THE VOICE OF DETROIT, Aug. 29, 2010

Save Williams Rec Center!!

Diane Bukowski, Michigan Citizen reporter for 10 years, is publishing The Voice of Detroit (VOD) here until her newspaper site is ready. VOD presents in-depth stories on the people’s struggles. The San Francisco Bay View newspaper, The Final Call, detiptv.com, www.mecawi.org and indymedia.org also feature Bukowski’s articles. VOD invites others to contribute articles and photos. Email  diane_bukowski@hotmail.com with proposed content, subject to review.

ANSWER Coalition responds to Pres. Obama’s speech on Iraq

Gen. David Patraeus, formerly Commanding General, Multi-National Force - Iraq, greets Pres. Obama as he arrives in Iraq. Patraeus is now commander of forces in Afghanistan.

By the ANSWER Coalition: ACT NOW TO STOP WAR AND END RACISM

It is necessary to separate fact from fiction regarding the announcement by the Obama administration that it is removing “combat brigades” from Iraq.

This is not the time for progressive people to pat themselves on the back, claim “victory” and pretend that the U.S. government is pursuing a different policy than that which was carried out by the previous administration.

Today’s announcement that renames the 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq is nothing more than the rebranding of the illegal U.S. occupation of Iraq that began with the criminal invasion of the country by hundreds of thousands of U.S. forces on March 20, 2003. Let’s remember, the goal of the Bush administration, too, was not to keep a certain number of U.S. troops in Iraq forever, but instead to exercise U.S. domination over the country and the region.

The Obama administration has maintained the principal military and civilian leaders from the Bush administration. The withdrawal of some combat brigades from Iraq is essentially a redeployment exercise so that tens of thousands more U.S. troops can be sent to Afghanistan.

Since Bush left office, and contrary to the deep desire of the masses of people who constituted the electoral base for President Obama’s November 2008 victory, the U.S. military machine has grown, not diminished. The U.S. military budget has actually increased, not decreased.

The ongoing occupation of Iraq, the escalation of the war in Afghanistan, the increasing threats against Iran, and the enduring U.S.-Israeli war directed against the Palestinian people are all clear indicators that U.S. foreign policy and its military strategy are premised on the pursuit and maintenance of Empire regardless of whether the Democrats or the Republicans occupy the White House. Read more »

HENDRIX VOTES ON HIS OWN REPLACEMENT

Freman Hendrix at Charter Commission meeting 8 10 10

By Ken Whitaker of Detroit IQ

Greektown Casino Representative Freman Hendrix submitted his letter of resignation earlier this month from the Detroit Charter Commission because it would be a conflict of interest to serve the Greektown Casino AND the people of the city of Detroit simultaneously. Now he has called a special meeting of the Detroit Charter Commission for TODAY, August 31, 2010 to vote on his own replacement. If there are gaming laws and conflicts of interest that prevent Freman Hendrix from serving on the Detroit Charter Commission, is it appropriate for him to vote on his replacement? He cannot have it both ways! Either he is IN or he is OUT.

Freman Hendrix has already stated he is a member of the Greektown Casino. He says he is currently the “eyes and ears of Detroit” on the Casino Board.

Commissioner Ken Coleman, an expert in public policy and diligent educator of the citizens, recently posted on Facebook, ‘DETROIT CHARTER FACT: “The [Charter] commission may fill a vacancy in its membership.”‘

So I ask my fellow citizens some very important questions:

1. If Freman Hendrix is a voting member of the Charter Commission, how is there a vacancy to fill?
2. If Freman Hendrix submitted a letter of resignation why is he allowed to vote, as a Charter Commissioner, in a special election to replace himself?
3. Does the Michigan Gaming Control Board, who oversees Freman Hendrix’s appointment to the Greektown Casino Board of Directors, approve of Freman Hendrix voting on his “replacement” to serve on the Detroit Charter Commission?
4. Is this legal?
5. Is this ethical?

Detroit STAND UP!!!

This OUR city and if WE don’t police it, who will? Contact your Michigan Gaming Control Board Members. Contact your Detroit Charter Commissioners. Contact information is listed below. Read more »

To Virg Bernero: Fire Robert Bobb

Charter schools CEO Doug Ross, Skillman CEO Carol Goss, DPS EFM Robert Bobb

 Helen Moore letter to gubernatorial candidate Virg Bernero protesting Dems’ blocking of 14th District resolution at convention

Aug. 29, 2010

Dear Mr. Bernero:

I am the convention delegate who was persistent at the microphone during the Democratic Convention.  From what I have been told, you are a very caring man.  I am writing to you to request a meeting concerning the disrespect and the lack of integrity on the part of Mr. Mike Brewer.  For months Mr. Brewer has been attempting to block the resolution submitted by the Fourteenth District pertaining to the firing of the Emergency Manager of the Detroit Public Schools, Mr. Robert Bobb. We learned that the resolution that was submitted on time by Carol Conway to Mr. Brewer had mysteriously disappeared.  No one could find it.  After questioning Mr. Brewer, he said he never got it. Carol Conway said he did.  We are asking for an investigation of this matter and we need your help if we are to move forward together to keep our Detroit voters working for the Democratic ticket.  We need to meet as soon as possible.  Please let us know when.

 In order to stop the deficit from increasing; the firing of entire unions; outsourcing; hiring of his friends; closing of schools; no bid contracts to companies headquartered outside of Michigan and even as far away as Europe; taking over academics and the entire school system resulting in a lawsuit filed by the Detroit Board of Education to gain back the control of academics, we decided to present a resolution pertaining to these issues to the Democratic Party with true facts to counteract the wrong information disseminated by the news media which was actively promoting Mr. Bobb.  The resolution  was presented in April to the Fourteenth District and the delegates voted unanimously in favor of presenting it to the State Central Committee. 

Helen Moore, delegate

Rescind ALL DPS lay-offs! March with UAW/Rainbow PUSH Sat. Aug. 28

Detroit teachers marched on Lansing in 2001 to stop charter school legislation supported by Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick

By Steve Conn

Join DFT members and DPS students as we mobilize for this Saturday’s (August 28th)  Civil Rights March in downtown Detroit.  The march was initiated by the UAW and Rev. Jesse Jackson.  People will gather at 10:30 am at the UAW-Ford Building at 151 West Jefferson, between Hart Plaza and Cobo Hall.  
 
Teachers and students will head up the Defend Public Education contingent in the march, with our own banners and picket signs.  Make and bring your own signs if possible.
 
We demand:   Rescind ALL Layoffs Now!!  Bobb Must Go!   Stop the Destruction of Our Schools!   Equal, Quality Education for Young People Everywhere!  Save Dr. King’s Vision for America in Detroit!
 
We can put Bobb on the run and defeat the massive layoffs that are threatening to destroy our schools.  But DFT members must join with the youth, the community, and civil rights and union activists this Saturday as part of a single, growing, national  movement for civil rights, equality, school integration and the defense of public education.   Read more »

DPS CAUGHT IN DEVIL’S TRIANGLE

 DPS debt, apartheid funding, charter schools destroy district, not part of debate

DPS Teacher Kimberly Porter wears Black to mourn dismantling of public education at DPS

 By Diane Bukowski

DETROIT – A “devil’s triangle” destroying DPS is being largely ignored in discussions about the district’s governance and solutions to its problems.

 “When the new elected board takes office, it will have a huge concrete block around its neck,” said attorney George Washington, who represented the Detroit Board of Education in its recent successful battle against a mayoral takeover of DPS. “The two state takeovers have been the greatest financial boondoggle ever seen.”

 Washington referred to the fact that over 90 percent of state per-pupil aid for students in Detroit, nearly a half-billion dollars, will be reserved for bank debt in 2011 alone, according to Detroit Public Schools (DPS) documents. (See VOD article “Bank of NY Mellon controls DPS.)

 A second side of the triangle is state per-pupil funding for Detroit, $7660 in 2010. It runs about three-fifths of that accorded to students in suburbs like Bloomfield ($12,443) and Birmingham ($12,336). This recalls the notorious Three-Fifths compromise enshrined in the U.S. Constitution in 1787, which considered a kidnapped African three-fifths of a person.

 If the state aid factor were equalized even by one-half the difference between funding for those two wealthy districts and Detroit, it would put another $205.5 million into DPS coffers.

 Charter schools are the third side of the “devil’s triangle.”

 “In the 2002-2003 school year, DPS’s pre-kindergarten through 12th grade student population was 164,500, but estimates for Detroit’s public school enrollment this year stand as low as 84,000 students,” Julianne Hing writes in the March 2010 edition of Colour Lines. “Experts project that in five years’ time, the number of students in Detroit Public Schools will be 56,000 students.

“But Detroit also has a robust charter school industry with a student enrollment of 54,000 kids. That’s right, Detroit’s charter school enrollment is set to outpace its public school enrollment. That alone is so mindbending that it eclipses the fact that when the charter school population and public school population of Detroit is combined, Detroit’s pre-K through 12 student population has actually increased in recent years.”

DPS is thus losing $414 million a year to charter schools within the city’s limits alone, when one multiplies the charter school population by DPS per-pupil state aid of $7660.

DPS student Kelly Lewis demands Bobb go on trial 4/30/10

 “Every time the state gets its hands on our school district, it ends up hundreds of millions of dollars more in debt,” said Agnes Hitchcock, steward of the grass-roots Call ‘em Out Coalition. “All the debt incurred through the state under both Kenneth Burnley and Robert Bobb should be forgiven by the state.”

 Current school board president Anthony Adams served as Corporation Counsel for DPS under Burnley, during the term of the first state reform board, and afterwards as Chief Compliance Officer for the District.

 At the time, he said he had unsuccessfully advocated that the district sue the state of Michigan for “equivalent funding.” Cities like New York and Newark have done so, asking for funding greater than that accorded to wealthy areas to compensate for the poverty, unemployment, and other dire problems in poor, Black and Latin cities. These cities have won multi-billion court judgments, mostly still under appeal by their states.

DPS Board Chair Anthony Adams

 So what does Adams plan for the future now?  He said he still supports the idea of a DPS “equivalent funding” lawsuit, but was non-committal about if, when and how it might happen.

 Adams is not running for another term on the board, but has appointed an “Ad Hoc Transition Team Committee,” although the Board already has a very active Parents Advisory Committee.

The Detroit Free Press says the transition team is an exercise in futility, anticipating that a new governor, likely a Republican, will put the district back into receivership.  Read more »

N.Y. census counts prisoners in home districts

 

 

NOI Prison Ministry leader Troy X speaks to Second Chance Support Group/ Info: www.hopedetroit.com.

By Dr. Publico–American Tribune

 “Gov. David Paterson of New York took a stand for electoral fairness earlier this month when he signed legislation that bans prison-based gerrymandering — the cynical practice of counting prison inmates as “residents,” to pad the size of legislative districts. The new law, which requires that prison inmates be counted at their homes, deserves to be emulated all across the country.”  New York Times editorial, 8/22/10

 Some years back, I received a notice from the prison mailroom that a letter containing an application form for an absentee ballot was rejected by the prison and sent back.  On the notice, the mailroom guard had written, “When you were sent to prison, you lost your right to vote!”    

Bank of New York Mellon controls DPS

Slaveowner Alexander Hamilton founded Bank of New York; kidnapped Africans, banned from reading, founded U.S. public education after freedom

$523.8 million debt for 2010-11 is 90.7 percent of state per-pupil aid

 By Diane Bukowski  

 DETROIT – Former Detroit Public Schools CEO Kenneth Burnley, Jr. and current Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb have enslaved the Detroit Public Schools to the Bank of New York Mellon by borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars. The Bank was founded by slaveowner Alexander Hamilton.

The debt is expected to rise to $523.8 million by 2011, or 90.7 percent of state per-pupil aid for that year. This year alone, DPS debt of $438.8 million amounted to 71.2 percent of state per-pupil aid.

 This bombshell is hidden in plain sight on the Detroit Public Schools website, under “Resources-District Data-Financial Data and Reports.” Monthly DPS reports to the Bank of New York Mellon Trust Company N.A., a Bank of New York Mellon subsidiary, are included on the site under “set-asides.”                                            

 “The Emergency Financial Manager was supposed to eliminate the $219 million DPS deficit when he came in,” said CPA Greg Frazier, formerly Deputy Auditor for the City of Detroit, who also filed and won a Freedom of Information Act request for DPS financials for 2006-07, in conjunction with community organization Call ‘em Out.

 “But since the Emergency Financial Manager has come to manage the emergency, we are drowning in more debt with a deficit now of $332 million. We are spiraling to the bottom, and he is helping us to get there real quick.”

 Frazier added, “When Bobb leaves next March, that debt will be even higher. It means a lot less funds going to resources for the children. While here, he added to the legacy debt he talks so much about. He is the proud owner of 56 percent of that debt so far. The banks have yet to share in solving any problems they have created. Even President [Barack] Obama is not holding them responsible. The debt is being paid on the backs of the citizens, while banks like Goldman Sachs have tremendously enriched themselves.”

 The Bank of New York Mellon (BofNYM)  is the nation’s oldest bank, with $23 trillion in assets. The Bank of New York was founded in 1784 by Hamilton, and merged with the Mellon Corporation  in 2007. The Mellon family is ranked number five by wealth in America’s 60 Families.

Robert Kelly, CEO Bank of New York Mellon

B of NYM is also custodian of the government’s $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). It was paid $20 million in fees to manage the program, and further benefited by selling $3 billion of its preferred stock to the federal government under the program, according to Bailout Sleuth. It has since repaid the $3 billion. Its CEO Robert Kelly is notorious for objecting to proposed restrictions on bonuses paid to top executives of the bailed-out banks.

 It also has ties with Chase Bank, one of the nation’s foremost culprits in massive foreclosures. In 2006, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. announced they would swap their corporate trust unit for Bank of New York Co.’s retail and small business banking network.

 TARP has doled out billions to bail-out the nation’s largest banks, which in turn have done virtually nothing to stem the nation’s Katrina of foreclosures. Foreclosures in Detroit have drastically reduced another source of school funding, property taxes, which accounted for $75.4 million of DPS cash receipts in 2009-2010. Read more »

RECALL DAVE BING!!

Release from Hood Research, sponsor of Recall Dave Bing petition drive 

Compuware CEO Peter Karmanos, who bought downtown blocks for $1 each, Skillman Foundation CEO Carol Goss, who heads efforts to take control of Detroit schools and neighborhoods, and Mayor Dave Bing

 Bing has plans for Gentrification

 Mayor Dave Bing has failed to put the residents of Detroit first in any of his decisions and plans since becoming mayor of Detroit. It’s worse that now his plan is too gentrify the people he promised to help when he ran for mayor. He’s called it downsizing. But this is deceiving. State law prohibits annexing Detroit property against the will and vote of Detroiters. There will be no shrinking of Detroit. However Bing has begun to use funds to move residents outside of Detroit, this at a time when the census count is critical. Gentrification did not begin until the 1960’s, part of the urban renewal projects. These projects have been proven to have failed and were severely hurtful to those they were supposed to help. They were a lie and Bing is now lying about his intentions to help Detroit residents.

Moms Rising against housing discrimination

Submitted by Clarice Werdlow,  from “Moms Rising”