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Are Emergency Managers a good idea for failing cities?

would not be necessary if the elected officials of the cities in question had done their jobs instead of bankrupting themselves with vote buying. i don't have any sympathy for these ruined urban failures, you get what you vote for, and if you vote for someone because they come on TV and tell you they're going to give you 'someone elses' money, don't be mad when 'someone else' leaves and you end up living in this;

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time to wake up and smell the roses, 'social justice' and 'wealth distribution' don't work. they just encourage a lifestyle of dependence and eventually you run out of productive people to depend on. well, you don't run out of them, they run like hell away from you leeches.
 
Problem is there is only so much an Emergency Manager is going to be able to handle, and odds are all we are talking about is someone who will navigate the legal nightmare of a city with way too many obligations, way too few people to tax, and a services and infrastructure condition in total ruin.

They basically have to come in and make the tough decisions that the city has failed to make. I know what you mean though about those other issues, it's not like it's going to turn into Seattle in two years.
 
Are Emergency Managers good for cities on the verge of bankruptcy? Here in Michigan, there are a handful of cities that have been given Emergency Managers, Detroit's a big one, and of course we've all heard about Flint by now. I've heard a lot of talk about Flint being a good case against Emergency Managers, with the water problem and all. But if you don't believe Emergency Managers should be assigned, what else would you do?

The people elected their leadership. The leaders the people elected failed. The city goes bankrupt. Close down the police station, code enforcement, fire stations, court houses, libraries, schools, water boards, sewage treatment and let the people get what they voted for. If the city managers screw it up and someone else has to fix it the city blames the people that are trying to fix it rather than take responsibility for their inept management and people fall for it.
 
The people elected their leadership. The leaders the people elected failed. The city goes bankrupt. Close down the police station, code enforcement, fire stations, court houses, libraries, schools, water boards, sewage treatment and let the people get what they voted for. If the city managers screw it up and someone else has to fix it the city blames the people that are trying to fix it rather than take responsibility for their inept management and people fall for it.

While I very much agree with your post, I'll admit I've gone back and forth with the idea of implementing an EM, used primarily as damage control and holding the city more accountable to minimize the amount of creditors that get screwed in a default.
 
While I very much agree with your post, I'll admit I've gone back and forth with the idea of implementing an EM, used primarily as damage control and holding the city more accountable to minimize the amount of creditors that get screwed in a default.

I used to watch people bandaid problems and they never got solved. I used to do it when I was younger. As I got older I remembered what a wise old Sergeant that I knew would say, "Let it break. If you keep bandaiding it they will never fix it." Over the years I learned that he was right. I went back and forth about it but this failure on Flynt is screwed up on so many levels and nobody wants to take their licks. Let's not do that anymore. Let them fall on their own sword.
 
This may seem like I'm picking at nits, but the term should be Emergency Financial Manager (EFM), not Emergency Manager (EM).

I'm actually a private sector, consulting Emergency Manager. We do different jobs, even though they are similar in scope, they are different. We (EM's) are brought in to manage the recovery process after a major natural disaster like a hurricane or a manmade disaster like 9/11, and the EFM's are brought in to manage the day-to-day financial operations of a failed government entity, usually by order of a court or superior government (like a state putting an EFM in place to manage Buffalo, NY, or Flint, MI).

EFM's do not replace or remove the authority of the city council or other elected officials, nor are they usually qualified to make determinations like whether the switching from Detroit's water supply to the Flint River would be safe - they only look at the financial part of those sorts of decisions.

Again, they cannot and must not be allowed to circumvent the authority or the responsibility of the local elected officials. In other words, Flint's mayor and city council can't legitimately blame their EFM for the water screw-up, even if they try to do so, the authority and responsibility still lie with them.


Edit: Sorry, forgot to answer the question in the thread title... Yes, they are a very good thing, because they can make the hard choices and not be tied to local power brokers or concerned about getting fired because they run afoul of local politics.

So...what you're saying is....we need people not beholden to "we the people", because in order to operate a city, sometimes choices that go against the will of "we the people" need to be made?
 
So...what you're saying is....we need people not beholden to "we the people", because in order to operate a city, sometimes choices that go against the will of "we the people" need to be made?

No, not at all. I am saying that sometimes we the people vote in folks to run cities or counties that are idiots (mayor, city council, county board or legislature) and cannot run a city or county even if it had pictures and labels and a video tutorial, and those idiots sometimes will hire bureaucrats (city/county manager, comptroller, finance director, etc.) that are also idiots. And, sometimes those idiots as a group or individually will put the city in such financial trouble that either a federal court judge, or state court judge, or the governor of a state under his/her statutory authority will step in, putting the local government in receivership or some other form of state financial control, and appoint an accountant, a third party manager, that can look at what the elected and/or appointed idiots want to do and either approve it, or make them come up with something different that costs less so the local government can live within their means and pay their bills as well as get caught up on back payments and other debts - a financial chaperone of sorts.

You see, the federal government not only gains their revenue from tax dollars levied against the public, the federal government can also print more money if they determine they need it to pay the bills (monetizing the debt) as they are doing hand over fist right now. This is not the best way to pay government debt, but the federal government is the only one that can even try to do this.

States, counties/parishes, and cities can only spend what they can collect through taxes and fees (actually also just a tax but they like to call it a fee). A number of states have gotten into trouble over the last few decades with spending way more than they have or can get from taxes - California, Illinois, and Michigan come to mind. We were getting in that same trouble here in North Carolina, but the current governor balanced the budget, cut spending, fixed the tax code, and paid off all the debt we had to the federal government and we are now running a surplus rather than a deficit - of course, the Democrats are hammering him about the cuts he made and the idiot voters of my state will probably not re-elect him and we will go right back to spending more than we have.

Cities and counties, like states, cannot print money either, and when they borrow too much money (and fail to cut spending to match the reduction in revenues) the lender actually expects to get paid back and will take the city/county to court, or plead for relief from the state. When it becomes evident that paying back debt isn't going to be possible under the leadership and management of whichever idiots are still in charge of the city/county at the time, the state or the courts will take action, like they did in Detroit, and hundreds of other cities and counties around the country over the last few decades.
 
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So...what you're saying is....we need people not beholden to "we the people", because in order to operate a city, sometimes choices that go against the will of "we the people" need to be made?

That's exactly what he is saying.
 
No, not at all. I am saying that sometimes we the people vote in folks to run cities or counties that are idiots (mayor, city council, county board or legislature) and cannot run a city or county even if it had pictures and labels and a video tutorial, and those idiots sometimes will hire bureaucrats (city/county manager, comptroller, finance director, etc.) that are also idiots. And, sometimes those idiots as a group or individually will put the city in such financial trouble that either a federal court judge, or state court judge, or the governor of a state under his/her statutory authority will step in, putting the local government in receivership or some other form of state financial control, and appoint an accountant, a third party manager, that can look at what the elected and/or appointed idiots want to do and either approve it, or make them come up with something different that costs less so the local government can live within their means and pay their bills as well as get caught up on back payments and other debts - a financial chaperone of sorts.

You see, the federal government not only gains their revenue from tax dollars levied against the public, the federal government can also print more money if they determine they need it to pay the bills (monetizing the debt) as they are doing hand over fist right now. This is not the best way to pay government debt, but the federal government is the only one that can even try to do this.

States, counties/parishes, and cities can only spend what they can collect through taxes and fees (actually also just a tax but they like to call it a fee). A number of states have gotten into trouble over the last few decades with spending way more than they have or can get from taxes - California, Illinois, and Michigan come to mind. We were getting in that same trouble here in North Carolina, but the current governor balanced the budget, cut spending, fixed the tax code, and paid off all the debt we had to the federal government and we are now running a surplus rather than a deficit - of course, the Democrats are hammering him about the cuts he made and the idiot voters of my state will probably not re-elect him and we will go right back to spending more than we have.

Cities and counties, like states, cannot print money either, and when they borrow too much money (and fail to cut spending to match the reduction in revenues) the lender actually expects to get paid back and will take the city/county to court, or plead for relief from the state. When it becomes evident that paying back debt isn't going to be possible under the leadership and management of whichever idiots are still in charge of the city/county at the time, the state or the courts will take action, like they did in Detroit, and hundreds of other cities and counties around the country over the last few decades.

So....an emergency manager is someone who is there to help make sure we "the people" DON'T get what we deserve when we vote for idiots...
 
I used to watch people bandaid problems and they never got solved. I used to do it when I was younger. As I got older I remembered what a wise old Sergeant that I knew would say, "Let it break. If you keep bandaiding it they will never fix it." Over the years I learned that he was right. I went back and forth about it but this failure on Flynt is screwed up on so many levels and nobody wants to take their licks. Let's not do that anymore. Let them fall on their own sword.

I agree. My point, though, is bankruptcy has evolved into a bandaid as well.
 
funny thing is people like you, who live in the surrounding suburbs that were created during white flight, are the main reasons why cities like detroit are failing, you work in detroit, you enjoy the benefits of living near a big city like detroit, but all your taxes go to your small town rather than back to the city of detroit.

but you dont care if flint is poisoned because your small suburban towns drinking water is just fine, you dont care if schools in detroit are falling apart because you have your own public school system segregated from detroit. So instead of entire state of michigan raising taxes and making up the budgetry shortfalls of their major cities theyve instead decided to blame and scapegoat black people, unions, and even immigrants that live in detriot, flint, pontiac etc and all the other failed michigan cities.

The benefits of living near Detroit! :lamo And I don't work there, and if I did, I would have to pay city taxes.
 
In a way... yes, you could say that.

The reason why I'm kinda stuck on this, why I'm being so....nitty....is that...to be perfectly honest, the fact that we apparently needs these people (and I don't question that we do), doesn't really instill confidence in democracy.



Know what I mean?
 
The reason why I'm kinda stuck on this, why I'm being so....nitty....is that...to be perfectly honest, the fact that we apparently needs these people (and I don't question that we do), doesn't really instill confidence in democracy.



Know what I mean?

In a way, it does the opposite for me, in that with most other forms of government, they would just double down on the idiocy, blame something or someone totally unrelated so the "politburo" wouldn't be blamed, rather than try to fix it.
 
The benefits of living near Detroit! :lamo And I don't work there, and if I did, I would have to pay city taxes.

yes the benefits of being able to go too a detroit redwings or lions game on the weekends, the ability to use the major freeways and roadways to visit any store you want in minutes, the ability take trains and go to an international airport anytime you want, all the major hospitals and ambulances that can be at your door in minutes rather than several hours. like a lot of people in actual rural america, those things, and more, are the benefits that people in the white flight suburbs enjoy but dont pay for
 
yes the benefits of being able to go too a detroit redwings or lions game on the weekends, the ability to use the major freeways and roadways to visit any store you want in minutes, the ability take trains and go to an international airport anytime you want, all the major hospitals and ambulances that can be at your door in minutes rather than several hours. like a lot of people in actual rural america, those things, and more, are the benefits that people in the white flight suburbs enjoy but dont pay for

They don't get to do those things for FREE! They have to pay for tickets!

You may have a point on the roads except most highways are state and federal endeavors and well, they pay for those.

Your post is both logic and reality challenged.
 
yes the benefits of being able to go too a detroit redwings or lions game on the weekends, the ability to use the major freeways and roadways to visit any store you want in minutes, the ability take trains and go to an international airport anytime you want, all the major hospitals and ambulances that can be at your door in minutes rather than several hours. like a lot of people in actual rural america, those things, and more, are the benefits that people in the white flight suburbs enjoy but dont pay for

Do you think Detroit built our freeways? And I'm not using them in Detroit anyway. Detroit has one sh!tty airport, the good airport is in the suburbs. And what are you talking about with ambulances, I don't call 911 and have a Detroit ambulance show up. They barely show up in Detroit, where the 911 response time is horrendous.
 
Do you think Detroit built our freeways? And I'm not using them in Detroit anyway. Detroit has one sh!tty airport, the good airport is in the suburbs. And what are you talking about with ambulances, I don't call 911 and have a Detroit ambulance show up. They barely show up in Detroit, where the 911 response time is horrendous.

im talking about all major cities and their surrounding white flight suburbs not just you and yours

if you live in farm country than you receive none of the benefits that come from living near a major city, so they would have some excuse (or atleast a logical argument) for not wanting to pay taxes to help the major city........ unlike you who live just outside a major city, enjoy a myriad of benefits (some which you probably dont even realize), and just dont want too pay taxes for purely selfish reasons. Then ontop of that you get to whine and moan about how awful your city is, now that you and your freinds have fled to the cul de sacs.
 
im talking about all major cities and their surrounding white flight suburbs not just you and yours

if you live in farm country than you receive none of the benefits that come from living near a major city, so they would have some excuse (or atleast a logical argument) for not wanting to pay taxes to help the major city........ unlike you who live just outside a major city, enjoy a myriad of benefits (some which you probably dont even realize), and just dont want too pay taxes for purely selfish reasons. Then ontop of that you get to whine and moan about how awful your city is, now that you and your freinds have fled to the cul de sacs.

Name them. Your last list was lacking.
 
what's even more unfortunate is that these cities are crime ridden dumps, and their statistics skew american numbers on a national level. remove them from the equation, and the foreign rage crew lose 90% of their anti-american statistical firepower.
 
what's even more unfortunate is that these cities are crime ridden dumps, and their statistics skew american numbers on a national level. remove them from the equation, and the foreign rage crew lose 90% of their anti-american statistical firepower.

but theyre your cities.... how can you claim to be patriotic and claim to hate people who are "anti-american" but hate every major american city? and the majority of Americans?
 
A better idea would be to quit voting for liberals. If the emergency manager is selected by the same people who created the cesspool then it doesn't really do much good.
 
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