June 27, 2002

Henry Teutsch

There has been a lot of discussion concerning recent legislation from the Michigan State legislator. One bill that is now law has the city of Detroit voting on whether to reorganize the City Council into Districts beginning with the 2006 election. The City Council and the Election Commission challenged this law but a judge recently declared that state law takes precedence over the City Charter and therefore the measure must go before the voters. Another piece of legislation that has yet to become law concerns the issues of government owned land in the city of Detroit. Popularly referred to as Land Banking. The range of bills (see the section, Political Reports – State Law) would remove the City Council from the process of dealing with tax reverted land and instead appoint two authorities one that would deal with the land the state owns and one that deals with the land the city owns.

These authorities are exempt from voter control and the same laws that protect elected legislators from lawsuits and other similar actions protect them. More than one editorial has criticized these bills as being bad for the city of Detroit. Yet as the City Council fights the attempts to make them the law, the mayor pushes forth with his endorsement of the idea and fights to get them passed. Kwame Kilpatrick originally introduced some of the land banking bills when he was a state legislator.

The land banking bills would strip Detroit of more than fifty percent of the revenue from any sale. It also prevents the city from dealing the issue of with who owns the land or how the land is sold. There is no provision forcing the land banking authority to sell the land at a profit. Basically Detroiters will have no say in who becomes their neighbor. This is not good public policy. The electorate is supposed to fight for the rights and well being of those who elected them to office. Not siphon off the rights or opportunities for others to abuse and profit. Kwame Kilpatrick is doing a disservice by pushing this bill. He is putting the city at risk. He is using poor judgment, proving that he has no plan to deal with the various city taxes and is proving that his judgment capabilities are sub par based on others in similar positions.

The one constant in this country is the ownership of land. Remove that power or right and you seriously limit your freedoms and powers to affect your own life or improve upon your standard of living. For Detroit to loose this ability would cripple a city with already strained resources. Putting any and all of this land back into the hand of existing Detroit resident taxpayers would increase city taxes and further stabilize the city.

Both the mayor and City Council are supposed to put forth the best interest of the city of Detroit above all other concerns. The council and mayor are there to protect the interests of the city and the citizens. Handing over the authority to deal with land inside Detroit is allowing people to control how the cities landscape shapes up over the coming years. It also severely limits the cities majority, African Americans, from attaining wealth based on land because they would no longer be given preferential treatment when buying up vacant land adjacent to their existing property. This means that a degree of instability is introduced in the city that can ill afford more problems. When MCA/RIMCO went bankrupt it caused many neighborhoods that thought this company was going to be a benefit to instead sink into a blight ridden area. These developers were not based in Detroit and therefore had no interests to make Detroit a better place and instead tried to milk every penny they could from the land they were given before their company went under.

Detroiters have on average a lower accumulated value of wealth than their neighbors. Selling land to existing property owners who live in the city would boost that wealth and secure a higher standard of living for future generations. Instead these land bills would allow someone else’s children outside of the city to benefit from the property in the city of Detroit.

Politics has been said to involve the overseeing of the transfer of wealth. When government provides an oversight it operates under the principle that its citizens should benefit and those who are in need the most are first in line for assistance. Privatizing the transfer of land ownership only benefits those wealthy enough that don’t need government assistance. It also encourages what would be considered corruption under a government run system. If privatized deals and arrangements are no longer illegal, a private authority may hand land to an individual regardless if that individual provided the best deal for the voters or residents of the city. Therefore a developer would only have to gain favor with the land banking authority to gain ownership of the land without a capital outlaw of funds. If done with a government agency as monitored by an elected body, a developer would have to bid or show proof that they are capable of doing what promised.

Kwame Kilpatrick is harming the citizens of Detroit by his support for this authority. The state legislators that voted for this authority are not living up to their promises as state legislators in their backing of this legislation. State Representative Buzz Thomas who is pushing the bills from inside the state legislator, is misleading Detroit citizens into thinking that this would benefit Detroit. It seems that only the Cit Council are living up to their role in protecting the rights of Detroit residents. The land banking proposal is harmful to the city. The mayor and state representatives are now working against Detroit’s best interests. There is a famous saying, “With friends like those who needs enemies.” I don’t know who originally said it but there is nothing that sums up this issue better.