Detroit deputy mayor warns council that if tunnel deal fails, expect cuts
By Zachary Gorchow and Naomi Patton
Free Press Staff Writers
May 2, 2008
A top aide to Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick warned the City Council today that Kilpatrick will implement “drastic cuts” in services [NB: What services? We don't have any services anymore, you witling!] if the council doesn’t approve a proposed deal to sell the city’s half of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel.
Deputy Mayor Anthony Adams told the council the mayor would not support selling bonds to patch the $65-million hole in the 2007-08 fiscal year budget if the city doesn’t sell its half of the tunnel to a new authority run jointly by the cities of Detroit and Windsor. Under the deal, the city would transfer title on its half of the tunnel to the authority and the city of Windsor would in turn provide Detroit with $75 million.
But Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel said she wouldn’t bow to scare tactics. Cockrel said the deal may make sense, but is so complex and said the administration continues to provide information about it in a piecemeal manner at the last minute.
“I’m not going to get bullied into a transaction no matter how conceptually great it may be,” she said.
Adams responded that he wasn’t bullying anyone.
“I’m speaking to the hard fiscal realities in our city,” he said.
That prompted Cockrel to retort that instead of threatening to cut city services, the mayor should start “with all the family and friends with all the contracts in city government.”
Adams said he wanted to know what contracts to which Cockrel was referring.
“We’ll have that for you real soon,” Cockrel shot back.
In other work on the budget, Auditor General Loren Monroe told the council today he is concerned the budget's projected revenues are based on revenues such as the tunnel sale; a $25-million credit from the Police and Fire Retirement System pension fund; $22.3 million for the sale of surplus city-owned property; and $194.8 million in casino taxes.
The sales transactions have not be finalized, city officials have not completed negotiations for the pension fund credit, and the projected casino revenues were "overstated" by about $12.9 million, Monroe said.
When asked by Cockrel if the inclusion of these projected revenues in to the mayor's proposed budget really "translate in to a possible deficit," Monroe was noncommittal. The mayor’s office has said it expects the 2007-08 budget to end balanced, but the council’s Fiscal Analysis Division has projected a $113-million deficit.
Monroe said the budget "would be kind of risky based on those assumptions."
