Protest calls for moratorium on debt service

Banks are responsible for the destruction of many cities, and Detroit is a prime example, according to demonstrators who gathered outside the downtown Bank of America on May 9 in solidarity with the protest that took place in Charlotte, N.C., that same day. In all, more than 200 such demonstrations took place across the United States.

This embattled city was recently forced into a “Financial Stability Agreement,” which mandates payment of over $16 billion to financial institutions. Bank of America is the second-largest holder of municipal debt in the U.S.

In Detroit, which has perhaps been the hardest hit municipality in the current economic crisis, the electorate has been disenfranchised and the public school system is under the control of an emergency manager. Efforts aimed at forcing the state to nullify Public Act 4, the so-called “dictator law,” have been thwarted by two Republican members of the State Board of Canvassers who said that the petitions with 226,000 signatures had the wrong-sized font so they were therefore invalid.

The demonstration at BOA, called by the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions & Utility Shutoffs, demanded that city politicians refuse to pay debt service to the banks and instead keep public monies to fund municipal jobs, public transportation and human services. Gathering outside the bank at rush hour, protesters chanted, “Money for the city, not for banks!”

This demonstration — which was endorsed by the Occupy Detroit Eviction Defense Committee, the Southeast Michigan Jobs With Justice Coalition, United Auto Workers Local 600 and the Committee for Justice for Aiyana Jones — was the first of its kind in the city that specifically focused on the need to stop the banks from draining the municipal treasury. The Financial Stability Agreement is mandating large-scale employee and service cuts that include up to 3,500 layoffs and closing the departments of health and human services.

Don’t pay the banks!

After picketing at Bank of America, the demonstrators marched through the financial district to City Hall, where a rally was held. Speakers included anti-foreclosure attorney Vanessa Fluker, Wayne County Commissioner Martha G. Scott, Moratorium NOW! organizer Jerry Goldberg, UAW Local 600 Vice President A. J. Freer, and City Councilperson JoAnn Watson.

A statement read by the Moratorium NOW! Coalition at the demonstration pointed out: “The Mayor and the City Council (5-4 vote) caved in to Gov. Rick Snyder and Wall Street by handing the City over to a Financial Advisory Board. The purpose of the FAB is to guarantee the looting of Detroit by the banks by insuring the ‘payment in full of the scheduled debt service requirements on all bonds, notes and municipal securities’ (Public Act 4).”

The statement stressed that the “Snyder financial review team reported the City of Detroit paid $597 million to the banks in 2010 for debt service. The same banks that destroyed the neighborhoods of Detroit by their racist, predatory, sub-prime, criminal mortgages will be assured of getting paid from the City’s treasury.”

Moratorium NOW! Coalition members are planning a citywide town hall meeting to build a broader alliance to fight the banks. This alliance would organize additional demonstrations and more militant actions in defense of the people whose city has been systematically destroyed by the capitalist system.

Other actions taking place in Detroit include a campaign to move people into the thousands of foreclosed and abandoned homes across the city. A lawsuit was filed by a city union in Wayne County Circuit Court on May 11 to prevent the closure of the Human Services Department and the transfer of its authority to private entities outside the city.