DETROIT – It's an odd emotion sitting front row center to Detroit history.
It's usually sadness melded with surprise. Most of us vividly remember where we were when GM and Chrysler filed for bankruptcy or when jurors convicted Kwame Kilpatrick for running city hall as a criminal enterprise. We also have clear recollections of what this city was doing and how it reacted when Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. It was jarring, shocking and yet strikingly inevitable. All of these recent historic moments were low points -- the painful reminder of just how far this storied city has fallen. They are also exceptionally bitter reminders of the tragic damage done by accumulating massive amounts of debt.
Today's important bit of history comes with a much different feeling. After federal bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes confirmed the city's plan of adjustment there was no surprise. Hope replaced sadness. There was nothing short of a party atmosphere around the federal courthouse that broke from the usually dour quiet in its hallways. Attorneys hugged, shook hands, slapped backs, promised to get together soon and said goodbye. The only thing missing was the signing of yearbooks!
This bankruptcy was an unlikely comingling of high-priced professionals, federal judges, city officials and government appointees who today were flanked by the state's true power brokers. They were all celebrating the long hard journey that came with sleepless nights, long negotiations and a team effort that, at times, didn't feel so cohesive. They were beaming, drunk with the sense of accomplishment from a fabulously tough job well done.
Governor Rick Snyder made it a finer point in his remarks by saying now it truly is Detroit, Michigan: a united front, a place you want to do business and even move to and raise a family. A lot of blight will have to be removed before that happens, but at least, with the decision to pull the bankruptcy lever, the process is well under way. There is genuine optimism tonight in Detroit that goes comes with passing of a dark era.
The city now has a lot going for it. Its debt burden is cut by eight billion dollars; there is cash for revitalization that the plan parcels out in healthy, multimillion dollar annual doses. The efforts to deal with the service insolvency are moving along. There are donated cop cars and ambulances, there are street lights glowing across wider swaths of the city, the cops come more often and quicker when called. Mayor Duggan said today last week's EMS response times were the best seen in more than a decade.
Dan Gilbert of Quicken Loans, who testified in the confirmation trial, is snapping up buildings, rehabbing them and [controversially] wooing new businesses downtown. There can be no mistaking his attempts to make Downtown Detroit Chicago-like for millennials has remarkably changed the face of the downtown. It's becoming one of those a "cool cities" once only dreamt of and promised by a previous Governor who never made it happen. This is all good news and offers a great start as the city's government looks to shed the "service insolvent" tag and move out into the neighborhoods and re-make them. It may take a generation or more to accomplish, but at least on this night those possibilities are real, exciting and should be embraced.
Yet, at the same time, while the declaration by Judge Rhodes that the city's bankruptcy plan is approved and will go into effect by the first week of December is a cathartic feeing, it really just signals the beginning of a new and long road to recovery. Judge Rhodes was exceedingly skeptical of a number of things. He worries the financial review commission that will watch over Detroit's spending habits will end up mired in political back-biting and inaction that seems almost inevitable in Michigan. The judge was justifiably concerned that because the mayor and the city council president will sit on the commission, it is in their best political interest to not have good oversight. He also worried there would be lots of 5-4 votes that under the organizational structure would mean stalemate. The judge implored the governor to pick highly skilled professionals for the job.
The governor said he was already on that and had a good track record for picking good people for such jobs. Mayor Duggan was a tad insulted claiming he intends to have 9-0 votes and will make certain all the information the commission needs will be provided. All well and good. But Snyder will be gone in four years. Duggan could be gone in three. What then?
Detroit's bankruptcy plan goes out more than a decade. Back-sliding into bad habits is a real and troubling risk on the horizon. Judge Rhodes implored everyone "to make me right." He plaintively asked everyone in Detroit to help history reward his optimism. He is betting on the city and the region coalescing behind the idea of a new and prosperous Detroit. One of the reasons he made these vital points was the advice he received from his bankruptcy expert whom he employed to help him determine whether Detroit's plan is feasible.
Martha Kopacz, of Phoenix Partners in Boston, is deeply concerned about a city hall that is populated with a lot of workers who have been with the city throughout its decline and have learned to live with broken computers and more than that, a completely ineffectual way of doing business. Kevyn Orr made a startling revelation while under oath on the stand when he said the city's workforce thinks nothing of calling in sick on a daily basis. He estimated the absenteeism rate at 30 percent, again on a daily basis! Kopacz looks at this and the middle level managers who lead this unimaginably inefficient government may not be up to the job of learning new systems that would right this ship. I wrote long before the consent agreement the city was a jobs program masquerading as a service provider.
The bankruptcy does not wash away this culture. But it must! Mayor Duggan knows it can no longer do that. Kopacz is very worried the jobs program is more likely to persist as the modernization attempts become real and uncomfortable. She believes we should expect successes and failures. She, and in turn the judge, are putting their faith in the people of the city of Detroit, the people of the State of Michigan to truly make Detroit, Michigan work again.
It is a new day because of the judge's decision. Whether that has any true meaning is up to the city's residents and the people of Michigan.