Detroit Actions: Declare State of Emergency

[Communist]

45% unemployed in the City of Detroit – Families losing their lives due to DTE shutoffs – Our neighborhoods destroyed by foreclosures and evictions – Detroit schools continuing to fail – City services diminished due to lay-offs…





Mayor Bing: Declare a State of Economic Emergency (http://www.moratorium-mi.org/)



in the City of Detroit! (http://www.moratorium-mi.org/)





® Moratorium NOW to Stop all Foreclosures, Evictions



and Utility Shutoffs in the City



®Request President Obama declare Detroit a Disaster Area and Fund a Public Works Program to Provide Jobs Now



The people of Detroit need emergency action by the new administration to meet the economic disaster that has hit our city. Under Michigan law, specifically MCL 10.31 et. seq., upon application of the Mayor the governor can proclaim a state of emergency and designate the area involved. Mayor Bing, with the support of City Council, needs to formally apply to Governor Granholm to declare a State of Economic Emergency in Detroit, and demand she use her police powers to place a two-year Moratorium on foreclosures, evictions and utility shutoffs in the city.

In addition, as part of the State of Emergency declaration, the Mayor must demand that the Governor apply to President Obama for money to bail out Detroit, the hardest-hit city in the country. We need funds for jobs for youth to rebuild the houses that have been stripped and destroyed, and money to stop the destruction of public education and services in our city.



Tuesday, January 26, 10:00 a.m.



®Come to the Detroit City Council meeting – 13th Floor, Coleman A. Young Municipal Center (Woodward at E. Jefferson) and demand City Council adopt a State of Emergency resolution during Public Comment section – Delegation to Mayor Bing’s office will follow





Wednesday, February 3, 5:30 p.m.



®Demonstrate in Lansing at Gov. Granholm’s



State of the State address





(Call 313-887-4344 for transportation from Detroit or to share a ride)

FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO GET INVOLVED, CONTACT:
Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shutoffs


5920 Second Avenue, Detroit, MI 48202



313-887-4344 www.moratorium-mi.org (http://www.moratorium-mi.org/)






The Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions is a coalition of grassroots activists and organizations, union and religious leaders, farmers, politicians, and concerned people from across Michigan that formed in the spring of 2008 to fight for the passage of Senate Bill 1306, which would stop all mortgage foreclosures and evictions for two years. Some of our most committed activists have themselves been foreclosed and evicted from their homes and farms.

SB 1306 has been introduced in the current session of the Michigan legislature as SB 29.

The coalition is open to all those who want to fight for the passage of a moratorium on foreclosures, evictions, layoffs, and utility shutoffs. We meet every Wednesday, 7 PM, at 5920 Second Ave., Detroit.

www.moratorium-mi.org (http://www.moratorium-mi.org/)

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[Martin Blank]

This is actually very concerning. In past years, it probably would not have been so much so, but with the current composition of the City Council, and the current Mayor and Governor, this is playing with fire.

Five of the nine members of the current City Council are new. Of them, four are known to be candidates of the Renaissance Group, the coalition of capitalists that was responsible for overthrowing the last elected mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick. Of the four remaining on the Council from the last period, Ken Cockrel Jr. and Brenda Jones went along with the demands of the Renaissance Group. That means there is a solid majority on the City Council that will accede to what GM, Chrysler and DTE Energy want.

That last one is important. Two new members of the City Council, Saunteel Jenkins and Andre Spivey, have close ties to DTE. In fact, Jenkins was an executive at DTE, IIRC.

Given the composition, demanding that the City Council petition the Mayor, himself hand-picked by the Renaissance Group, for a state of emergency in Detroit -- something that hasn't been imposed since the 1967 Rebellion -- is to ask for a virtual militarization of the city. Governor Granholm, Mayor Bing and most City Council members might consider themselves Democrats, but they are corporatist Democrats, and demanding that they exercise this power could result in a suspension of all remaining civil liberties in Detroit and the imposition of an overt police state.

Look at it objectively. The petition adopted by the City Council would be on their terms, not those of Moratorium NOW! The Mayor's application, in turn, would be on his terms, not even those of the City Council; he could use the non-binding petition as an excuse to declare a state of emergency due to "mass squatting" and ask for help to clear out those facing foreclosure. Governor Granholm could do the same; the Republican-dominated Michigan legislature certainly would.

And asking Obama for assistance is, at best, a wasted effort. Obama's White House just finished a key job in Detroit: breaking the back of the public education system and the teachers' union. Under the new contract between teachers and the public schools, the teachers have to pay the school board $500 a month for the next two years for the privilege of keeping their jobs. They might get that money back when they retire, provided the public schools don't declare bankruptcy, thus wiping out the deal. This new arrangement is part of Obama's "Race To The Top" (RaTTT) policy, which is designed to gut public education in favor of "charter" and other privately-owned-but-publicly-funded schools.

I understand Moratorium NOW!'s impulse, but it is playing with fire. Such a petition, if adopted, could either be the best or worst thing to happen. But which one it is would rest with the City Council, Mayor and Governor (in other words, the Renaissance Group), not the Moratorium NOW! coalition.

I'm generally supportive of what the coalition is doing, but this tactic could spell disaster for Detroit. We'll have to see what happens tomorrow.

[Communist]

Interesting, but very frightening points you're making. Let's hope for the best
with this...