"Emergency" law backed by right-wing think tanks is privitizing cities, killing democracy.

[TalkingDog]

http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/michigan-emergency-manager-pontiac-detroit?mrefid=



Gov. Rick Snyder put Louis Schimmel in charge of Pontiac last September, invoking Public Act 4, a recent law that lets the governor name appointees to take over financially troubled cities and enact drastic austerity measures. Under the law, passed last March, these emergency managers can nullify labor contracts, privatize public services, sell off city property, and even dismiss elected officials.

Schimmel got to work quickly, firing the city clerk, city attorney, and director of public works and outsourcing several city departments. City fire fighters were told that they would be fired if their department was not absorbed by Waterford Township's. Schimmel has proposed putting nearly every city property up for sale, including city hall, the police station, fire stations, water-pumping stations, the library, the golf course, and two cemeteries.

Williams and his six colleagues on city council have been stripped of their salary and official powers. "Nearly the whole city has been privatized," he laments.

Michigan's emergency-manager law is the centerpiece of the fiscal program enacted by state Republicans after they took over the Legislature and governor's mansion in early 2011. The law's supporters say it allows for a more efficient and nimble response to the budget crisis confronting local governments in the wake of the housing crash and near collapse of the auto industry. Critics are seeking to block and repeal what they call an illegal power grab meant to usurp local governments and break up public-sector unions.

/snip

[rfranklin]

1. This country is in trouble when these corporatists can nulify elected government...

This is facism pure and simple.

[Blue_Tires]

6. +1

[democrat_patriot]

2. It's the Robo-Cop script. Weird.

Is that where they got the idea?

[LiberalEsto]

3. GOP "Think" tanks

should more correctly be called stink tanks
since there is nothing remotely resembling thinking taking place in them.

[L0oniX]

4. Maybe the citizens should all stop paying property taxes at the same time too.

[DCKit]

5. Too true. Under what circumstances is it legal for a corporation to collect taxes?

It's not exactly a representative Democracy anymore, is it?