Mayoral Coalition Gains MomentumBy
Kimberly Thigpen-Cockrel
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With days dwindling to fight Gov. John Engler's proposed budget cuts, Detroit Mayor Coleman A. Young has taken an unusual step: He has joined forces with a handful of suburban mayors to form a tri-county mayors group to keep Engler's budget axe from falling on the city's cultural mainstays. Institutions such as the Detroit Zoo, Detroit Symphony Orchestra Hall and the Detroit Institute of Arts would be crippled under Engler's original plan to slash almost $32 million from the state's $49.7 million equity package. Detroit gets the lion's share of the package &emdash; $38.3 million, which the state pays the city to subsidize cultural institutions. But Young has argued that the entire metropolitan area &emdash; not just city residents &emdash; would feel the loss of those programs. Royal Oak Mayor Patricia Paruch agrees. One of the first three suburban mayors to sign on to the mayors coalition, she says the group's goal is to recruit mayors from Wayne, Macomb and Oakland counties to fight the proposed cuts. In all, Engler has proposed cutting 9.2 percent or $536 million from all state departments except education, and making a second round of selective cuts totalling about $500 million. Both rounds were intended to "downsize government" and offset a $1.1 billion deficit. The Legislature agreed to the first round, but the Appropriations Committee of the Democratic-led House rejected the second round, sending the proposal back to Engler for a new budget plan. Engler's deadline for resubmitting a proposal is this week. But the governor has already implied that he will stand firm on his position to trim human services. In addition to slashing Detroit's share of the state's equity package, Engler's second round of cuts would eliminate more than 8,000 state job, close several regional mental health facilities and prisons, discontinue job training programs and eliminate welfare grants to more than 100,000 single people. Paruch and her colleagues have just begun recruiting mayors to the tri-county coalition. She believes the group can be a significant force, not only to fight Engler's cuts, but to plan solutions to future problems affecting the entire region. METRO TIMES: How did an alliance with Mayor Young come about? MAYOR PATRICIA PARUCH: It was a surprise ... because he approached us. Mayor Young was invited by Margaret (Peggy) Dickinson, the mayor of Lathrup Village, to speak at the South Oakland County Mayors Association's monthly meeting in January. At the dinner, he said he wanted to form some kind of coalition with the mayors in the tri-county region and asked us if we would form the nucleus of the coalition. After the meeting, Peggy conducted a phone poll and the response was universally positive. The day before the mayor spoke (Jan. 31) to the Birmingham-Bloomfield Chamber of Commerce, his office notified us he was going to announce the formation of the coalition and to ask if we would attend the meeting. Only three of us attended &emdash; Peggy, myself and Jeff Sherbow, the mayor of Pleasant Ridge. After the meeting we met privately and (Young) said he really wanted to get moving on the coalition, and we brainstormed on mayors we thought would like to get involved. We're going to try to hold a larger meeting in March sometime. MT: What did Mayor Young say that persuaded the association's mayors to form a tri-county coalition? PARUCH: At the meeting, he didn't really have anything clear-cut. He was very open and just talked to us. He made it clear that transportation, solid-waste management and growth into the hinterlands are regional issues and that those are the kinds of things we should talk about. The mayor said that we obviously have some areas of disagreement, but we should focus on the areas in which we have some agreement and see if we can't start some dialogue. MT: How many mayors are in the coalition? PARUCH: There is no set number. ... About a dozen are interested. We're trying to get some mayors from the whole metro area &emdash; including Dearborn, Wyandotte and other large areas in our region. We gave a list of people to the mayor's assistant and she is going to make some calls to follow up on our suggestions. MT: What impact, if any, will the proposed budget cuts have on Royal Oak? PARUCH: It depends on what is cut. If they totally eliminate arts in the area, it'll terminate the major institutions located in Detroit, I think. I can't see the Detroit Institute of Arts remaining open or the Detroit Symphony Orchestra or a host of smaller institutions continuing. I don't think you can eliminate the cultural institutions in a region and still have any kind of quality of life and keep residents in the region. One of the selling points of this region, which gets people to move here from other areas, is the cultural institutions. In the social service area, we have a significant homeless population in Royal Oak because the city's downtown is safe &emdash; safer than Pontiac or Detroit &emdash; and we also have a temporary shelter that's an intake facility that transports people to various churches in the area. We'll definitely see an increase in homelessness. The city itself doesn't provide services, but the community does. Already, the state Department of Commerce cut a grant to the city of Royal Oak for a parking lot along Woodward Avenue next to the Detroit Zoo, (which was needed) because off-street parking was eliminated when Woodward was widened for the I-696 freeway expansion. Those businesses will suffer. So we definitely will be affected. MT: Since the Senate and House are divided on the budget issue along party lines, do you think the tri-county coalition will be divided in the same way? PARUCH: It's possible. It's very difficult to say. The group of mayors in Oakland County that I deal with is a mixed bag of people who lean Democrat and Republican. You might see a split along those lines. I think the more significant split is going to be with mayors who will be impacted the most with the budget cuts &emdash; which are the mayors in communities that are closest to the city of Detroit. MT: Mayor Young has a history of being highly critical of Detroit's neighboring suburbs. Do you think his past criticisms will hold back support for the tri-county coalition? PARUCH: There is no question that it will hold back a few. It's hard to say how many. The reverse of that too is that the suburbs in the past haven't been particularly friendly toward the city of Detroit and have said some negative things. I think it's something that has gone both ways. (But) I think there have been some changes. I think the suburban communities &emdash; at long last &emdash; are realizing that there are regional solutions to a lot of their problems. We can't operate as independently as we used to &emdash; there's no way. I know that in my own community, the concept of regional government or the concept of regional cooperation on any number of issues was something that you got a very negative and hostile reaction to. But the suburbs are changing &emdash; they're softening. MT: Why do you think the suburbs are becoming less isolationist? PARUCH: I just think the communities are realizing that a lot of problems are bigger than they are, and they can't solve them from within their own four boundaries. They have to cooperate with each other and the city of Detroit. After (ABC's) "Prime Time Live" segment aired, it affected the suburbs too. You go out of state and you say, "I'm from a suburb of Detroit," and people go, "Uh-oh." The negative attitude toward the city has an adverse rippling affect. And that's not fair to the city or the region.
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