You’re not helping. Not at all. Flint is a city that is slowly working to crawl its way out of the crater left behind when automakers left and the manufacturing sector imploded. Bit by bit, one step at a time, city leaders are bringing the city back with a strong vision for the future. Then stuff like this happens: Flint […]

“The laws right now are written to mete out punishment to local officials, but there need to be clear partnership requirements for the state to address fiscal stress.” Flint, Michigan is rare in that it has not had just one Emergency Manager. It has had four different managers and the current “emergency” is the second one for the former manufacturing […]

“We had hundreds of people involved. There was a real community appetite for this process…they wanted their voice to be heard and they were prepared to come out and be a part of it.” NOTE: Part 2 of this interview can be found HERE. When Dayne Walling was elected to be the mayor of the struggling city of Flint in […]

This isn’t going away, governor

Retired government employees from both Flint and Pontiac have filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court in Detroit to have Public Act 436 and its predecessor Public Act 4 — Michigan’s anti-democratic Emergency Manager laws — declared illegal under the Bankruptcy Clause and Contracts Clause of the US Constitution, as well as Chapter 9 of Title 11 of the United States Code. The complaint (pdf) rests largely on the argument that these laws favored one set of creditors over others. Namely, they claim retirees and unions have seen their contracts negatively impacted while businesses and banks have gotten away without taking a hit.

Details are after the jump.

Uh, someone didn’t get the memo that the answer to everything is to cut corporate taxes

Flint Emergency Manager Ed Kurtz is leading a push to increase city income taxes by 0.5% for residents and 0.25% for non-residents. That’s a 50% increase. Why? Turns out Flint is out of money and needs revenue. It’s almost as if Flint’s problems weren’t caused by waste, fraud, and mismanagement after all.

More after the jump.

The State of Michigan is in a weird state

A collection of stories about Detroit, Flint and the jaw-dropping stuff happening in these two cities.

Click through for the Full Monty.

Things are NOT getting better

Today, the State Court of Appeals ruled that the review teams that recommended Emergency Managers for Detroit and Flint were not subject to the Open Meetings Act. The court ruled that they are not a “governing body” so they are exempt from the requirement.

[More after the jump…]

What the good judge giveth, the Appeals Court taketh away

On March 20th, Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina sent Flint Emergency Manager Michael Brown packing as she overturned the work of the review team that put him in place. Once again it was for violations of Michigan’s Open Meeting Act.

I characterized that decision as “for now” and I was, not surprisingly, right. Yesterday, the Court of Appeals overturned her ruling and Brown is back in while the state appeals the decision.