Posted on 12/11/2013 7:53:54 PM PST by Olog-hai
Dave Bing delivered his final official speech as Detroit’s mayor on Wednesday, proclaiming that the city is much stronger now than it was four years ago despite going through the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.
During the luncheon speech to the Detroit Economic Club, the former NBA basketball player lamented that his efforts to fix the city’s beleaguered finances were slowed by rules governing contracts with workers and an often adversarial City Council. […]
Detroit has been under state oversight since March when Gov. Rick Snyder appointed turnaround specialist Kevyn Orr as emergency manager.
Under state law, Orr has complete control over the city’s finances and spending. Both Bing’s and the City Council’s roles have diminished since Orr was hired. …
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As democrats go, Dave Bing is actually pretty good. At least he isn’t a crook facing indictment. His real problem is that he’s too old and frail for what he set out to do.
Bing >>> Kwame
I really like Dave Bing. But this job is just too big for him and the Detroit culture too entrenched to make a change.
He just had enough of it after one term. Good for him.
Edit to add — He was one hell of a point guard in the NBA during his prime.
He came into office strong.
When bus drivers called an informal strike he fired them all. He also got into the big fight with unions over deducting dues from their paychecks. He wasn’t very close with Obama and I think it was because of the tensions with the unions.
I wish I could find the video of his first address to the city council. He slammed them for being a bunch of vultures for becoming wealthy off the bones of a dying city.
I hope Mike Duggan will do the heavy lifting. He campaigned on running the emergency manager out of town but immediately changed direction when he won.
He was a great guy, he could have easily told everyone to go to h*** and then sipped some well-deserved margaritas in Florida, but he took on a very tough job that probably consumed a good part of “his golden years”...a job which proved to be impossible...for anyone, IMO.
lousy amateur mayor
The corruption, waste and fraud was/is so rampant in Detroit, that no one could have done better at this juncture. Being Mayor of Detroit will be a thankless job for quite some time to come. most the citizens are too brainwashed into The Holy Church of the Labor Union. You would think it was still fifty years ago. Labor Unions today are usually an expensive hinderance to actually getting things done. Most people would be stunned to know how prejudiced most the blacks are against electing anybody who is not black. Some will loudly refuse to consider voting for a white person. They don’t realize how racist that sounds, how racist it is, or if they do realize the bias, these folks just don’t give a damn, for now. Luckily, that kind of old school inner city dweller is slowly being outnumbered bymore open minded folks.
Well said!
WOW - sounds better than anyone would have guessed.
No mistake, he’s still a democrat but not an outright marxist. He’s just someone who has actually worked in his life. Granted he was an NBA all star but he was from the days when $20,000 was doing good for a basketball player.
Ronald Reagan awarded him the minority businessman of the year award for building and running Bing Steel.
Yes, I believe he is in the Basketball Hall of Fame. The article's description of him as a "former NBA basketball player" does him an injustice in not mentioning his superstar status as a basketball player.
I believe he also had a noteworthy business career after his retirement from basketball.
You don’t know much about basketball but you’re pretty good at politics.
I believe he was an all star several times.
One of the things that impressed me about him most was when a bank wouldn’t give him a loan to buy a house. Instead of doing the usual thing and ranting about racism, he made a deal with the bank to do PR work for them in the off season.
As I recall he had pretty good individual stats, but that’s not unusual when a decent player plays for weak teams.
Sometimes there are good Democrats... this guy sounds like one of 'em. Happens...
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