Detroit Tax Woes Forum

Patterson Hated For Giving Away Suburban Taxes

Council woman Cockrel said that the city has spent over $10 Million over the past six years to monitor their police department so that Detroit citizens could get good service and Detroit could get control of crime. It's clear that the money achieved nothing, and the lawyer who is running it was schtooping the Mayor.

Once again the citizens of Detroit are given the short end of the stick by the corrupt politicians who have convinced Detroiters that they are protecting Detroiters from the real enemy: the suburbs.

That's right - the suburbs. It's hilarious if you think about it. The Mayor is fooling around with everything that walks, and what he isn't stealing with pay to play is being used to pay off policeman to keep them from testifying, or to pay East Coast lawyers who were contracted to improve the police department for doing nothing.

Monica, Martha, Joann and Barbara Rose are singing," We Will Overcome," while the suburbs try their darndest to give them taxes to fix Cobo Hall. Meanwhile no one is asking why they are spending millions over several years and the police service is not improving.

Fighting with the suburbs is the biggest problem Detroit has. Not only does the actions of their politicians drive away suburban spending and suburban investment, but it becomes an election ruse that allows corrupt politicians an easy path to power. You don't actually have to prove that you will improve the city to get elected, you just have to tell Detroiters that you will protect them from the suburbs and you skate through the election.

The strangest part is that there is no reason for it. Is any other city paranoid about its suburbs? What have the suburbs done to deserve to be feared?

Detroit was proud of itself for sending Governor Engler back to Lansing when he offered to fix broken school districts. They boasted about how they had fought off the enemy. Here was living proof that the outsiders did in fact want to take over, like Coleman Young had said so many times, and they protected their borders. Even though it was ten years ago, I heard a woman bragging about it during the Kwame controversy on TV.

So now another ten years of Detroit school children are stolen from, have no money for textbooks, or even toilet paper if you can believe it. And the state sends in a black man to do what they had tried to do ten years ago, and its okay because the man is black. Maybe they would have sent a black man ten years ago, and hundreds of thousands of kids may have had a chance at a better education.

Detroiters even fool themselves about the condition of their city. It has been called by filmmaker Michael Moore, " a landscape from another planet." During the Final Four tournament, an out of town writer called it," embarassing filth." When asked what Iraq was like, a TV newsperson said it was," actually nicer than Detroit."

When the corruption gets out of hand (more than normal), Detroiters will respond by voting for a Dennis Archer or Dave Bing. But almost immediately you hear comments like "Uncle Tom" and "acting white." It seems Detroiters aren't happy unless their politicians are fighting with the suburbs. Ever since blacks became the majority, they were weaned on fighting with the suburbs for decades by Coleman Young. They can't live without it.

To Detroiters, the world can be going to heck in a handbasket but it won't matter if they have someone in power standing up to someone in the suburbs. L. Brooks Patterson, or any Republican for that matter, are their favorite targets. Meanwhile Patterson is putting his job on the line by giving away suburban taxes during a deep recession to fix a building in another city, Cobo Hall.

Maybe someday Detroiters will realize there is nothing to fear in the suburbs, and in fact there are many people who live there that would like to see the city improve. Maybe someday they will realize that the real enemy is their politicians who use the suburb fights to get elected, then steal them blind. Maybe, but I doubt it. It's too much fun hating on a group that actually supports you.