Detroiters rally to stop takeover

Thousands of Detroiters came together Jan. 2 for a rally to overturn Public Act 4 and to stop the threatened imposition of an emergency manager on the City of Detroit. Community, union, religious and political activists joined elected politicians at Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church to make a final push for the last few weeks of petitioning to place a referendum on the November ballot to overturn the statewide emergency manager law. Volunteer petitioners have garnered more than 170,000 signatures and are seeking 250,000 in total to ensure the referendum is put on the ballot. If they succeed, enforcement of the act will be stayed pending voting results.

Jan. 2 rally. WW photo: Bryan G. Pfeifer

Dozens of speakers denounced the anti-democratic, anti-Civil Rights and racist law, which has already been imposed on the cities of Benton Harbor, Pontiac and Flint, Mich. Among the speakers were Detroit City Council members Joann Watson, chair of the rally, and Kwame Kenyatta and Brenda Jones; U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr.; Wendell P. Anthony, head of the Detroit NAACP; Saundra Williams, president of the Metro-Detroit AFL-CIO; and Al Garrett, president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 25.

Other speakers included Maureen Taylor, chair of Michigan Welfare Rights Organization; representatives of the Sugar Law Center, which is leading the litigation challenging the constitutionality of the act; Rev. David Bullock of Operation PUSH, who announced plans for a civil disobedience action at Gov. Rick Snyder’s house on Jan. 16; and Brandon Jessup of Michigan Forward, the community organization spearheading the petition campaign.

Jerry Goldberg, a leader of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions & Utility Shutoffs, addressed the rally on the role of the banks in creating Detroit’s fiscal disaster. He described how the emergency manager act is a “bankers’ law that provides for the breaking of union contracts and selling off and privatization of city assets while guaranteeing full payment of debt service to the banks — the same banks that have destroyed our city with racist, predatory subprime lending and massive foreclosures.”

Imposition of an emergency manager will lead to the immediate declaration of a default on debt service by the banks, resulting in the city having to pay a $400 million penalty, which amounts to one-third of the city’s budget. The call for a moratorium on debt service to the banks was well-received by the audience.