 1, 2012, must switch to inferior DC Pension or pay 5% of base wages to stay in DB pension. Multiplier reduced to 1.5% for everyone. Annual 2.25% escalator on pensions would be eliminated
• All past practices would be eliminated
• Probation for new hires or during promotions changed from 3 months to 12 months
• Union would have to withdraw pending legal action against Judge Cox’s anti-union order
• Time limit to file grievances reduced from 20 days to 5 days
• Puts us under the City-State Consent Agreement (no obligation to bargain with unions)
• Gives mayor’s appointees control of our Pension Board
• Overtime to be assigned to those judged by Management as “most qualified”
• No limits on contracting out
• Discipline stays on your record for 36 months (currently 14), except for “workplace violence, sexual harassment, theft or willful destruction of Department property, or being under the influence”, which will stay on your record for 60 months!

There are many more protests coming as these terms of employment were not altered following state law which requires collective bargaining. The city will stand behind the faulty Consent Agreement and the language which knocks down PARA. However collective bargaining sits in many more sections of State Law. This sure sound like the realization that the fascist State of Michigan has grabbed the City of Detroit. Some are fighting back, hopefully more will wake up and rise up.

AFSCME is reminding everyone able to make the trip to Lansing tomorrow - Wednesday July 25 to be at the bus departure locations BEFORE 7am when the buses leave.

June 27 - WHY SACRIFICE TRUST? Rally at Hart Plaza

Free Detroit No Consent is holding a rally Wednesday June 27 at 5pm. We know Detroit has been sacrificing trust for TOO LONG! Mayor Bing wants us to sacrifice even more.

Come to the Labor Monument at Hart Plaza at Woodward & Jefferson. We are asking the public to RISE UP, and RALLY in DIRECT ACTION. These are some actions needed immediately:

• File Ethics Complaints against those whom have sacrificed the city and its people.
  The intent is removal from office.
• Attend meetings with officials, demand representation
  Mayor Bing holds a Community Meeting at 7pm after the rally across the street - join us in attending the rally!
• Update voter registration - no vote is no voice and CONSENT to a failing system
• Bring new complaints and investigations into corruption

Free Detroit will update you on the above and more. Bring the people you care about to this rally. We need to work in unity to keep what we have and demand undue sacrifices returned.

Download copies of the flyer, print and distribute. Call into radio and TV shows in support of the rally. Send questions to be answered to info@freedetroit.org 

• Single flyer 1/4 page size, full color
• Full sheet 4 flyers in black & white
• Full sheet 4 flyers in color
• Ethics Complaint Form
• Information Sheet

Silent March June 26 at 9:30am

Governor Rick Snyder will be discussing policy for Detroit and the State of Michigan with Rev Michael Owens and others at Bethel Baptist Church, East. Those opposed to the Governor and his supporters here in Detroit are asked to rally at Gratiot and Holcomb at 9:30am for a march to the church.

Repeal PA4 Protests NOW

From Stand Up For Democracy

Join us on Wednesday, June 20 at noon at Cadillac Place located at 3020 W. Grand Boulevard in Detroit as the attorneys representing Stand Up For Democracy file a motion with the Michigan Court of Appeals to compel the Board of Canvassers to certify the petitions within seven days. 

We must stop the stall tactics. We urge you also to call Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson at 517-373-2520 or 888-SOS-MICH (767-6424). Tell her to comply with the law and place the issue on the ballot. You can also tweet her at www.twitter.com/MichSOS and Facebook at www.facebook.com/MichiganSOS.

Time is critical for Detroit 

Mayor Bing has certain powers granted through the Financial Stability Agreement (similar to that of an Emergency Manager) which allow him to cancel or specify the terms of union contracts. 80% of the City of Detroit union contracts have a renewal date of July 1, 2012. If the Consent Agreement remains in force then Mayor Bing will commence to bust the unions and take concessions that he feels appropriate.

How can this be stopped? The order to the Board of Canvassers by the Court of Appeals to place the Repeal of Public Act 4 on the Nov 6 ballot must be enacted before July 1. When the order is enacted the legitimacy of Public Act 4 in placing Emergency Managers around the state will have been SUSPENDED and put to a vote of the people.

Opposition will come from Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility as promised by Bob Lebrand. The group has indicated they are filing a stay on the court order in an attempt to take "font gate" to the Michigan Supreme Court. If the stay on the order is accepted that places the order in a 42 day waiting period to hear from the Supreme Court. Thus a stay would enable Mayor Bing to commence with slaughtering city worker union contracts since it would delay the suspension of Public Act 4 powers past the July 1st contract renewal date.

CALL FOR ACTION JUNE 27 

Photo: Stephen Boyle "Fuzzytek"

Free Detroit is calling for a PEOPLE'S FORUM / RALLY on Wednesday June 27, 2012 at 5:00pm to take place at the Labor Monument in Hart Plaza which is visible from Jefferson and stands diagonal across Jefferson & Woodward from the Coleman A Young Municipal Center (CAYMC). The date and time is critical - Mayor Bing will be holding his Community Meeting from 7:00-8:30pm in the Erma Henderson Auditorium of the CAYMC on the 13th floor, as a Charter mandated session.

We invite everyone to the People's Forum to discuss the various issues encountered at this time by the people of Detroit. Speakers will be arranged from various organizations to address topics such as:

• Corporation Counsel and the Board of Ethics - get to know the City Charter
• Housing As A Human Right
• Ethics Complaints - what is it and how to file one or more
• Department of Transportation
• Department of Public Lighting
• Parks and Recreation - future of festivals, Belle Isle and other parks
• Public Schools, Charter Schools and Youth Programs
• Public Libraries
• Health and Safety, including the Department of Human Services
• and more...

The intent is to have stakeholders and the public hold discussion on the topics that matter to the residents and visitors to Detroit. We wish to prepare an educated public to enter the Mayor's meeting, ready to ask him about the concerns we all share. Lets talk about solutions, and not forget that legal action may be needed.

May 9: Make BOA Pay Day

National Day of Protest Against Bank of America
Wednesday – May 9, 2012 – 4:00 P.M.
500 Griswold St., Detroit

The Mayor and City Council caved in to Gov. Snyder and Wall Street by handing the City over to a Financial Advisory Board (FSA). The purpose for the FSA is to guarantee the looting of Detroit by the banks by insuring the “payment in full of the scheduled debt service requirements on all bonds, notes and municipal securities” (Public Act 4). According to Snyder’s financial review team, Detroit paid $597 million to the banks in 2010 for debt service. The City’s long-term debt to the banks is an amazing $16.9 billion ($4.9 billion is interest). The same banks that destroyed the neighborhoods of Detroit by their racist, predatory, sub-prime, criminal mortgages will be assured of getting paid from the City’s treasury. City services, city jobs, workers’ wages, benefits and pensions will be slashed to the bone to feed the banksters.

The Financial Stability Agreement is a union busting move. Contracts negotiated by City unions have been tossed out by the FSA. It is a racist move. The majority of African American in Michigan are now under either an Emergency Manager or a financial board, nullifying the African American vote throughout Michigan. 80% of state school aid to Detroit public schools goes to debt service to the banks. The DPS Emergency Manager’s only job is to make sure the banks get their money. To do this schools are closed and teachers are laid off. Students who should be applauded for protesting this robbery of public funds are suspended. In Harrisburg, PA and Stockton, CA the city governments, facing the same situation as we are, made the decision to pay their workers and keep up services AND NOT PAY THE BANKS. In Greece workers have gone on general strikes to protest the same kind of austerity measures forcing the banks to accept a 75% reduction in debt service payments. In Iceland a rebellion broke out that forced the government there to cancel all the debt owed on “underwater” mortgages. We don’t owe the banks a single penny! The banks owe Detroit billions of dollars for the destruction they caused.

SOLUTIONS

• Suspend City Debt Service Payments
• Fund Jobs and Services
• Keep DPS Schools Open
• Moratorium on Foreclosures and Evictions
• BAIL OUT THE PEOPLE, NOT THE BANKS!

---

Sponsored by: Occupy Detroit Eviction Defense Committee; Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shutoffs (moratorium-mi.org); Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (mecawi.org); SE Michigan Jobs with Justice; Justice for Aiyana Jones Committee; National Action Network; Green Party - Michigan; FREE Detroit - NO Consent (freedetroit.org); and more.

Call 313-680-5508 for more information or to endorse
Click for print ready full page flyer

PressTV coverage and Two Detroits

Detroit held a featured segment of the OWS Week broadcast on PressTV. The General Electric shareholder meeting brought over 2,000 people coming from across the country to protest at the Renaissance Center and the surrounding streets. Protesters blocking traffic for upwards of an hour as the march overtook Jefferson Ave.

Stephen Boyle from Free Detroit - No Consent spoke with the reporter and offered his view of how the representative government and corporations continue to distance themselves from the people at large. Reductions in social services are leaving Detroiters with an overwhelming desire to leave Detroit. Those in need can go anywhere else in the nation and receive benefits better than Detroit can offer. At what point do eliminations stop? Within our Declaration we see the emergence of two Detroits: one thriving, one abandoned.

If mobility is cut off and social services restricted, those who rely on society will die. Gentrification of the city will occur as a new populace moves into the core of Detroit. Gated communities will flourish in the core as the poor are placed into perimeter encampments. This is how Mayor Bing, Governor Snyder, and the corporate/bank interests behind them plan to create pockets of welfare-serviced communities around the core of the city. The perimeter which fails to receive welfare will be blighted waiting for demolition and replanted as corporate farmland. Monsanto, ADM (Archer Daniels Midland), and other agro-corporations will own or assist in growing genetically engineered crops in the newly formed corporate farms (reference Hantz Farms, a Monsanto affiliated farm planning to purchase 5,000 acres). This is the foreseeable future as it is showing up through privatization of transit, public lighting, education, water, and handing over Department of Human Services to state/corporate interests.

The people of the city have grown tired of fighting for human rights for centuries. Corporations have grown at the expense of the workers which sustain them. There is a due diligence to the people enabling their freedom and pursuit of happiness, which continues to erode as corporations globalize and leave a trail of waste they foist upon the society used to propel their success. Financial and political reforms are needed.

The people united will never be defeated.

We are the blood that courses through corporate veins.

When you stop the blood flowing, you stop expansion.

The people deserve more than what is being offered.

Protest Bank of America - May 9

Fightback against the Financial Advisory Board and DPS Emergency Manager

NOT ONE PENNY TO THE BANKS WHO HAVE DESTROYED DETROIT!

NO TO LAYOFFS, WAGE CUTS, SCHOOL CLOSINGS, PRIVATIZATION & ELIMINATION OF HUMAN SERVICES

National Day of Protest Against Bank of America

The Detroit Mayor and City Council caved in to Gov. Snyder and Wall Street by handing the City over to a Financial Advisory Board.  The purpose for the FSA is to guarantee the looting of Detroit by the banks by insuring the “payment in full of the scheduled debt service requirements on all bonds, notes and municipal securities” (Public Act 4).  According to Snyder’s financial review team, Detroit paid $597 million to the banks in 2010 for debt service.  The City’s long-term debt to the banks is an amazing $16.9 billion ($4.9 billion is interest).  The same banks that destroyed the neighborhoods of Detroit by their racist, predatory, sub-prime, criminal mortgages will be assured of getting paid from the City’s treasury.   City services, city jobs, workers’ wages, benefits and pensions will be slashed to the bone to feed the banksters.

80% of state school aid to Detroit public schools goes to debt service to the banks.  The DPS Emergency Manager’s only job is to make sure the banks get their money.  To do this schools are closed and teachers are laid off.  Students who should be applauded for protesting this robbery of public funds are suspended.
We don’t owe the banks a single penny!  The banks owe Detroit billions of dollars for the destruction they caused.

 

SUSPEND CITY DEBT SERVICE PAYMENTS

FUND JOBS AND SERVICES

KEEP THE SCHOOLS OPEN

MORATORIUM ON FORECLOSURES AND EVICTIONS

BAIL OUT THE PEOPLE NOT THE BANKS!

Sponsored by:  Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions & Utility Shutoffs (moratorium-mi.org); Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (mecawi.org); SE Michigan Jobs with Justice; Green Party Michigan; Justice for Aiyana Jones Committee; National Action Network; FREE Detroit-NO Consent
FOR MORE INFORMATION or TO ENDORSE: 313-680-5508

March on Lansing April 26 - REPEAL PA4

On Thursday, April 26 at 10 am the State Board of Canvassers meets to decide whether to certify the initiative to repeal Public Act 4, the Emergency Manager law. Once certification that 161,304 valid voter signatures are confirmed, PA 4 is suspended until the general election! The Detroit Consent Agreement, the Emergency Managers / dictators across the state lose their legal basis for existing.

The Board is composed of 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans. Three votes are needed (even if one is absent or recuses himself). So one Republican has to vote to certify. Snyder's allies are trying to challenge the certification with several bogus claims to give the two Republican Party board members a pretext to vote against the certification.

We are working with organizations that are interested in holding a picket protest in Lansing. Watch for additional information announced through this blog, our Twitter account, and Facebook page.

Several actions are called for:

1. Let every elected official in Lansing, especially Republicans, know that you expect them to honor the intent of nearly a quarter million citizens to place this measure on the ballot and oppose schemes to undermine this citizen's referendum.
2. Plan to be in Lansing as part of a statewide effort to hold the Board accountable for their vote. 
3. Assist with logistics, pickets, gathering / spreading information.
4. Organize with others to do the above. Commit to persistent & clear communication in this urgent situation.

UPDATE:

Who's behind the group Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility? | Michigan Radio

One of the people in line to decide the fate of the referendum to challenge Michigan’s emergency manager law has a business interest in the outcome. Jeffrey Timmer is a partner at The Sterling Corporation and is a board member on the State Board of Canvassers. That’s the bipartisan panel that will make the initial ruling on the challenge.