Thursday, April 9, 2009

Detroit: Resurrection Postponed

Ironic, isn't it? As the Christian feast of the Resurrection (Easter) approaches, a local judge has struck a blow to make sure that the city of Detroit doesn't have an even chance to rise from its ashes.

Quoting Thursdsay April, 9 Detroit Free Press:
Wayne County Circuit Judge Isidore Torres held that Detroit Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. had no power to veto the City Council's rejection of the state law creating the authority....The decision puts into doubt the $288 million that would have funded an expansion and renovation of Cobo that has been viewed as essential to preserving the city's signature event -- the North American International Auto Show.
Detroit's Queen of the Council, Monica Conyers, was ecstatic: It gave her a chance to deride Detroit Mayor Ken Cockrel once again and babble on about how this keeps Cobo's assets under Detroit City Council's control. Read: Somebody was trying to cut Detroit's inner political circle out of the loot. This in a city reeling from tales of graft, incompetence, feather-bedding, bribes, nepotism and all the other earmarks of a corrupt, self-interested political machine with one goal in mind: Keep the control and the devil take the hindmost.

Detroit, now more than ever, needs a miracle resurrection that will transform this profoundly compromised political landscape into one that will become part of a regional coalition to revive this once great metropolitan era. Monica Conyers and her supporters have assured everyone who will listen that she will have no part in that unifying and healing process.

Tell us, Monica, when the North American Auto Show follows the rest of the industry out of town, exactly what will you be left to rule?

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