Months after approving the consent agreement with the state to restructure city finances, a deeply conflicted Detroit City Council is struggling to carve out its role in the process, Darren A. Nichols writes in the Detroit News.
Political experts say the council faces a major danger: Making itself irrelevant by continuing to challenge the deal it narrowly passed in April.
The council supported a protracted legal challenge to the consent agreement that delayed key appointments for weeks. That challenge failed. Members voted against cuts to city employee unions. The next day, Mayor Dave Bing imposed the cuts, anyway, as the consent agreement allows him. Earlier this month, several council members led a rally to protest state involvement in Belle Isle.
