Detroit Withholding Consent To Consent Agreement

The opposition from the City of Detroit to the Consent Agreement proposed by the governor is getting louder and more vociferous, including from the Mayor of Detroit.

The Detroit News: Bing: Consent plan 'will not solve our problems'

Some of the opposition is of course Unions and Council membners lookign to protect their phoney-baloney jobs:

Councilwoman JoAnn Watson said officials should not be working with the state to help create the city's demise.

"You better stand up and represent this city," Watson told her colleagues Tuesday afternoon.

Councilman Kenneth Cockrel Jr. said based on the version he saw Monday, there's no way he will agree to the document.

"I am open to a consent agreement, but it has to be a consent agreement that makes sense," Cockrel said. "Would I be open to negotiating something that makes sense to protect the interests of Detroit, the authority of the mayor and the council? Absolutely. That's what we have to ultimately work on."

Some criticism is almost self-referential:

I'm old enough to remember an old adage that says if you lay down with dogs, you're going to come up with fleas," said Greg Murray, vice president of the city's Senior Accountants, Analysts and Appraisers Association. "Your legacy should not be that you turned over the city of Detroit. … Your legacy is that you stood up for Detroit."

Mr. Murray, you've been laying down with dogs in the City of Detroit for a long time now, the city is well and truly infested, and Snyder is requesting the city finally call in Terminex.

It's easy to claim you're standing up for Detroit when you busy obstructing any solution that might preserve it.

Your slogan might as well be "We had to let the Detroit go bankruptcy to save it".

Other critics were more flowery in their language:

Marcus Cummings, 23, who lives on the west side, told the City Council he didn't vote for a dictator. He wants his elected officials to solve the city's fiscal woes.

"We can solve our own crisis," he said. "I'm not asking the City Council not to vote on this consent decree. I'm demanding the City Council take this consent decree and shove it."

Indeed, with this kind of attitude the Governor ought to say that he tried his best but an EFM or bankruptcy will come next. In deference to Detroit he'll let them deal with it on their own but the State will not bail them out in any way and its all on Detroiters from here on out.

Bing's opposition, unlike the others, might however just be grandstanding. Bing might be playing to the home team so he can later say he was forced into the agreement - "Look what that nasty Governor made me do, I'm standing up for Detroit opposing it but I was forced into it by those nasty Republicans."

Then Bing can breathe a sigh of relief that someone else is stepping in to do what he can't accomplish.

This approach of course appeals to the average Detroiter who doesn't seem to care that their City is a mess and falling apart, so long as the dreaded "outsiders" don't intervene to stop the madness.