Cockrel supporters protest Bing’s refusal to name crisis team appointees

DETROIT — Supporters of the city’s interim mayor held a Sunday afternoon protest in front of the campaign offices of his opponent in the May 5 special election, urging businessman Dave Bing to reveal the names of those he’s appointed to a crisis management team that would help him run the financially troubled city should he be elected.

On Saturday, Bing said that he had assembled a crisis management team but declined to disclose the identities of the members, a move that interim Mayor Kenneth Cockrel Jr. condemned.

“The voters are being told, ‘Just trust us.’ I think that’s arrogance,” Cockrel said, according to the Detroit Free Press.

The Bing campaign responded Saturday with a written statement calling Cockrel’s challenge “ridiculous” and that it “smacks of desperation.”

“It would be inappropriate to prematurely reveal the names of those persons who have agreed to serve on the crisis management team, just as the interim mayor did not announce his cabinet appointees until after he assumed office,” according to the statement.

Approximately 50 people gathered in front of Bing’s campaign headquarters on East Jefferson Avenue for an hour and marched in a circle holding handmade signs with slogans like “Detroiter’s deserve the truth” and calling Bing’s crisis management team a “takeover team.”

Derrick Sanders, a union leader with the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 324, said he organized the event with little notice. Sanders told Michigan Messenger in an interview that he and a group of 70 volunteers had planned to go door to door canvassing for Cockrel but after Bing did not reveal names of his “takeover team,” they switched gears to protest Bing’s campaign headquarters instead.

Cockrel’s campaign sent out an email early Sunday afternoon with information about the impromptu protest, which started at 3:00 p.m. Sanders also said his group was able to do some canvassing work as well.

Sanders said he was volunteering his time because he believes that Cockrel has a better plan to fix Detroit.

“I wouldn’t be out here in the rain if this didn’t mean a lot to me,” Sanders said in a light drizzle outside of Bing’s headquarters.

Nearly an hour into the protest, news trucks from WDIV-TV/Channel 4 arrived, and recorded the event for less than 10 minutes. After the Channel 4 crew left, protesters immediately left the headquarters en masse. When a news crew from WXYZ-TV/Channel 7 arrived minutes later, the crowd had already dispersed.

One volunteer who lingered behind told Michigan Messenger that the Cockrel campaign paid him and others who turned up at the protest. “We’re getting paid, believe that,” said the volunteer, who asked that his name not be published.

Jim Edmondson, Cockrel’s campaign manager, would not comment to the media but when asked if the campaign organized the Bing protest, he said the campaign helped but he would not say whether the campaign was the main organizer or if it paid the volunteers to show up to denounce Bing.

On Sunday, the Free Press editorial board endorsed Bing.