Here's the solution to Detroit's problems.
Posted on 04/12/2005 11:21:02 AM PDT by wmichgrad
DETROIT (AP) — Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick on Tuesday presented a draft budget that includes 754 additional layoffs, including some in the police and fire departments.
Detroit has been struggling with a deficit of more than $300 million, and some have predicted the city could end up in receivership.
The 754 layoffs are in addition to more than 900 job cuts that Kilpatrick announced in January. At that time, he said he had no plans to touch police officers.
In his address to City Council on Tuesday, Kilpatrick proposed reducing the number of commanders and inspectors in the department. In addition, existing classes at the police academy would be suspended, he said.
"Not one police officer who is out there patrolling the streets today will be laid off," Kilpatrick said.
However, he said that promise could be kept only if the officers' union agrees to renegotiate benefits.
In addition, Kilpatrick is proposing 61 layoffs in the fire department and 47 in EMS.
Here's the solution to Detroit's problems.
Waiting to see how this is my fault.
Sounds like Detroit politicians gearing up for a tax increase. Watch your wallets !!!
It isn't; it's Bush's fault.
That's part of the problem. There is virtually no tax base in Detroit.
In other words, he's bouncing the worthless bums who sit at their desks and eat donuts all day....good for him.
If unions don't renegotiate all over this country they will find their dues payor rolls diminish significantly. Cities cannot afford the the overtime abuse and the sweet defined benefit plans unions offer.
A land fill with a newly renovated cobo hall, paid for by all citizens in the tri-county area.
Soon? It was practically that way 5 years ago when we left there. Hollyweird can use it for a set for a movie about some long lost society. At least they wouldn't have to build any abandoned neighborhoods or anything. I do understand they finally got a decent airport though.
Did you actually read the short article? It isn't the rank and file being let go, it's the command staff. Do you still have a problem with that? Do you know anything about the situation in Detroit?
Oh yes there is --- HOME OWNERS and BUSINESS OWNERS !!!
Like I said -- Watch your wallets !!
Sure...Let's turn it into another job 'Americans won't do'...If we get the wages low enough and eliminate the benefits, we have another spot to put the illegal aliens...
In about 100 years Detroit will be a national park. Come and see the ruins of and abandoned 20th century industrial city.
...stark evidence of the failure of liberal urban policy.
Coincidentally, greater metro Detroit is also home to America's most densely populated Arab-American community. And it is thriving.
Since 9/11, 20 new businesses have opened on a three-mile stretch of East Dearborn's Warren Avenue alone. The commercial heart of the Detroit area's 93,000-member Arab community, East Dearborn borders Detroit's west side. Warren Avenue is the American Dream come alive — a street jammed with grocers, restaurants, and appliance stores that service the neat, working-class, predominantly Arab neighborhoods behind it. Shoppers of every ethnic variety bustle along the neatly manicured sidewalks from merchant to merchant, their stores' names displayed in both English and Arabic. It is an American success story, unaffected by the tremors of 9/11.
But when Warren Avenue crosses Central Avenue, the vista dramatically changes. Central marks the border of East Dearborn, the beginning of Detroit, and the end of hope. Like someone has flipped a switch, the streets are suddenly lifeless. Storefront after storefront stands empty or boarded up. Graffiti defaces walls, and grass pokes through cracked, neglected sidewalks. The few faces that populate these desolate streets are mostly African American.
When asked to explain the startling change where Warren meets Central, Detroit congressman John Conyers bluntly answers: "Racism." But the white/black divide of Eight Mile is really a myth — a convenient crutch. Southfield, the prosperous suburb immediately northwest of Detroit is 54-percent African American. Dearborn is 30-percent Arab. Detroit's bordering townships are racial melting pots of Arab, Polish, black, and Jew, hardly the WASPish communities Conyers remark would lead you to believe.
The reason hope ends at Central, Telegraph, Eight Mile, and Mack is not because of racism, but government policy. Small entrepreneurs have no confidence that the city will protect their stores. Detroit charges a 1 percent income tax for non-residents working in Detroit. The city's ill-educated workforce sports a staggering 47-percent illiteracy rate. And a generation of welfare addicts are just now gaining the discipline necessary to keep a job.
The results of these public policies are everywhere. Detroit, Michigan's largest city with 970,000 people, has only one movie theater, the Phoenix on Eight Mile (where a man was shot in the stomach on the film's opening night). It does not contain a single large retail store. Not one. Detroiters must travel to neighboring Dearborn to find a Sears or a Marshall's. Seventy percent of children are born into single-parent households. Kids walking to school along Hamilton Avenue on the city's west side or John R Road on the east side — just to use two of numerous examples — pass rows of abandoned buildings (an estimated 10,700 dot the city), dope addicts and criminals often lurking inside. On the city's main street, Woodward Avenue, teenagers serve Popeye's and McDonald's kid's meals from behind bulletproof glass.
The city's ill-educated workforce sports a staggering 47-percent illiteracy rate. And a generation of welfare addicts are just now gaining the discipline necessary to keep a job.
The results of these public policies are everywhere. Detroit, Michigan's largest city with 970,000 people, has only one movie theater, the Phoenix on Eight Mile (where a man was shot in the stomach on the film's opening night). It does not contain a single large retail store. Not one. Detroiters must travel to neighboring Dearborn to find a Sears or a Marshall's.
Seventy percent of children are born into single-parent households. Kids walking to school along Hamilton Avenue on the city's west side or John R Road on the east side — just to use two of numerous examples — pass rows of abandoned buildings (an estimated 10,700 dot the city), dope addicts and criminals often lurking inside. On the city's main street, Woodward Avenue, teenagers serve Popeye's and McDonald's kid's meals from behind bulletproof glass.
Detroit's been morally and ethically bankrupt for years; now they're likely to be financially bankrupt too - how appropriate.
Let's see, where's my copy of "Liberal Agenda On Idyllic City Management"... ah, here it is. Let's see. "How to make your city a socialist idyll in six easy steps:"
'1. Run off all major businesses by raising taxes and being obstructionist. They're just evil capitalist scum and they're always major polluters.' Check.
'2. Increase taxes to make up for the now missing major taxpayers. People don't mind paying for government services.' Check.
'3. If they haven't left already, run off most of the home owners by raising taxes. They can live in your new public housing projects and help justify step 4.' Check.
'4. Say that due to the vast number of people on the government dole and the loss of property owners to tax, you must now raise taxes. People don't mind paying for government services.' Check.
'5. Lay off the fire and police employees. Since you have no evil capitalists, there should be no more crime. Increase taxes to fund more socialist programs while doing this.' Check.
'6. Repeat as necessary. You should now have a crime-free socialist idyll, since everyone is now on the government dole and there are no evil capitalists in the area.'
Hmmmm... Somehow doesn't seem to work quite according to plan.
So true. There's really nothing that can turn Detroit around anymore.
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