Endurance Finally Heard

Opinion by Stephen Boyle

photo: Stephen Boyle

The last meeting of City Council of the Whole on November 20, 2012 was full of drama and required fortitude. Over 3 hours of public comments lead the meeting. The meeting room was full of concerned people, the overflow room was full, and the hallway with the elevators was full as well. It was full enough that people were arriving, looking at the situation and turning away or leaving after waiting an hour or two.

The Erma Henderson Auditorium has been used in the past both for the meeting itself (although very rarely recently), and as an overflow area with a screen and audio from inside the meeting room. This time however the room had been booked for the Zoning Board of Appeals, and for a Michigan Adoptive Services event. These were held back to back through the entire morning.

Personally I traveled by bus to the meeting and arrived shortly after 10 am and mingled in the line of those waiting to be heard. I didn't have the equipment I was to use prepared, coming in with a cell phone with a 10% battery charge was my biggest concern. When I can I open up a live video stream of what is happening through the Occupy Detroit channel so those not present can watch from my perspective. There is an official feed from City Council meetings, but it sometimes isn't running at crucial times so it is good to document when possible. I knew with the low battery and situations of the day I'd have problems all day and never catch up with a good charge of the battery.

PMD Kriss Andrews steering the "Reform Agenda"
left in disgust as Council
voted 8-1 to dismiss Miller Canfield contract

Cecily distributed pins the day before and at the meeting to wear as visual protest to some of the critical issues brought to the meeting:

• No EMA - a management consulting group is working through the Root Cause Committee and targeting the elimination of 80% of Detroit Waste and Sewage Department.
• No Miller Canfield - the Milestone Agreement is calling for Miller Canfield to be legal counsel to the Reform Agenda put forward through the Consent Agreement. Free Detroit No Consent has taken the stance that agreement is void based on position of Detroit's Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon. We also feel there is a problem when the law firm has written Public Act 4, litigated the law in the courts, and is sought to replace the City Corporation Counsel. 
• No Ernst & Young - the Milestone Agreement requires a process flow consulting firm. Ernst & Young has been used by city administration in preferred manner during the Consent Agreement. It is believed that more options with an open bid contract would be a smarter direction and to reduce preference for existing providers if in fact a Reform Agenda is truly intended. {correction: the vote was YES}

As I saw people with pins leaving the meeting I asked them if we could circulate those pins into the room on people who had not yet spoke. There were some sad faces, but they knew the fight and allowed the pins to go in with new people. This is how people work on a unified fight offering the best to a WE conversation.