Detroit's City Council had a great fall
And after departures, all remaining members
Couldn't put the council together again
Behold the incredible shrinking council: Kwame Kenyatta left last Friday. Gary Brown confirms Wednesday morning that he switched teams. And Charles Pugh has a work-or-go ultimatum by 5 p.m. today from the emergency manager, Kevyn Orr.
Charles Pugh has an ultimatum from Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr.
If Pugh follow Brown and Kenyatta out the exit door, the nine-seat council will have six members. And two of those, Kenneth Cockrel Jr. and JoAnn Watson, aren’t seeking re-election this year.
It's not exactly a high-value, high-impact job in the era of emergency management, as Brown's resignation statement acknowledges. His new "position affords the opportunity to focus more heavily on the pivotal areas . . . where Detroiters will feel the greatest positive impact." he writes in a "Dear Detroiter" letter posted on Facebook early Wednesday.
Another fresh comment there is from Desiree Monique Ferguson, an attorney at the State Appellate Defender Office in Detroit. In her view, council departees are "following the lesson we give to our kids about getting the hell out the way when the bullshit starts flying. In this case, the bullshit is about 6 feet deep."
Whether the council is at full-size or shrunken by a third doesn't make much difference, as Councilwoman Saunteel Jenkins seems to suggest.
“There’s value in leaving the seats open and saving those dollars,” she said Tuesday, according to Christine Ferretti of The Detroit News. Council members earn $74,000 a year and have staff budgets of about $270,000.
Ferretti's report atop the front page is headlined "Possible exits leave Detroit City Council in turmoil" and the lead sentence packs this punch:
The virtually powerless Detroit City Council in the era of emergency manager rule is evaluating its future now that it stands to lose a third of its members within days.
Kenyatta's departure for an undisclosed medical reason and Brown's to become Kevyn Orr's chief deputy add "to the drama of a tug-of-war over whether the council has any influence over the affairs of a city on the brink of bankruptcy," as Ferretti puts it.
One of those The News quotes, political consultant Eric Foster of Troy, is unsure what metaphor best describes the situation so he mixes three:
“The wheels are coming off. The overall framework of the City Council is a tsunami that’s hitting. It’s similar to the overall crisis we’ve been facing for the past 60 years in the city of Detroit. All of the checks are coming due.”
Ferretti explains why one more vacancy could be imminent:
Pugh, the council president, must decide by tonight if he’s able to carry out his elected duties or face having Orr strip him of his pay and responsibilities. Orr set the deadline Tuesday after rejecting Pugh’s bid for a month-long medical leave. Orr cannot fire Pugh, but can eliminate his salary and duties.
"At this rate, the council table will be empty by Labor Day," quips News business columnist Daniel Howes in a blog post.
In her Page One article, the city hall reporter notes that the council already has been neutered, in effect:
"The nine-member panel has seen most of its power taken away under leadership installed by Lansing to fix years of growing deficits, rising legacy costs and a continuing exodus of residents and businesses."
Orr has a secret plan about how the partial-size council should proceed, spokesman Bill Nowling tells Ferretti.
For now, he's waiting to see what the council proposes to do about vacancies.
