I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
The bad news is that Detroit’s in the hole a lot deeper than previously thought. The good news is that it could be just $100 million and that’s not nearly as high as other U.S. cities.
Detroit’s new chief financial officer Joe Harris announced Tuesday that the city of Detroit’s $100 million debt is just an optimistic estimate.
Earlier this year, City Council members discussed plugging the deficit (which, at the time, was set at $20 million) with $78 million in deficit bonds. But Harris said due to the financial instability of the national finance markets he no longer sees bonds as a way out.
The current administration does not see city layoffs as the answer, either. Unlike former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who had said he was willing to cut 2,000 jobs to balance the budget, new interim mayor Kenneth Cockrel Jr. said he thinks layoffs should be a last resort if they are made at all.
So now the $100 million question is how exactly will the city close the gap? Well, that is what Harris is being paid to figure out. But if this is the best-case scenario and the debt is “just” $100 million, that compares nicely with Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the nation, which is more than $400 million in the red.
While $100 million is not a terrible amount, city officials are still going to have to find creative ways to bail themselves out in the midst of national financial upheaval.
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