Money talks, Detroit silenced--Who’s listening to the grassroots?

[Starry Messenger]

http://www.michigancitizen.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=1&twindow=&mad=&sdetail=8758&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=1070&hn=michigancitizen&he=.com


By Diane Bukowski
Special to Michigan Citizen

DETROIT — Anger and frustration.

That’s the mood of hundreds of bloc club officials, Citizen District Council members, volunteer community groups, regular citizens — many with decades of community service and some just recently organized — they can’t get the ear of the mayor or the city council and they are angry. The list of money forces lining up to direct city and school budgets and plans include the who’s who of Michigan politics and business. Some, but not all, are familiar: The Skillman Foundation, Kresge Foundation, Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, New Detroit and Pete Karmanos of Compuware are among many others.

Long-time community leaders say while these billion-dollar foundations have access to the mayor and council, they lack the hard-won resident perspective and legal authority to decide the city’s future.

If he who pays calls the tune, then the foundation influence is understandable. According to a Time magazine report, the $3.1 billion Kresge Foundation is paying Urban Planner Toni Griffin to lead the downsizing of Detroit. She works within city planning department, but is paid from the foundation. Skillman and Kresge foundations put up $1.85 million to finance Data Driven Detroit (DDD), an agency that mapped the city’s 139-square-miles to aid Griffin’s downsizing. The Eli Broad Foundation and an additional secret source are paying a portion of state-appointed DPS Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb’s $400,000 plus salary.

The influence extends beyond downtown into the neighborhoods, where the clash between the visions of community groups and foundations play out.

much more at the link

[stray cat]

1. Grass roots needs to create jobs

if we are anti-corporations we need to create good paying jobs ourselves

[RainDog]

2. lol.

kick 'em while they're down!

piss on the poor and suffering!!

shit on anyone who doesn't have the money to buy a public official!!

that's democracy in fucking action, baby.

[Starry Messenger]

7. Some people really looo-oove corporations.

It some quirk in this stage of human development I'll never understand. I hope it disappears soon!

[nashville_brook]

3. it reads to me like they're trying to privatize the city.

[Starry Messenger]

4. Everything I've read this year regarding Detroit

leads me to believe that as well. It is being used as a laboratory for free market "solutions". I get the impression of several top-down monied interests using Detroit as an "opportunity", with no buy-in from the people most affected.

[nashville_brook]

5. i think that anytime you've got outsiders coming into communities "to fix 'em"

what's really going on is a looting. they're looking for ways to profit from razing the city, and in order to that, they have to perform their "urban removal."

[Starry Messenger]

8. NB, I totally agree.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2009/04/vulture-philanthropy-descends-on.html

I lived in Oakland during the time of when folks swooped in on the OUSD so I've been watching what is going on in Detroit with an alarmed eye. Detroit is undergoing a disaster as comprehensive as Katrina, and there are sociopaths who view this as a cherry opportunity for their own interests. That makes me ill!

[Hannah Bell]

9. i think so too.

[snot]

6. K&R'd. Disaster Capitalists strike again.