The clock is ticking and when it stops will the City of Detroit
end-up in bankruptcy?
It seems like everyone and his uncle from the governor on down
is hoping the answer is no and the use of the Emergency Manager law may
be the only way to avoid it…at least that's what the backers of the EM
law contend which is why they invented the thing in the first place.
State treasurer officials will begin their plodding through the
red ink in the Detroit books. None of what they will find will be a
surprise as they have been unofficially looking at the books for years.
The only unanswered questions is, how deep is the ink?
That 30 day clock is now running, but one of the elements that
is lost in this story is the fact that the Mayor of Detroit and the
City Council do not have to sit on the sidelines while the state does
its thing.
One of the indirect impacts of the EM law is to send an
unmistakable wake-up call to all elected officials: Look it guys. We
can do this or you can do this without the state, and perhaps the fact
that the EM review process is underway, will motivate the mayor et.al.
to finally stop all the back and forth and get the job done.
The potential is there and the governor certainly hopes it
can be realized but ultimately if the politicians can't do it, and they
have not being doing it in Detroit for decades, the state can pick
someone who will.
The reason that "someone" will act is that he or she does
not have to run for re-election which is basically why those Detroit
officials have been unable to do the heavy-lifting on their own.
If they were to make too many controversial decisions, such
as selling Belle Isle or the water company or whatever, the voters
could bounce them out of office next time.
Hum. Let's see, make tough decisions or get un-elected?
So far the latter is winning out in Motown which is exactly
why the state is now formally getting in the act.