The State Of The City ...and How It Got That Way

THE STATE OF THE CITY

By Derek VanPelt

There was a buzzing in the cold Detroit air outside Ford Auditorium last Thursday as hundreds of city workers, community leaders, and media people walked past thirty or forty white folks protesting the city's upcoming busing plan. Except for these, everyone had come to hear Mayor Young's second annual State of the City message.

As we settled into the Auditorium's red plush seats, waiting for the Mayor to make his appearance, and television crews made their preparations for the live broadcast at the edge of the stage, the comfortable surroundings seemed to war with the growing tension of expectancy.

Everyone in the hall was ready for bad news. They knew Detroit was faced with a $50 million budget deficit, that the city's fiscal options were limited, that there were no easy answers.

Would the Mayor announce still more layoffs, after cutting the city's work force by 18 per cent in the last two years? Would he propose turning over some of the city's unprofitable operations to the state or other authorities? Would he bring grim news of deep cuts in services, or even the elimination of entire departments, as has proposed in some quarters?

Within five minutes, Coleman Young had laid those fears to rest, at least for the moment, provoking frequent applause as he ruled out what he called "the

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...AND HOW IT GOT THAT WAY

The State of the City...And How It Got that Way

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 dismantling of the city" to shed non-supporting operations.

But the Mayor's tone was far from reassuring. As he continued to speak of the financial crisis faced by the city, his voice reflected deep concern, urgency, and even anger - "The State of the City is rarely good when the economy is crippled. It won't improve when Lansing, and Washington, are deaf to real needs.

"Why is it," the Mayor asked, "that there are provisions for emergency help and rebuilding funds and federal assistance when a tornado flattens Xenia, Ohio - but only shrugs of the shoulder when great cities are ravaged by HUD, unemployment, poverty, and crime?

"When cattle grow sick and die in Michigan, millions of dollars are proposed to ease the farmers' losses. When people grow sick and die in Detroit, the talk is about fiscal responsibility and cutbacks.

"We are now cutting into the bone - and the heart - of the city's services... We don't have good choices any more. The choice is an arm, or the other arm , a leg, or the other leg."

Recalling the violence on Livernois last summer, the Mayor continued, "The tensions and problems have not gone away.

"They will not go away if we are forced to strip the city of employees and services. They will not go away because legislators and Governors turn their backs.

"Nearly all of the solutions are in other hands. The Governor says he can't let the state help Detroit, and now he has refused to let us help ourselves.

"If the Governor and the state legislature do not see the way clear to assume state responsibility for helping Detroit, then give us the tools to help ourselves. AU of Detroit's problems will be the problems of the suburbs and the state tomorrow."

The Mayor left to a standing ovation, and we followed the crowd back onto Jefferson Avenue, past the City-County Building and the Spirit of Detroit, feeling plenty of righteous civic pride over the Mayor's defense of the city and his tough stance toward the suburban legislators in Lansing and the unresponsive bureaucrats in Washington - but realizing, as well, that we walked the streets of a city uncomfortably close to the brink.

We're $50 million in the hole right now. We have to cover another $50 million on July 1 in pay raises and benefits for city workers. Sometime in March, the city will have to borrow $64 million on a short-term basis just to meet the payroll.

Under law, if the city carries over a deficit into the new fiscal year, it must appear as a line item on the new budget.

For the past two months, a special Mayor's Task Force on City Finance has been studying the city's financial plight. Task Force members contacted by the SUN admit that, barring a miracle, or a series of miracles, the city will carry a record deficit into next year, raising the sceptre of a lethal New York-style borrowing cycle.

'The numbers get staggering after a few years, almost incomprehensible," says Task Force member Tom Banas, Community Relations Director of WWJ-TV. "If we shift to an extended fiscal year, get the state nuisance tax, the federal counter-cyclical bill, and a healthy economy, maybe the next three years will be manageable. If not, we could be in deep trouble."

"There won't be anything revolutionary in our recommendations," adds another member, Manon Wiseman of the Palmer Park Citizens Action Council. "If the city carries over a large deficit, we'll have to face the problem again next year, and without new revenues, it'll have to come out of city services."

Task Force Co-Chairman Alfred Pelham, a former City Controller, suggests that across-the -board cuts in city expenditures might have to be made in that case. Nor will Pelham rule out the renegotiation of contracts with city employees.

It is clear that if the city is to avoid a debacle, substantial help will have to come from the outside. The suburban legislators who swing so much weight in Lansing will have to set aside their short -term political interests in order to give Detroit that help. They must realize that their constituents bear a large share of the responsibility for Detroit's present condition, and have an obligation to return some of the wealth they have removed from the city over the years.

The city has done everything in its power to exercise fiscal restraint, but the problem is much bigger than Detroit can handle alone. It sterns from the accumulated social and economic ills of decades, the most glaring being the bleeding of the city by white corporate interests who turned their backs and fled to the suburbs. There they set up their new empire, leaving the devastated central core without the resources or the political power to rebuild.

If the rest of the state intends to have the continued use of Detroit's resources for very long, it will have to begin supporting them. Suburbanites must wake up and stop pretending that they can run from Detroit's problems. Otherwise, those problems will be at their doorsteps sooner than they can imagine.

In the coming months, Lansing and Washington must realize that Detroit's survival is crucial to the survival of the state and the nation. The alternatives are unthinkable.