Mayor Young's Fight For State & Federal Help: Do They Have A Master Plan For The Cities?

Mayor Young’s Fight for State & Federal Help
Do They Have a Master Plan for the Cities?

Many politicians really seem to be working for other people than those who elected them. Unemployment, inflation, recessions, and depressions are not acts of God. They are man-made by those "other people" who are behind the scenes – those image-makers and breakers who engineer the processes to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

By Nadine Brown

As Mayor Coleman Young presented his crisis budget to Detroit's City Council, amounting to over $1 billion for the next fiscal year beginning July 1, one could not help but ponder over the possibility that this crucial period for Detroit and other major cities may, indeed, be part of a diabolical master plan.

When we review the adverse events over many years, and the apparent connection to what is happening now, they all seem to fit together like links in a chain. It is, therefore, logical to conclude that either a lot of people at the top are making stupid and disastrous mistakes, or the great White Fathers behind the scenes are pulling the strings attached to their dummies in Washington and Lansing, through whom they are calling the shots.

THE CRISIS BUDGET

The difference in the responses Mayor Young received to his budget proposal April 13 and those that swamped him last year would lead us to believe that some members of the Council may now, finally, be focusing on the real source of the city's problems. Not one Council member criticized the Mayor, but rather commended him for "fiscal integrity" in laying out the cold, hard facts of the state of the City.

"Last year's budget was a sacrifice budget," Young said. "This one is a crisis budget. It calls for cutbacks that cannot be maintained for more than a year. It hurts, it doesn't do the job . . . but it is reality.

"We are dealing with severe financial strains at a time when the national administration has turned away from the cities, when we must go to court even to hold on to a half share of a pittance. We cannot count on any last-minute rescue. Our options are not good, and even this bare-boned crisis budget depends on favorable and urgent action in the State Legislature."

The Mayor's budget takes into account a recent agreement between him and Governor Milliken, which was accomplished during a second meeting in Lansing. The first meeting erupted into a bitter controversy when, after the two men had agreed to withhold any announcement until they achieved some meeting of minds on the issues, details were leaked to the news media by a Milliken aide. Many thought this was done to embarrass the Mayor.

The cutbacks cited in the budget would save the city $46 million, which would decrease the expected $103 million deficit. A large portion of the Milliken-Young pact will depend on the state legislature's approval of a 3-mill property tax for garbage collection. That would cost homeowners an average of $50.35 a year, raising about $14.4 million a year for Detroit.

Due to the state aid package, Mayor Young did not include his earlier proposal for an increase in the resident and non-resident income tax. Detroit gets the lowest amount of non-resident income tax of any major American city. Nor did he mention the nuisance tax proposal, but it is reportedly being considered by state legislators.

The state aid package includes funds to cover the city's transportation employees' pensions, Detroit General Hospital, three cultural institutions, and other facilities.

THE FEDERAL RUNAROUND

In an austerity move earlier in April, the city shut down four departments and laid off 1,080 city workers, about 721 of them to be recalled with federal funds from the Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA) two weeks after layoff, according to CETA rules.

Layoffs of 700 to 1,000 or more police officers are scheduled for July 1. That blow was also to be softened by recalls with CETA money. And 159 of the 241 Fire Department employees laid off were expected to be similarly recalled.

But another roadblock was cast in the way when the U.S. Labor Department issued an order prohibiting Detroit from rehiring laid-off city workers with federal money. The SUN contacted Deputy Mayor William Beckham about this and he said, "We're not adding new slots like some cities are doing. We are just rehiring laid off people after a couple of weeks, as the rules require."

But city officials were later told that a new federal regulation prompted the order. The issue was tentatively turned around when the city, failing in appeals to the Labor Department, took the matter to the U.S. District Court. The case was heard by Judge Damon J. Keith who admonished the Labor Department that it should know about and be concerned about the devastating period of unemployment this city is going through, and that he believed the legislative intent of CETA was not to destroy or emasculate the cities.

It was obviously Keith's admonition that prompted Labor Department officials to reverse their order. They told City representatives that they could rehire laid off city workers as they had planned. However, Richard Gilliland, regional administrator and reportedly the chief architect behind the so-called new policy, later issued another warning that the matter will be reviewed and that the Labor Department may still refuse to provide CETA funds to pay the city's rehired workers.

Responding to Gilliland's remarks. City Corporation Counsel Kermit Bailer said he believes the Labor Department is attempting to formally redevelop a policy that it had tried to put through informally.

Mayor Young, who was not very surprised at the Labor Department's on-and-off policy, told the SUN, "It's not over. But we’ll deal with it." Having made numerous trips to Washington trying to get funds for this ailing city, Young's statement that the national administration has turned away from the cities came through loud and clear. A recent edition of U.S. News & World Report carried a special section about big cities. Regarding the President's stand, the report said, "In short, no big federal rescue is in the making. The Ford administration's policy: Let each city work out its own salvation with such help it now gets

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MASTER PLAN

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from Washington, and without anything extra for inflation."

TODAY AND TOMORROW

In his budget report, Young read a direct quotation about Detroit: ". . . Detroit suffered heavy losses in employment, population and income. Close to 250,000 persons fled the stricken city . . . Commercial visitors returned home to report that Detroit was a city of the dead, impossible to revive.

''The Mayor of Detroit warned of possible rioting if federal funds are not forthcoming on urgent schedules." Those were the words of Frank Murphy [former Mayor], not Coleman Young. They describe the city in the late 1930's, Young said.

"There was despair in Detroit then. Photographs of the era show long lines of sad people in ragged clothing. The kids on my block used to pry wooden paving blocks out of the side streets to burn in the stove. Detroit then had no $500 million Renaissance Center rising on the water front, no vast Civic Center Plaza and convention facility, no new medical center rising in the middle of the city. For hundreds of Detroiters, there was no certain tomorrow," he said.

"If I'm sure of one thing, it is the absolute certainty of a Detroit tomorrow. That belief is shared by the city's major corporations and community leaders. Building for tomorrow's Detroit is a part of this budget. But to get there, we must deal with Detroit today. It is this Detroit – Detroit today – that forces hard decisions upon us," Young said.

THE MASTER PLAN

All one need do is take a look at the cities showing the greatest decline, and the most callous attitude of the federal government toward them, and the evidence will show that the populations are predominately black and poor. New York City and Detroit are examples.

And the pattern is the same. People with money leave for the suburbs. Lending institutions that practice redlining, refusing to put money in ghetto areas, have played a big role in the exodus. And some industries followed. Automation is a significant factor. But another is that the system is apparently determined that no black person should be allowed to run a major city.

Many politicians really seem to be working for other people than those who elected them. Unemployment, inflation, recessions, and depressions are not acts of God. They are man-made by those "other people" who are behind the scenes – those image-makers and breakers who engineer the processes to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Just look for a minute at the way they keep prices up by subsidizing the big farm business and some manufacturing industries, for instance, a report last year stated that despite the Surgeon General's warning that cigarette smoking "is dangerous to your health," the U.S. government subsidizes tobacco growers to the tune of $39 million, paid for by smokers and nonsmokers alike.

Moreover, while America's big cities are steadily declining, the U.S. is shelling out billions of dollars putting out fires it started in other countries. Some of the money spent on space explorations and the arms race should be utilized to hold our country together.

To many people who are seriously watching developments, there is no question that a master plan is well underway that is not in the best interests of this nation and its people.

When more citizens become aware of the manmade pitfalls that threaten their very existence, and are willing to become involved, many things can be turned around.

Politicians fear an enraged electorate, and can be influenced to represent the people who elect them – instead of following orders from sources that do not consider the best interests of the people a priority item.

Nadine Brown is a regular contributor to the Michigan Chronicle.