Michigan’s anti-democratic emergency financial manager law takes effect (Benton harbor)

[Hannah Bell]

On March 16, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed Public Act 4 of 2011 into law. The bill...extends the powers of appointed Emergency Financial Managers (EFMs), to institute fiscal reform of local and municipal government. Less than a month after the passage of the new law...Benton Harbor’s EFM, Joseph Harris, issued an order suspending the decision-making powers of the city commission, effectively barring them from taking any action without his permission.

The population of Benton Harbor is approximately 11,000...92 percent black, with a median household income of $17,471. Home to the corporate headquarters of appliance manufacturer Whirlpool, Benton Harbor’s last remaining manufacturing plant closed this year.

Benton Harbor has also been the scene of a litigious and explosive fight over the use of Jean Klock Park, Benton Harbor’s only public lakefront park. Part of the park was leased to a private developer for a luxury golf course and residential development. The development of Jean Klock Park was partially backed by the Whirlpool Corporation and promoted by a bipartisan group of Michigan legislators and government officials, including former Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm; Fred Upton, Republican congressman, grandson of Whirlpool co-founder Frederick Upton; current Republican Governor Rick Snyder; and Republican Representative Al Pscholka, a former staffer for Upton, who now represents Benton Harbor’s district.

Significantly, Pscholka sponsored the legislation that enabled the Emergency Financial Manager bill. With the adoption of PA 4, EFM Joseph Harris could dispense with the remaining acres of Jean Klock Park for private development under the guise of “economic redevelopment,” and there would be no public recourse. With PA 4, such an action of public plunder for private gain has been sanctioned. Indeed, that is its object... Benton Harbor is not the only city targeted by the new law....

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/may2011/bent-m02.shtml

[Drale]

1. "There would be no public recourse"

O but there is, its the pink elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. Violent revolution, if it happens anywhere its going to happen in Michigan.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. Is there any documented evidence that the Benton Harbor EFM intends to sell off the park?

I ask since it is not covered in the current get well plan or in the public meetings.

[Hannah Bell]

3. i think it's pretty obvious from the history that something like that is in the works.

the private developments that have already been put in pretty much show the cards.

[Maraya1969]

4. There was a couple un-rec's. I got it to 4. Obviously this type of thing

is only made possible under the cover of darkness. Let's let some light shine on it OK?

Edit to remove mistakes

[starroute]

5. There were riots in Benton Harbor in 2003

They seem to have been pretty unfocused, though. Just a boiling over of anger with no clear goal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benton_Harbor_riots

In June 2003, a small minority of the residents in Benton Harbor rioted for two days when black motorcyclist Terrance Shurn, being chased by a mixed-race police officer, crashed into a building and died. Five homes were set on fire, and about 300 state troopers and law enforcement personnel from neighboring communities came to Benton Harbor to stabilize the situation. Many saw the riots as a sign of frustration from the mostly black youth population.


http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0620/p01s04-ussc.html

When Benton Harbor erupted in violence this week, the trigger was ostensibly a high-speed police chase through a residential neighborhood. It was the second such pursuit in three years, and the second to result in the death of a young black.

But as with most riots, this is a story that goes much deeper than the immediate event that lit the fuse. It's about years of pent-up frustration over that gulf that separates Benton Harbor from St. Joseph. Over the sense most Benton Harbor residents have that a fair trial is impossible in Berrien County, which encompasses both towns, and that the police force engages in practices - like high-speed chases - that would be unheard of across the river. Over the accumulated anger of being pulled over by cops too often, of having job applications rejected before they were glanced at, of the assumptions that if you live in Benton Harbor, you must be a drug dealer, a criminal, a drop-out. . . .

When journalist and author Alex Kotlowitz wrote "The Other Side of the River," about another divisive death here in 1991, the undercurrent then, too, was the gap between the two towns.

To this day, Benton Harbor residents remain convinced that the black boy found in the river, who was dating a white girl, was murdered by whites, while St. Joseph residents insist he drowned accidentally.