Detroit: Update On Emergency Manager
I don't consider myself a big fan of Emergency Managers. I try to focus on the problem and to solve it and right now I have not seen a better solution. Some say it is Democracy. The "democracy" that you speak of got the city in the trouble that it presently confronts. The Governor had to do something. There are 700,000 citizens of the state that he has a fiduciary responsibility to. He gave the city council the opportunity to enter into a consent agreement and they didn't. Mayor Bing seems to be a good, honest guy but he lacked the leadership skills to take the appropriate action. The City Council was busy fighting among themselves, the Mayor and the state. Snyder had to do something. Yes, he went about overturning the voters wishes in an inappropriate manner. (His initial mistake was to take for granted that the Emergency Manager law, as it was written, would be passed by the voters.) Yes he lined up Orr in the shadows and in my opinion made a mistake giving Orr