SNYDER SIGNS PRISONER RE-ENTRY BILLS

SNYDER SIGNS PRISONER RE-ENTRY BILLS
Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation requiring the Department od Corrections to assist prisoners in obtaining identification documents, aiming to improve chances for employment upon their release.
The bill requires DOC to provide prisoners released at the end of their sentence or on parole with prisoner identification cards. The Department of State must accept these cards as one of several identification documents required to obtain a state ID card or driver's license.

This Legislative package included four bills:

2011 House Bill 4074: Facilitate ex-cons getting state IDs
to require prisoners to make an effort to assemble the documents needed to get a state identification card upon release, and require the Department of Corrections and the Secretary of State to help them get the documents and the card. Also, to issue all prisoners with a photo identification card when they are released.

2011 House Bill 4075: Facilitate ex-cons getting state IDs
to require the Secretary of State to accept a Michigan prison prisoner identification card as one of the identification documents that allows a person to get a state ID card, and give the Secretary of State access to the Department of Corrections prisoner biography database for purposes of making it easier for ex-prisoners to get a state ID card.

2011 House Bill 4076: Facilitate ex-cons getting state IDs
to require the Secretary of State to accept a Michigan prison prisoner identification card as one of the identification documents that allows a person to get a drivers license, and give the Secretary of State access to the Department of Corrections prisoner biography database for purposes of making it easier for ex-prisoners to get a state drivers license (or ID card).

2011 House Bill 4077: Facilitate ex-cons getting state IDs
to require new prisoners to be given a form that explains the importance upon release of getting either a drivers license or a state ID, describes the documents needed to do so, and includes a request that the person get the documents and give them to the Department of Corrections, which will retain them in his or her file.

All Signed by Gov. Rick Snyder on February 21, 2012.

LEGAL AID ADVANCING JUSTICE INITIATIVE: Consent Agreement! What would Coleman Young Say?

LEGAL AID ADVANCING JUSTICE INITIATIVE: Consent Agreement! What would Coleman Young Say?: Consent Agreement/ Emergency Manager! Detroit has been here before? Today, as Detroit struggles with an escalating deficit of $300 ...

Consent Agreement! What would Coleman Young Say?

Consent Agreement/ Emergency Manager! Detroit has been here before?

Today, as Detroit struggles with an escalating deficit of $300 million and a consent agreement, the intriguing question on the minds of many is what would Mayor Coleman Alexander Young do if he were Mayor of Detroit right now?

          In 1981, the city of Detroit and then Mayor Coleman Alexander Young faced a budget deficit of $133 million, an amount that today translates to roughly $331 million. According to Tim Kiska, WWJ editor and Historian in political journalism, wrote, “We forget that the 1980’s was a difficult time – even more difficult, on some levels, than what we faced since 2008. Unemployment hit the double-digit mark in February 1980, and stayed there until 1985, peaking at 16.8 percent in December of 1982. It hasn’t been that high in the current recession.”  Looking back to the year 1981, budget deficit was worst; there was a looming possibility of a state takeover. Unemployment was in double digit range; police department was cut by 27% and Mayor Young cut thousands of workers from 1974 to 1980.

Facing re-election in 1981, Mayor Coleman Young was unyielding in battling the financial crisis. Reality is, during an election year you don’t make bold leadership decisions like increasing taxes to get rid of a budget deficit. But, that’s exactly what Coleman Young did. So Mayor Young worked with then Governor Milliken to put together a coalition of Democrats and Republicans to provide the votes needed to get the legislature to approve the tax hike. The proposed tax increase raised taxes on residents from 2 percent to 3 percent and on non-residents from .5 percent to 1.5 percent.

Mayor Young then hired Conrad Mallet Jr., former Supreme Court Justice, former chief administrator for the Detroit Medical Center, who is currently a member of Governor Snyder’s financial review team, to lead the campaign advocating for Detroiters to vote in favor of a tax increase. How ironic! But in the end voters approved the tax hike by a 68-32 margin.  Conrad Mallett played a major role in saving Detroit from a state takeover in 1981 and now he sits on the governor’s review team to establish an emergency manager and has been mention as the possible EM.  If Coleman Alexander Young, the first African American Mayor of Detroit was still in office today, he would have made concessions with labor, he would have convinced Detroiters to vote in favor of a tax increase, he would have cussed and fussed until Lansing lawmakers understood what strong leadership is truly about. 

Leonard Flemming, of the Detroit News wrote on the assumptions of who Gov. Snyder might select as Detroit’s Emergency Manager and said “Speculation about who could be named the emergency manager has included former Wayne County Prosecutor Mike Duggan, former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Conrad Mallett, Benton Harbor Emergency Manager Joe Harris and former Washington, D.C., Mayor Anthony Williams, who testified recently before the governor's Detroit financial review team on the merits of a consent agreement for the city.” Mallett, who is on the Detroit review team with state Treasurer Andy Dillon, said he is not interested in the post.

Conrad Mallett was quoted in the Detroit News article saying "If the governor were forced because of a lack of political agreement to put in an emergency manager, the city of Detroit's future would be in severe jeopardy," Mallett said. "The consent agreement is the only solution. It's a very practical response to this very difficult situation. The political leadership of Detroit needs to accept the truth, and the truth is the consent agreement is necessary.” Convincing someone to be the “chief bureaucrat” of Detroit as an emergency manager will be a challenge, as well as finding someone with the "fiscal and political leadership that Detroit requires because it's a very complicated job," Mallett said. It would be tragic" if an agreement isn't reached. "It is precisely because there is such a dearth of candidates available that both for political and practical reasons, an emergency manager will not work," he added. "You cannot have someone come in whose only suitability is their ability to manage a ledger sheet.  Conrad Mallett also commented saying “I have made the determination that that person will fail."

(FYI)
So what exactly is an emergency manager?

Under Michigan law, an emergency manager has the authority to lay off or cut the pay of employees, outsource services, merge and reorganize departments, overturn ordinances, alter the budget, cancel vendor contracts, abandon labor agreements and sell city assets. The City of Detroit has many assets -- such as Belle Isle, the Water and Sewerage Department, a share of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel and the Coleman A. Young International Airport -- along with tens of thousands of abandoned or unused properties that could be sold or leased.

What happens to Detroit residents if there is an emergency manager?

The main goal of an emergency manager is to continue essential services. That means garbage would still be picked up, water would run and police and firefighters would still protect residents. But so called non-essential services, like recreation centers, special programs and subsidies to cultural institutions like the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, could be reduced or eliminated altogether. It also means the Emergency manager has the power to privatize any and all services at his or her discretion. For instance, the city of Pontiac is currently under an Emergency Manager and has been for the past 3 years. In November of 2011, just days prior to an election Emergency Manager Lou Shimmel privatized the department of elections in Pontiac and fired the city clerk. Needless to say that election process was a disaster. 

What happens to city employees?

Nonunion employees would be in danger of losing their jobs, or having pay or benefits reduced or cut at the will of the emergency manager. In all cities run by an emergency manager, union employees have had to renegotiate contracts and their pay and benefits have been cut.

On our next blog entry we will look closely at the newly signed consent agreement!

Legal Aid and Defender's Association

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