Snyder says the move is necessary because -- like many great industrial cities that have lost the factories that provided employment and tax revenues -- Detroit's finances are in rough shape. That's true enough. And it is true that local officials have had a very hard time dealing with the issues that arise when a city's tax base is disappearing.
But what Snyder does not mention is that the state he runs has played a role in Detroit's decline by withholding financial assistance that is due to the city.
The Detroit News notes that the city's elected representatives are angry with the state for failing to provide over $220 million in revenue-sharing payments.
The money was supposed to be paid to the city after it capped income tax rates. But even as Detroit's economic circumstance worsened, Snyder refused to provide the needed assistance.
"Why not give the city its revenue sharing?" asks State Representative Brian Banks, a Democrat whose district takes in a portion of Detroit's northeast side. "Why not start giving a portion of it?"
"The governor won't admit that the state is culpable in why and how Detroit has got here," State Senator Bert Johnson, a Highland Park Democrat, told the News. "If you cut revenue sharing, you cut money for the Police Department that has to manage the 139 square miles that is Detroit."
Why?
The concern on the ground in Detroit is that Snyder is not really interested in stabilizing Detroit's finances.
For all the hits it takes in the media, Detroit is a city with tremendous public assets, including Belle Isle, a 982-acre island park in the Detroit River, which is managed by the Detroit Recreation Department. It's got public utilities, such as the Detroit Department of Water and Sewerage. Even the Detroit Institute of the Arts, which has an art collection valued at more than one billion dollars, could be up for grabs.
As the Metropolitan AFL-CIO noted, the governor's move "will benefit out of town creditors and make our communities less livable."
And it will all happen without the approval of the voters or their elected representatives.
That's the fundamental challenge.
In tough times, under pressure from lenders and taxpayers, cities often make cuts. They even privatize services and sell off public facilities.
But, under Snyder's emergency manager law, Detroit's elected officials won't be making any of those calls.
An appointee of a Republican governor will be doing do.
This is not what the voters of Detroit asked for. Last fall, they had an opportunity to vote on whether the state should maintain the emergency manager law. Eighty-two percent of Detroit residents voted "no."
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