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 The Emergency Manager Law (Public Act 4 of 2011) has been repealed. Public Act 72 of 1990 was repealed in 2011 and according to the law CANNOT BE REVIVED.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• The Emergency Manager Law had been repealed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!

Recall of Mayor Bing Begins

Chris Griffith (c) with State
Representative John Olumba and counsel
Photo: Stephen Boyle

Michigan Representative John Olumba has been meeting with members from Free Detroit No Consent on efforts to establish a Recall Mayor Bing campaign. A meeting held November 5, 2012 of the Wayne County Board of Elections resulted in approval of a recall petition.

The People Unite in Resistance

A prior attempt was made October 23 in a meeting with the Wayne County Board of Elections. Mayor Bing's counsel at that meeting was John Pirich who has been showing up in a few significant cases. John Pirich, esq. is the chairperson of the State of Michigan Board of Ethics.

Tracking Attorney John Pirich

Attorney Pirich was also hired by Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility as lead counsel opposing Stand Up For Democracy in the push for a referendum on Public Act 4, The Emergency Manager Law, to be placed to a vote of the public. The position against the referendum was financially supported by The Sterling Corporation. This battle was waged from the Board of Canvassers, which Jeffery Timmerer failed to recuse himself in the split vote on whether to accept over 250,000 signatures on petitions filed. The basis for recuse would be his involvement financially and organizationally with Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility in resisting the referendum petition campaign. Mr Timmerer later stepped down from his position on the Board of Canvassers with little explanation.

The fight for the referendum on Public Act 4 escalated through the Court of Appeals and requested time from the Michigan Supreme Court twice in its proceedings. As the final days prior to completing the ballot proposals approached the order from the court to the Board of Canvassers and Secretary of State to set the wording for the ballot was made. It wasn't until the sample ballot was available that many knew what the language for the referendum would be.

The next legal action Attorney Pirich was noticed at in Detroit was as counsel to Roy Roberts, Emergency Financial Manager of Detroit Public Schools who was in court against the Detroit Board of Education subsequent to the August ruling by Michigan Supreme Court to place the PA4 referendum on the ballot. That action suspended Emergency Managers and an opinion by the Attorney General Bill Schuette brought the repealed law Public Act 72 into effect. According to Judge John Murphy financial considerations for DPS would be handled by the EFM Roy Roberts until the results of the November 6 election were known; the Board of Education and appointed Superintendent would be granted power of administration for DPS; differences between the parties would be settled by Judge Murphy in this interim period.

If At First You Don't Succeed ... Learn the Lesson

The October 23rd meeting held up the recall campaign due to the number of statements placed in the wording of the petition. Attorney Pirich (representing Mayor Dave Bing) indicated that the word "compromised" in the original petition was ambiguous. Wayne County counsel read passage from the law such that those attending would understand why the petition request was being denied.
If any one of the conditions was not met the petition request would be denied.

Those ambiguities were cleared through a series of revised petition requests that were clear and concise. It only took one of the ten subsequent requests to be approved for the recall campaign to begin.
This grassroots recall drive will have six months to collect required signatures for the recall of Detroit's Mayor. After such time an additional filing may be made.

Another Lesson Learned

The predators that circle may be driven off from time to time, but they will continue to circle as long as the prey appears desirable. It is anticipated that Attorney Pirich will be seen fairly frequently as counsel for the State of Michigan interests, including as defense to those elected and appointed officials in the City of Detroit operating on behalf of the state. At some point, we the people need to question why is the Chairperson of the Board of Ethics pursuing the "enslavement of Detroit" by the State of Michigan.
For reference:

• Washtenaw: Snyder Recall Wording Clear, The Ann Arbor Chronicle - Apr 30, 2011
• Attorney Pirich served as moderator in 2007 at a session entitled "Tribal Business Advantages and Challenges In Economic Development Ventures" at the Second Annual Great Lakes Tribal Economic Development Symposium "Diverse Tribal Economic Development - A Sovereign Imperative". He is partner in the firm Honigman, Miller, Schwartz and Cohn, LLP, a sponsor of the symposium.

Recall Mayor Bing campaign

Tuesday October 23 at 10am there will be an Election Commission Hearing to set the language for a petition to Recall Mayor Dave Bing.

Check in at the City Clerk desk, room 200 at Coleman A Young Municipal Center, 2 Woodward Ave, Detroit 48226.

Recall Mayor Bing website