Wait, I thought they were all bums that needed to be tossed to the side? Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr has hired Detroit City Council member and President Pro Tempore Gary Brown to work on his staff. Brown, who made around $73,000 as a Council member, will be making $225,000 in his new position. Brown seems like a truly competent […]

Effective change in Detroit must come from communities, not from the top down This Saturday, the Change Agent Consortium (CAC), a coalition of Detroit faith, labor, and social justice groups, will hold their Advance Detroit Summit at the Bethany Baptist Church (15122 W. Chicago) in Detroit. The event is from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and is open to the […]

A BFD in the D Last year at the Netroots Nation after-party, Anne and I, along with Marcy Wheeler (“Empty Wheel“) were chatting in a somewhat inebriated state with Netroots Nation board member Adam Bonin. “You should bring Netroots Nation to Detroit!” we told him. “Michigan needs to know that they haven’t been forgotten by the rest of the country,” […]

Wow, they are getting seriously desperate As I have written about before, Governor Rick Snyder has a pal of his working in the office next to his. Rich Baird is not paid by the taxpayers of Michigan. He’s paid out of Governor Snyder’s New Energy to Reinvent and Diversify Fund (NERD). This slush fund is financed by undisclosed corporate donors, […]

One writer’s suggestion that Detroit doesn’t deserve its art treasures is offensive, elitist and idiotic. Although she wrote an article for Bloomberg entitled “Detroit’s Van Gogh Would Be Better Off in L.A.,” Virginia Postrel has never actually set foot in the Detroit Institute of Arts. She says she has been to Detroit, though, so I’m forced to imagine she’s one […]

The edifice begins to crumble I was on the the Night Shift with Tony Trupiano Show last night talking about Governor Rick Snyder relentlessly flouting the law in the hiring of Detroit Emergency Manger Kevyn Orr. Tony brought a Detroit Free Press op-ed to my attention that I hadn’t seen and which is a must-read, in my opinion. Titled “It’s […]

Financial Review Team??? We don’t need no stinkin’ financial review team

The Detroit Free Press has obtained copies of the emails between Governor Snyder’s staff and Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr that prove that he was basically offered the position before the financial emergency had even been declared in Detroit. Under Emergency Financial Manager law that was in effect at the time, Public Act 72, a state review team had to make the determination that Detroit was actually in a financial emergency before an Emergency Financial Manager was hired. This detail … sorry – LAW – did not appear to get in the way of Governor Snyder making the assessment himself and hiring Orr before the process had been completed.

All the gory (and illegal) details await you after the jump.

Detroit Love

An anonymous donor stepped up recently and paid the entire $142,000 tax bill for Detroit’s Masonic Temple, allowing it to continue under its current ownership. This week, the Masonic Temple revealed that the generous donor was Detroit’s own Jack White, who has played nine concerts at the Masonic Temple in the past.

Click through for more.

Give ’em hell, ladies! Just a week after dogs ravaged and killed goats and chickens at the Catherine Ferguson Academy, the school for pregnant Detroit girls is back in the news. This time the spunky girls who have shown tenacity that rivals any other single group in Detroit are suing the Detroit Public Schools and the charter school that runs […]

Another one bites the dust Yesterday, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder declared a financial emergency in Hamtramck, Michigan. As I’ve written about before, this will be Round Two for the culturally-diverse city. They had an Emergency Financial Manager, Lou Schimmel, back in 2000 when John Engler was governor. Hamtramck (spelled correctly, pronounced “Ham-TRAM-ick”), is rare in that the city actually asked […]

You don’t know what you don’t know. That’s the problem.

NOTE: This post has an important update that I urge you to read (after the jump.)

It’s no secret that much of what happens in the Snyder administration regarding Emergency Managers and school funding/operations is secret. WDIV’s Kevin Dietz is reporting on more evidence that has been uncovered and this one is a real doozy. Based on emails procured through a lawsuit filed by Detroit activist Robert Davis, Dietz reports that the governor and Detroit Mayor Dave Bing were discussing who Detroit’s Emergency Manager would be long before any of it was public. They arranged for an office staffer to serve as a go-between in their correspondence, passing messages back and forth through a private email account so that the emails wouldn’t reside on state government servers.

Details with video after the jump.