Detroit's mayor casts a trip to Japan as a trade mission designed to "lay the groundwork for the expansion of jobs for Detroiters,” he says in a statement quoted by The Detroit News. The trip to Tokyo and Toyota City, which began Friday, is Mike Duggan's first mayoral mission overseas. It's financed by delta Air Lines and a local business society.
A conservative local critic, former journalist Bill Johnson, uses "junket" in a blog post about the trip that starts by saying Mike Duggan is "a jet-setter to a foreign land."
Johnson, a communication consultant who was at The News from 1987-2002 as an editorial writer and columnist, headlines his post "Stay home, Mayor Duggan."
"Answers to the myriad problems facing Detroit won’t be found on this trip" by Mayor Mike Duggan, says Bill Johnson (right).
Citing foreign trade mission by mayoral predecessors Dennis Archer and Dave Bing, he writes:
History shows the benefits to Detroiters from these excursions are dubious, at best. The mayor’s time would be better spent addressing issues that require his immediate attention at home. . . .
A junket by any other name is still a junket.
The travels of Mayor Duggan appear to contain more political symbolism than substance. Answers to the myriad problems facing Detroit won’t be found on this trip or, for that matter, some distant shore. Removing the economic, social and political obstacles to trade and investment demands the attention of a stay-at-home mayor.
-- Alan Stamm
