This past week, the City Council of Allen Park voted to fire their City Administrator Karen Folks. Why? Because she has essentially made herself the dictator of the city that recently saw their Emergency Manager leave because their financial emergency was declared over. [Former Emergency Manager Joyce] Parker hired Folks as city administrator before she left her post as emergency […]

On December 12, 2012, just a few weeks after the General Election, Michigan legislators passed the bill that would become Public Act 436, the latest iteration of Michigan’s anti-democratic Emergency Manager Law. Voters had overturned the previous version of the law in November and Republicans wasted no time in resurrecting it, overturning the will of a majority of voters and […]

Emergency Managers: they’re not just for black folks anymore

Since it became clear that Michigan’s Emergency Manager law — Public Act 4 — was disproportionately impacting majority African American communities, I have been warning that this was something that wasn’t likely to stay confined to those towns. In fact, I have written, it was likely going to take a majority white city staring down the barrel of state-appointed dictator — a viceroy, if you will — before non-African American Michiganders would start to take notice.

Attention, white Michiganders: it’s time to take notice.

Details after the jump.

Dunt, dunt, dunt. Another one bites the dust. In the never-ended steamroller crushing municipal debt, another Detroit-area city, Allen Park, appears to now be headed down the road toward the imposition of an Emergency Manager. This one may be voluntary. The Allen Park City Council Tuesday voted unanimously to start the process that could put the city on track for […]

You may recall me writing about how the Michigan city of Allen Park planned to layoff their entire fire department. Well, they have reversed that decision. But not before wringing concessions out of their fire fighters. Of course. The Allen Park City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to rescind layoff notices that were sent to the city’s 26 firefighters last […]

Holy #@%&!!! Blaming budget woes on a failed movie studio arrangement, the Allen Park City Council voted Tuesday night to issue layoff notices to its firefighters… The layoffs affect all 27 firefighters except for the chief, who is appointed. Allen Park had, apparently put all its eggs in a single basket: Unity Studios. When the film studio pulled out of […]