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This is the second part of an interview that ran in the October 2013 edition of the People’s Tribune.
DETROIT — Illinois has the worst credit rating of any state in the nation. An overall pension debt of nearly $97 billion and a backlog of unpaid bills nearing $10 billion. The City of Chicago recently saw its credit rating downgraded because of a $19 billion unfunded pension liability that Moody’s puts closer to $36 billion. The City of Los Angles could also be facing a liability of more than $30 billion. Yet no one, including Mr. Orr, has referred to these cities as dumb, lazy, happy and rich.
Mr. Orr has only seen fit to castigate and denigrate the people inside the City of Detroit. Mr. Orr, Detroit is better than that. Our workers are better than that. Our leaders are better than that and the people who live here are better than that! As a matter of fact, it is these same people who now, after federal loans to GM and Chrysler, have worked to see the US auto industry back on top where it properly belongs. This does not sound like lazy nor complacent workers.
It is unfortunate that a man given such responsibility and unlimited power by a governor who disregarded the will of 2.3 million Michiganders by circumventing the NO vote to this entire process, can be so out of touch with reality. Mr. Orr just got to Detroit five months ago. He has no stake in this city. He does not live in this City. He will be leaving this city in a matter of months. This is a dramatic indication of what happens when an unelected, not responsible to the people in the community, so-called “benevolent dictator” (in his own words) is left to run loose among the people he is supposed to serve. We who remain here will be forced to pick up, clean up and fix up after Mr. Orr is long gone.
It must be said that the real culprit in all of this is the governor of the state, Rick Snyder who made this ill-conceived appointment. For it is the governor who is allowing Mr. Orr to disrespect an entire city. The governor has turned a deaf ear to the name calling, throwing dirt on pass accomplishments of a great city and thus negating our coming together as one community. Is this what he considers a Pure Michigan? Quite frankly these actions are in fact polluting the entire great lakes region.
It is these types of comments that make it most difficult for Detroit and this region to come together as one. It is tantamount to throwing gasoline on an already inflamed community. Yet I am reminded of the very motto of the City of Detroit which is Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus (Latin for We Hope For Better Things; It Shall Rise From the Ashes).
Mr. Orr, we hope and pray that through a sincere apology to the people of Detroit (which you have not given) and by stepping away from your current responsibilities (which you need to do) that the City of Detroit can once again rise up from the dirt and the ashes thrown against it by these most thoughtless and slanderous remarks.
