Hallelujah All photos by Anne C. Savage, special to Eclectablog As I wrote back January (has it been that long?), the Detroit City Council set itself up to be the punchline of a bad joke when it rejected an offer by the State of Michigan to make the fabulous Belle Isle our state’s newest state park. However, in his best […]

Treating people with this level of disdain will lead to no good end [Photo by Anne C. Savage, special to Eclectablog] Last week on Wednesday, September 11th, during a 90+ degree heat wave and just two days after an escaped prisoner terrorized the city, Detroit Chief Compliance Officer Gary Brown intentionally and without notice cut power to major buildings in […]

Pay no attention to the hypocrite behind the curtain [Caricature by DonkeyHotey from photos by Anne C. Savage for Eclectablog] Last Friday the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union issued subpoenas for Governor Rick Snyder, Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, Michigan treasurer Andy Dillon, and “transformation manager” Richard Baird, compelling their testimony regarding the Snyder administration’s […]

What Detroit needs is an actual expert Photo by Anne C. Savage, special to Eclectablog. The following is a guest post by Roger Kerson and is Part 2 of a 2-part series. You can read Part 1 HERE. Roger is a Michigan-based media consultant for labor unions, environmental group and non-profit organizations. He was director of public relations at the […]

It’s good to be the king bank Graphic/photo by Anne C. Savage | Eclectablog There are two big questions swirling around Detroit’s bankruptcy, questions that will ultimately be decided by federal bankruptcy judge Steven Rhodes. The first is whether or not the public employee pension funds are actually underfunded by billions of dollars. Are they? As it turns out, it […]

Detroit ruin porn from the Emergency Manager??? One of the most widely reported statistics about Detroit, thanks to Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, is that it takes, on average, 58 MINUTES FOR THE COPS TO ARRIVE OMG OMG OMG!!! It’s all over the news, Stephen Colbert had fun with it, and it’s giving people everywhere comfort in the fact that over […]

What were the odds…? [DIA “Thinker” image modified from CC photo by Michael Barera | Wikimedia Commons] A couple of weeks ago, we learned that Christie’s auction house was in Detroit to appraise the Detroit Institute of Arts legendary collection. At the time, nobody knew who had called them in. Pamela Marcil, a museum spokeswoman, said “We don’t know who […]

Uh, Mr. Orr? You’re doing it wrong Photo by Anne C. Savage, special to Eclectablog In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr had some choice insulting words about union workers in Detroit. In the interview, he had this to say: For a long time the city was dumb, lazy, happy and rich…Detroit has been […]

Frugality is apparently NOT a job requirement Kevyn Orr scored a pretty sweet deal when he signed on as the Emergency Manager for Detroit. In addition to a car, a driver and a body guard, he’s also got a nice suite in the posh Book Cadillac hotel. This is on top of his $275,000 annual salary. Orr’s contract (pdf) also […]

The skids are greased [Caricature by DonkeyHotey from photos by Anne C. Savage for Eclectablog] It what can only be described as a clean sweep for Governor Rick Snyder and Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, a federal judge halted three separate lawsuits filed in state courts attempting to stop Snyder and Orr from taking Detroit through a bankruptcy. The argument […]

Stuff’s about to get real… Photo by Anne C. Savage, special to Eclectablog A federal judge will determine on Wednesday morning if Detroit’s bankruptcy filing is a violation of the state constitution which protects public employee pensions. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes has declared that his court has the authority to rule on a dispute between the city’s pension funds […]