Detroit thread. Post Kwame, Monica, and $1 houses here.

[Savonarola]

So we have to figure that at least 500 million dollars of the rest of the budget was also stolen and/or wasted.

So how exactly does Sav make all his money?

WIC fraud and looting copper from abandoned houses.  I'm a Horatio Alger success story, Detroit style.   

[Savonarola]

And now from Detroit's other success story:

Kilpatrick turns to public for help



Will the people rescue Kilpatrick?

Mike Wilkinson and Charlie LeDuff / The Detroit News

Detroit -- Kwame Kilpatrick, apparently without the cash needed to stave off a jail term, wants your help.

With the former Detroit mayor facing possible incarceration for violating his criminal probation, his camp intends to launch a campaign soon seeking aid -- in prayers and cash.

"For those who would like to support (Kilpatrick), we will open that avenue," said Mike Paul, his New York-based spokesman, just moments after Wayne County Circuit Judge David Groner found him guilty of violating his parole on Tuesday.

But a question remains: Would anyone, after all the scandal and drama, after tales of luxurious living and claims of poverty, pull out their checkbook for Kilpatrick, the man whose actions cost taxpayers $8.4 million in an attempt to hide his salacious text messages and crude behavior?

"In all honesty, yes there are," said Eric Foster, a local political consultant and pollster. "As frustrating as it may seem, there are people willing to do that."

Kilpatrick has turned to the people before and been rewarded, though by diminishing amounts as the days since his tenure as mayor grow. While still in office and facing perjury charges, he raised more than $200,000 for his legal defense fund, which was used to pay a fraction of his attorney bills.

His family got $65,000 in gifts from two Detroit area business leaders around the time he was in jail. And just after he got out, four businessmen gave him a $240,000 loan.

But earlier this year, after having moved to Texas and after Groner ordered him to pay nearly $80,000 in restitution, a Detroit fundraiser netted just more than $40,000, mostly from family and friends. Kilpatrick himself could not come up with the balance, prompting the charges of violating his probation that resulted in Tuesday's finding of guilt.

The Rev. Horace Sheffield, a longtime supporter who has raised money for Kilpatrick before, said he would open his heart and wallet to the former mayor.

"I have been donating to him," Sheffield said on Tuesday, as he attended an Eastern Market fundraiser for Sam Riddle, the political consultant facing multiple bribery charges as well as an assault charge.

Sheffield said, however, that the publicity surrounding the mayor has made raising money difficult.

"Most people have been giving anonymously because of this continual vilification of the mayor, which is designed to eradicate is support, to drive them underground and make them afraid," he said. "But they are there, if someone was to organize this. They'd be there, and I'm prepared to be there."

From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100421/METRO01/4210397/Will-the-people-rescue-Kilpatrick?#ixzz0ll0WE73j

He should follow NPR's lead and offer gifts for various levels of donations:

$50  Kwame Tote Bag
$100  Kwame Coffee Mug
$200  Salacious text message from Kwame
$500  Appointment to staff position on Detroit based charity
$1000  Position in next Kilpatrick Mayoral Cabinet

Operators are standing by

[frunk]

I can tell I'm a bit stressed right now.  Instead of the news from Detroit giving me a chuckle I feel like punching someone.

[Savonarola]

Old sins, long shadows:

Detroit lawyer wants to stop representing Conyers in suit
Associated Press
Detroit -- A city of Detroit lawyer says ex-councilwoman Monica Conyers is refusing to cooperate in a lawsuit that accuses her of retaliating against a man who wanted to recall her from office in 2009.

A city attorney, Grant Ha, wants to stop representing Conyers because she won't participate in the litigation. A hearing in federal court is set for May 13.

Conyers is accused of pressuring Mariners Inn to fire Theodis Collins when she learned he was leading a recall effort. The substance-abuse center gets grants from Detroit. He lost his job.

Conyers is off the city council and headed to prison for corruption by July 1. The city has been representing her because the alleged events occurred when she was in office.

Conyers could not immediately be reached for comment today.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100421/METRO01/4210410/1409/Detroit-lawyer-wants-to-stop-representing-Conyers-in-suit#ixzz0llUzxrCB

With such a crafty legal strategy I can't imagine how Monica flunked the bar.

[Savonarola]

Why is everyone always picking on us?

'Dateline' show on Detroit prompts more outrage
Leonard N. Fleming / The Detroit News
Detroit --The backlash against "Dateline NBC"'s portrayal of Detroit continues today, as more leaders are calling on network officials to meet with them to discuss what they say is the program's negative portrayal of the city.

The Rev. Horace Sheffield, a prominent pastor, civil rights activist and executive director of the Detroit Association of Black Organizations, sent a letter saying that "infuriated Detroit citizens and lovers" felt the report was a "gross and unbalanced misrepresentation" of the city.

"We see this recent story as once again solely making Detroiters and Detroit responsible (for) these conditions when this region, this state, and this nation must also respond," Sheffield wrote to NBC correspondent Chris Hansen, a Metro Detroit native and former WDIV-TV 4 reporter who reported the Sunday show, "America Now: City of Heartbreak and Hope."

"Therefore, we welcome an opportunity to have this discussion and more with you, the producers, and the executive of Dateline, here or in New York, at your earliest convenience," Sheffield wrote.

Staffers for Mayor Dave Bing also have objected to the show.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100421/METRO/4210422/1409/Dateline-show-on-Detroit-prompts-more-outrage#ixzz0llVsplTy

I didn't see the show, but if it portrayed Detroit as a city of hope then I would have to agree with the Reverend Sheffield that it grossly misrepresented the city.

[Savonarola]

Judge upholds measure that halts Bobb's plans for DPS
Tom Greenwood / The Detroit News
Detroit -- The plans of Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb received a set back today when a Wayne County Circuit Court judge upheld an injunction that puts off Bobb's financial plans and halts his academic plans for the district.

Judge Wendy Baxter ruled that Bobb and the Detroit School Board should meet in June in order to delineate their powers concerning the running of the 85,000-student district.

"We have to figure out the limits of power which fall to the school board," Baxter said during the proceedings. "It's clear that he (Bobb) has the power to make financial decisions...but will those decisions harm the children? Financial power cannot leap over into academics."

Baxter said the hearings were needed in order to hear from experts whether Bobb's plans to close scores of schools, lay off teachers and cut back on selected classes would be harmful to students.

Special attorney John Clark -- appearing on behalf of Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox -- argued that there was need for further hearings on the case.

Baxter said the Attorney General's Office could still proceed with plans to file an appeal with the Michigan Court of Appeals.

Bobb and the school board have battled for academic control of the district since Gov. Jennifer Granholm appointed Bobb to his position in March 2009.

Bobb has claimed that it's impossible to separate financial management from academics, while the board insists that it has academic authority as the elected representatives of Detroit voters.

The Detroit Board of Education has alleged Bobb overstepped his authority by making academic decisions and failing to consult with the 11-member board. Bobb has appeared before lawmakers in Lansing at least twice to ask the law be amended to allow an emergency financial manager to seize academic control of a school district.

In March, Bobb unveiled a $540 million academic plan to boost standards, offer college level courses and seek to reach graduation rates of 98 percent by 2015. The school board had passed its own academic plan during the summer, but Bobb hadn't funded it. 

"Bobb's plans are radical at best and a failure at worst," said school board attorney Joyce Schon, in an impromptu press conference held outside the court chambers.

"We are not going to accept him using his authority to assault academic plans."

DPS spokesman Steve Wasko said hearings between the school board and Bobb would "move forward," and that an appeal would be filed with the Michigan Court of Appeals.

"You can't separate academics from finance," Wasko said. "That's the bottom line. Parents have removed their children from the Detroit school system because of academic failure from academic leaders."

A visibly upset Heather Miller condemned Bobb's plans today.

"I'm a Detroit school teacher, and I've been pink slipped," Miller said. "How can you lay off 2,000 teachers and not harm the students? How can you run a school district with one-third of the teachers gone? The man has no authority in the city of Detroit.

"It's good to see the school board finally standing up for the students."

Miller said that while she had been laid off from her position at Marquette Elementary, she had also been informed that she will be back in a teaching position this fall.



From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100421/SCHOOLS/4210393/Judge-upholds-measure-that-halts-Bobb-s-plans-for-DPS#ixzz0lm2Vd15Y

So the worst case with Bobb's plan is status quo; that sounds like a risk worth taking.

The maneuvering of the school board really is depressing.  I suspect the moment Bobb leaves things will return to the way they were. 

[Savonarola]

Ford's dreamers long gone as unpaid car loans take over assembly lines
Charlie LeDuff / The Detroit News
Highland Park

Cars come down the first moving assembly line in 1913 at the Ford plant in Highland Park. The plant is now full of rubble. (Ford Motor Co.)


The former Ford plant in Highland Park was the birthplace of mass production. Piles of unpaid car loans have become commonplace as people can no longer pay for the once-affordable Ford. (Elizabeth Conley / The Detroit News)


From The Detroit News:

It is believed that Henry Ford's offices occupied the fourth floor of the Model T plant, allowing him to survey his mechanized plantation that recreated the world.

Now, less than a century later, a tree stands where Ford once did, growing among the shattered glass, asbestos and pigeon droppings. If Ford was standing near that window today, he would not see assembly lines or motors or axles. He'd see a warehouse of paperwork that contains, among other things, tens of thousands of defaulted car loans.

Ford did not believe in debt and so did not extend credit to car buyers until General Motors began allowing customers in 1919 to purchase cars on installment payments. The mass marketing of "buy now pay later" is another invention straight out of Detroit.

If Ford today walked across the rubble of his office and looked out the window facing Woodward Avenue, he would see a green historical marker that reads:

"Here at his Highland Park plant, Henry Ford in 1913 began the mass production of automobiles on a moving assembly line. By 1915, Ford built a million Model T's. In 1925, over 9,000 were assembled in a single day. Mass production soon moved from here to all phases of American industry and set the pattern of abundance for 20th Century living."

Nearby stood two 21st century men who are employed to watch over those unpaid car loans: Terry Madden, a ruddy 50-year-old, and Eric Draughn, a square-jawed 39-year-old. The fathers of both men came to Detroit from the South and made middle-class lives in the factories.

"My father put in 40 years with DeSoto and Ford and he never missed a day's work to my knowledge," Draughn said.

A third man came shambling by, an unemployed passer-by and something of a savant of automotive history. Harrison Bynum, too, is the son of a Southern man who made his way to Detroit in 1948 and got a job with Chrysler and like his father, Bynum, 57, spent some of his youth on the line.

"Hard to believe it all come to this," he said. Despite the balmy afternoon, Bynum wore a knit cap. "Ford, Durant, Sloan, Joy, Reuther, Dodge, Chevrolet, Kahn," he said of the industrial giants of generations ago. "All of 'em. What happened to dreamers like that? Who replaces them? Detroit used to make heroes out of nobodies. Now we got nobodies pretending to be heroes."

And there's the rub, the discontent, the root feeling among the little man that he's just not being told the whole truth by his leaders, that he gets lip service while the country crumbles around him.

When Ford offered the $5-a-day job in 1914, a worker could buy a car with four months' pay. Today, it would take a new autoworker earning $14 dollars an hour more than six months to buy Ford's cheapest car.

"It just don't add up," Bynum said.

A lot of it doesn't add up.

Goldman Sachs, the mega-bank, is being sued by the federal government for selling mortgage bonds as good investments and then turning around and betting they'll fail. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama, despite his "fat-cat bankers" rhetoric, is surrounded by former Wall Street men and took $15 million himself in the last campaign, a record.

Then there is General Motors announcing with much fanfare that it has paid back its $4.7 billion loan to Uncle Sam in full. But the federal government still holds a majority stake in GM, GMAC and 10 percent of Chrysler. In the end, the federal government expects to lose a minimum of $30 billion of the $85 billion in bailout money it extended to those failing companies.

Detroit City Hall is talking tough on its finances. But Mayor Dave Bing unveiled a budget last week that has the city plugging its deficit with $250 million in bonds that still leave the city $85 million in the red. Bing, who was elected largely on his business acumen, refuses to discuss the details on the collapse and sale of his metal fabricating company.

The Detroit Public Schools have been taken over by Robert Bobb, the emergency financial manager. Bobb was specifically hired by Gov. Jennifer Granholm to balance the books. But Bobb ended up delivering a $100 million deficit his first year -- no better than his predecessors when averaged over the previous two years. Nevertheless, Bobb got a raise, earns more than Obama and is tied up in court over academics and school closings.

Those men didn't create the mess they inherited, but as Draughn said: "It's hard to believe much of any of it is going to get fixed."

Where's the hope, I asked him? Most Americans are asking that question.

To which he replied: "As long as you have each other and you have faith, then there's hope. I guess."

To which Madden replied: "Not as long as we have politicians."



From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100423/METRO08/4230362/1439/METRO08/Ford-s-dreamers-long-gone-as-unpaid-car-loans-take-over-assembly-lines#ixzz0lwSPQKND

[Savonarola]

No doubt she was surprisingly mature for her age:

Police: Detroit strip club employed 14-year-old
Santiago Esparza / The Detroit News
Detroit -- Law enforcement officials are to detail charges this afternoon against the manager of a northwest side strip club who allegedly employed a 14-year-old girl as a topless dancer.

Andrew Hutson, the 31-year-old manager of the All Star topless bar, will face charges of child sexual abusive activity, a 20-year felony, police said.

The mother of the girl heard her daughter was working at the club, went there and pulled her from the establishment and contacted police, officials said. The mother told investigators she had been having problems with the girl's behavior, police said.

Representatives of the Detroit Police Department and the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office will outline the case during the 1:15 p.m. press conference held across the street from the club at Eight Mile and Hubbell.

[Savonarola]

Obama just doesn't care about black people.   

Duncan: Detroit school problems must be solved locally
Education chief says feds to play supporting role
Deb Price / Detroit News Washington Bureau
Washington -- Education Secretary Arne Duncan signaled Detroit Public Schools shouldn't expect a heavy hand from the federal government in fixing its myriad problems.

In an exclusive interview with The Detroit News, Duncan spoke enthusiastically about the turnaround prospects for a school system so troubled that he once said it kept him up at night. "We want to be helpful. But these issues have to be worked out at the local level," he said.

But the nation's education chief ducked a chance to offer prescriptions for change, instead characterizing his role as a partner who can support Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb, as well as Mayor Dave Bing. He wouldn't say whether he favored mayoral control of the school district, as some have advocated.

Duncan spoke up for teachers unions, urged Michigan to work harder in the Race to the Top, and backed more teaching of Mandarin and other languages to prepare schoolchildren for jobs.

But on the issue of Detroit schools, Duncan limited his role to helping the district by making money available for competitive grants and being a cheerleader. He urged Detroit to push to win education dollars aimed at helping reduce dropout rates, close achievement gaps and improve teacher quality.

"We have never had so many discretionary resources," Duncan said.

Detroit schools' dropout rate, according to district officials, was 27 percent in June 2008, while the national dropout rate was about 8.7 percent. Its fourth- and eighth-graders recently scored the lowest ever on national math and science tests administered by the National Assessment of Education Progress. And Bobb expects to post a $317 million deficit by this summer -- the largest year-end deficit ever reported by the district.

DPS spokesman Steve Wasko welcomed Duncan's supportive comments.

"It's important and significant that the secretary of education focuses on the need for reform in Detroit. We've aggressively applied for and gotten grants," said Wasko, although he added it would help if Washington would loosen regulations so grant money could flow directly to cities.

'Bottom of the barrel'
DPS has received a large portion of the $800 million in stimulus money it's applied for, Wasko said, including $500 million to build, remodel and tear down schools, and it intends to aggressively compete for more.

Duncan characterized DPS as starting at "the bottom of the barrel," with "staggeringly high" dropout rates.

"This isn't a decades-long thing," he said. "Three years, five years from now, I think Detroit Public Schools could be in a radically, in a dramatically different place than it is today."

Duncan also urged Detroit to come together, with Bing as a rallier, for the city's children. Bobb, who was appointed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm, is scheduled to end his second one-year term in March 2011.

"I don't think a public school system by itself can improve as fast as it needs to do; everyone behind it, everyone in the city has to be part of that effort, everyone has to be contributing," Duncan said.

"And I think the mayor, from the bully pulpit, as the leader of a city, is the best person to help rally everyone's efforts. What can be more important than making sure children in Detroit get a dramatically better education than what they received frankly for decades?"

Bing spokeswoman Karen Dumas said, "We see Secretary Duncan and President Obama as partners, and welcome their help."

Duncan's priorities
Duncan also addressed:

• Race to the Top: After Delaware and Tennessee won the first round of grants March 29, $3.4 billion is available for the next round of competition, when 10 to 15 states will be picked.

"I'd (urge) Michigan to look at the applications, the comments from those states that won and those states that almost won," he said.

State lawmakers in December passed a five-bill education reform package that raised the high school dropout age to 18, paved the way to open more charter schools, gave the state power to seize control of failing schools and ended long-standing union protections for ineffective teachers.

• Teacher layoffs when stimulus money dries up: He is pushing Congress for "desperately needed" money to avert layoffs.

"I am very, very concerned about huge job losses around the country."

• Teachers union priorities: Duncan said unions often are portrayed as "monolithic" or as " bad guys."

"I can take to you many, many places in the country where there is extraordinary, committed, thoughtful union leadership that absolutely understands that public education has to improve dramatically," he said.

• Teaching Mandarin, other languages: Foreign languages will give youths moving into their careers an edge, he said.

"Any student who is growing up with those skills, think of the opportunity they have in a global economy," he said.

• No Child Left Behind: He expressed hope the testing program will be overhauled.

"It was too punitive, it was too prescriptive," he said. "... We have to reverse all of that."

I look forward to the dramatically different place Detroit Public Schools will be in 2013. 

[Valmy]

I look forward to the dramatically different place Detroit Public Schools will be in 2013. 

They are going to move them all across the river into Windsor?  Or is that not dramatically different enough?

[Savonarola]

They are going to move them all across the river into Windsor?  Or is that not dramatically different enough?

That would be dramatic; Windsor would be the first Canadian city to experience White Flight.

[Barrister]

They are going to move them all across the river into Windsor?  Or is that not dramatically different enough?

That would be dramatic; Windsor would be the first Canadian city to experience White Flight.

You haven't been to downtown Winnipeg recently.  Not very many white people...

[Savonarola]

You haven't been to downtown Winnipeg recently.  Not very many white people...

I haven't, but from Guy Maddin films I've learned that Winnipeg is a Soviet style dictatorship filled with murderers and homosexuals.  It's sad that white people can't survive in that environment.   

[Barrister]

You haven't been to downtown Winnipeg recently.  Not very many white people...

I haven't, but from Guy Maddin films I've learned that Winnipeg is a Soviet style dictatorship filled with murderers and homosexuals.  It's sad that white people can't survive in that environment.   

[Savonarola]

Detroit's restaurant scene mired in 'misery'
Louis Aguilar / The Detroit News
Detroit

Downtown development officials gave a sobering assessment Wednesday of Detroit's restaurant market two days after a pair of high-profile eateries abruptly closed in the wake of a city lawsuit that accused the owner of fraud.

"It's misery right now to maintain a restaurant in downtown Detroit," said Ted Gatzaros, a Downtown Development Authority board member and longtime developer in downtown. His holdings include the Atheneum Suites Hotel and Fishbone's Rhythm Kitchen Café in Greektown.

Gatzaros made the statement as the board of the quasi-public agency discussed a proposed restaurant, Smokehouse Barbecue, with plans to open in the Paradise Valley Business & Entertainment District, the same area where Detroit Fish Market closed Tuesday. 
The board approved the restaurant's location but had a lengthy discussion about the financial incentives it would likely need to survive in Paradise Valley.

Unless the restaurant is given at least six months of free rent, "are we just setting them up" for failure? asked authority board member Linda Bade.

In other business, the authority approved an extension to Nov. 1 of the payment period for an interest-free loan to the Lofts at Woodward. The original $1.3 million loan expired in December. The loft project's property tax was reduced by 6 percent so the project could make a $50,000 annual profit instead of take a $50,000 loss.

The development agency so far this year has paid out $6.5 million more than it has taken in, according to an agency document circulated Wednesday.

The board held an executive session on the closing of Detroit Fish Market and Detroit's Breakfast House & Grill. The downtown authority lawsuit alleges that owner Frank Taylor owes $180,000 in rent.

The DDA has moved to evict Detroit Fish Market. The agency, which owns the building, charged rent based on Taylor's profits.

In the suit, the authority further accused Taylor of "manipulation" by transferring money from the restaurant to other ventures, including his bankrupt and closed Seldom Blues restaurant, which was in a prime location at the Renaissance Center.

The DDA said it took legal action when it found compelling evidence that profits from Detroit Fish Market were transferred to other businesses with no reasonable expectation of return.

DDA board members and officials said Wednesday that they supported Taylor because of his goal of creating high-end restaurants. Any signs of major financial trouble only came after he had received DDA loans. "His operations were profitable and popular," DDA board member Walter Watkins said.

Despite the mood at the downtown authority, some downtown restaurant owners say they are having success.

"Things are hopping," said Vicente Vazquez, owner of Vicente's Cuban Cuisine on Library Street, where the lunch hour was crowded Wednesday. "The Tigers home games make a world of difference. We have events at the Detroit Opera that keep us going. And, of course, Friday and Saturday nights, we have lines out the door."

The atmosphere in downtown is either feast or famine, says Larry Mongo, who runs a nightclub called Café D'Mongos that is only open on Friday nights. Business is often fueled by big occasions such as sports games or cultural events, he said.

Mongo plans to open another restaurant downtown this summer called Hotel D'Mongos Dining Room.

"The thing you have to figure out is: What time is the feast?" Mongo said.

Originally the Detroit's east side was known as Black Bottom due to the rich soil.  As African Americans moved into the area the name was changed to the euphemistic Paradise Valley.  The area that they're now calling Paradise Valley is actually the old German area of town formerly known as Harmonie Park.  The city government isn't wild about celebrating Detroit's German immigrant heritage so they changed the name of Harmonie Park to Paradise Valley.  For a long time the city of Detroit has wanted an area of black owned businesses to succeed the way that Mexican Town, Greek Town and the Chaldean Village have; originally they wanted create a new "African Town."  In time they modified their plans to bolster an existing area, this Paradise Valley, but even with city support it's facing challenges.