Detroit firefighters protesting bankruptcy discuss expanding fight against pension and budget cuts By our reporters 25 July 2013 Scores of firefighters demonstrated in front of the federal courthouse in downtown Detroit yesterday to voice their anger over last week’s bankruptcy filing by the city’s emergency manager, which threatens to cut up to 90 percent from the pensions owed to city workers and retirees. With the trade unions offering no way forward, fire fighters have formed an ad hoc organization called the Public Safety Workers Action Group (PSWAG), to reach out more broadly to working people around the city and explain the connection between budget cutting and the undermining of safety for the city’s residents. PSWAG members have been holding a number of small demonstrations at fire stations across Detroit in recent days. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and other public sector unions, including the Detroit Fire Fighters Association, have opposed any genuine mobilization of city workers against the emergency manager and the bankruptcy.
Detroit Fire Department, already struggling, will have to "do more with less" Detroit's Fire Commissioner says his department is at the end of its resources due to budget cuts. Donald Austin spoke to a Detroit City Council committee meeting on Monday. Even with the cuts, Detroit’s Police and Fire Departments take up well over half of the city's budget. Austin says it’s proven almost impossible to cut overtime, when he has to fight so many fires in vacant buildings--which total 30-60% of all department runs, depending on the shift. “We have to find a way to reduce what’s working my department into the ground," Austin said. Austin wants to implement what he calls a “less aggressive” approach to fires, especially in vacant buildings, to save resources. The department is already running some fire stations at partial capacity and alternating shutdowns to preserve resources. Brown says he understands that public safety officers have already made significant sacrifices, and they really shouldn't have to make more. “It’s not fair.
9 ways Detroit is changing after bankruptcy When Detroit filed for bankruptcy last July, observers around the world were shocked by how far some city services had deteriorated -- though it was no secret to residents. Average police response times clocked in at almost an hour. Tens of thousands of broken streetlights meant entire streets go dark at nightfall. How has the city changed since it entered bankruptcy? The Detroit Police Department says it is focused on hiring non-uniformed administrative staff so that it can move officers from desk duty to street patrols to concentrate on high-crime areas and react in real time to crime trends. A nonprofit group also was set up to administer $8 million in private donations from companies including Penske Corp. and Detroit's automakers that purchased and delivered 100 new police squad cars and 23 new ambulances — a boost to a city fleet that's old and prone to breakdowns. It's much the same with ambulance services. The new system will have about 65,000 light fixtures.
Benefits for council staff included in Detroit budget The Detroit City Council approved the city's $1-billion annual budget today with some changes to Mayor Mike Duggan's original proposal, including an additional $1.5 million allocated to the council and its policy division. The extra money will allow City Council to provide full-time employment and benefits to 69 council staffers. City Council's employees became contractual workers without benefits during the city's bankruptcy proceedings. Councilman Andre Spivey said council staffers without benefits were an exception among city workers, leaving them to pay more for health care. "We fought for those who needed it," Spivey said. The Financial Review Commission, given oversight of city finances post-bankruptcy, also must approve the city's budget. Duggan must decide whether to approve the council’s changes before the budget is sent to the Financial Review Commission. The budget was described to council as conservative during the mayor's budget presentation in late February.
Pay cuts coming to Detroit police, fire officers - Aug. 2, 2013 The 10% cuts apply to 1,200 police lieutenants and sergeants and 400 comparable officers in the fire department. The cuts, announced this week, will take effect in September. Bill Nowling, spokesman for Kevyn Orr, the emergency manager overseeing the city's reorganization effort, said other city employees took the same 10% cut in 2012. The cuts for these officers was delayed because of union contracts that were in effect. "We had to make this cut due to disparity between management and rank and file," said Nowling. "These pay cuts and the savings have already been baked into the budget. Related: New hockey arena still a go in Detroit Nowling said if the city is able to get the debt relief it is seeking in bankruptcy, it is possible that some of the pay cuts can be restored at the end of the year. "It's not a promise, but it's one of the things we're looking at doing," he said. Much of the debt reduction sought would come from cuts in pension and retiree health care benefits.
"Lack of accountability, poor management" source of Detroit Fire Dept. problems Our conversation with Steve Neavling The news site Motor City Muckraker took it upon itself to track every fire in the city of Detroit for a year. When you take on a project like that, you begin to see and hear about the problems faced by one of the most overworked fire departments in the nation. Steve Neavling runs Motor City Muckraker. He tells us the Detroit Fire Department was “a bureaucracy that was literally in shambles.” Neavling found that fire hydrants across the city were broken, the firefighters didn’t have purified air in their tanks, their trucks were breaking down, the whole system was a mess. “The city was literally burning down, and we had neighborhoods where houses were going up every night,” he says. Neavling tracked an estimated 3,600 fires in Detroit, which he says is about average for the city. Instead, Neavling says he found the problems stemmed more from “a lack of accountability [and] poor management.” “And he took it on like a calling,” Neavling says.
Detroit is going dark - Jul. 19, 2013 And if you're walking around the city, it might make sense to bring a flashlight -- about 40% of the 88,000 street lights don't work. Those are two of the problems highlighted by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder as he approved a bankruptcy filing for the state's biggest city. The problems have fed on themselves, resulting in 78.000 buildings either abandoned or ruined. "Does anybody think it's OK to have 40-year-old trees growing through the roofs of dilapidated houses?" asked emergency manager Kevyn Orr, in a news conference on Friday. Orr said the city had filed for bankruptcy because it would take more than 50 years to pay off the city's $11.5 billion in unsecured debt while not conducting even the most basic maintenance, such as filling potholes and plowing snow. Related: Detroit bankruptcy filing came with only 5 minutes to spare Here are some of the other problems outlined in the bankruptcy filing: -- 70 Superfund hazardous waste sites -- Fire stations are "old and not adequately maintained"
Broken fire hydrants contribute to more Detroit buildings burning Listen to the story. Detroit has one of the busiest fire departments in the nation. One problem in the city causes fires to be worse than they should be: broken fire hydrants. It’s a problem city hall doesn’t want to talk about. Steve Neavling founded the online journalism site Motor City Muckraker. Right now he’s working to document every fire in the city for a year. We drove to a neighborhood where he says that’s happened. “We’re on 28th Street. Neavling says he asked people at city hall about the broken hydrants. “With the 15%, we found 279 broken hydrants. If you extrapolate that, it means more than 1,800 broken hydrants. The Fire Commissioner’s office did not respond to a request for an interview about the problem. Steve Neavling filed a Freedom of Information request with city hall to see how bad the problem is. I caught up with Shawn McCarty at a fire call. “The problem is more so when it’s colder outside. That’s because some of the hydrants have small leaks that cause the freezing.
Suspicious fires plague Detroit's popular Heidelberg Project The latest in a string of suspicious fires early Thursday destroyed a home in Detroit's internationally known Heidelberg Project, an installation that transformed decaying homes into works of art. The blaze engulfed "The Penny House," a small home adorned with images of pennies, around 3 a.m., fire officials said. The two-story structure was leveled by the time firefighters arrived. The nonprofit behind that artwork set out to bring new life to Detroit's crime-ridden East Side and draw attention to the community's plight. The project was recently featured by CNN's Anthony Bordain on "Parts Unknown: Detroit." In the last two months, Heidelberg Project properties were hit with five fires, which destroyed three of the vacant buildings -- "Obstruction of Justice," "House of Soul" and "The Penny House," according to the project. Detroit Senior Fire Chief Larry Gassel voiced his suspicions about the fires to CNN, saying of the buildings, "They're all vacant; it's not like it's wiring.
Manpower Crisis In Detroit Fire Department: 40 Percent of Rigs Out of Service Today – Deadline Detroit The city's budget crisis landed suddenly on the Detroit Fire Department this week as officials took far more rigs out of service than ever before. On paper, the city has had 66 rigs; about eight rigs are usually "browned out" on any given day for budget reasons, leaving around 58 fully staffed fire vehicles, or "companies," stationed across Detroit. On Thursday, the department de-activated 25 rigs, leaving only 41 vehicles to respond to calls across the 139-square-mile city, which has one of the busiest fire departments in the nation. On Friday, officials sidelined 21 rigs, plus the HazMat unit. On Wednesday, 18 rigs were shut down. The moves endanger both residents and fire fighters alike, critics charge. "I never thought the city would allow this to happen," said Dan McNamara, president of the Detroit Fire Fighters Association. These de-activations are not the permanent closings that are coming under the new budgetary reality in Detroit city government.