16 candidates chase unenviable job: Detroit mayor

There are 16 candidates vying for a job that is difficult to imagine anyone wanting: mayor of Detroit.

The city’s finances are in the hands of a bankruptcy judge, and a state-appointed emergency manager is calling the shots at City Hall.

The position of mayor, a once powerful job that now seems at best undefined, if not irrelevant, was left open when mayor Dave Bing announced in May that he would not seek a second term.

A primary election will be held on Tuesday to whittle the field down to two contenders, who will face off in a general election in November.

All over this beleaguered city, there are yard signs and radio ads, debates and photo opportunities. Campaign volunteers spend their days canvassing neighborhoods, skipping over abandoned homes to knock next door.

But Tuesday’s primary will be anything but normal, as many wonder how much sway a new mayor would have in this, the nation’s largest city to file for bankruptcy protection.

"A lot of people feel that way," said LaNesha McCann (21) who spent the summer canvassing for Benny Napoleon, one of the front-runners. "They say, 'What does it matter if I vote?' "

More than 50 candidates for nine city council seats will also be considered on Tuesday, after more than half of the council’s current members declined to run for re-election.

Detroit’s department of elections estimates that voter turnout will be around 17 per cent, about the same as the last mayoral primary in 2009. But political observers and campaign representatives predict that many frustrated voters will stay home, embittered by the democratic process in a city where elected officials no longer have a say.

"The level of confusion is sky high," said Bill Ballenger, the editor of the newsletter Inside Michigan Politics, suggesting that Tuesday's showing will be closer to 12 percent. "Lack of interest and disillusionment is prevalent."

Since March, Detroit has been under the authority of Kevyn D Orr, a Washington bankruptcy lawyer who was selected by Gov Rick Snyder, a Republican, to run the city as the emergency manager. He has kept paying Mr Bing and the City Council to carry out day-to-day operations under his oversight, though state law does not require it.

A number of mayoral candidates consider the emergency manager’s tenure with the city illegitimate. They dispute his take on Detroit’s financial troubles - around $18 billion of debt and obligations - as grossly exaggerated and say there was no reason to rush to bankruptcy court. They also think Mr. Bing should have more fiercely opposed Mr Orr and the decision to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy last month.

"This car was driven into the ditch intentionally," said Krystal Crittendon, a former city attorney who is running for mayor and says she would refuse to cooperate with Mr Orr if elected.

Lawsuits attempting to oust the emergency manager are pending in state and federal courts. Under Michigan law, the soonest Mr Orr could be removed by local officials is September 2014, months after a proposed deadline for the city to file its restructuring plan with the bankruptcy court. Mr Orr is expected to play a major part in shaping those proceedings.

Even candidates who have expressed a willingness to engage with the emergency manager admit that they are not sure what that relationship would look like or how soon control of the city could be transferred back to elected hands.

"We're going to see," said Mike Duggan, a former chief executive of the Detroit Medical Center and another front-runner in the race for mayor. "I would come in with a very specific plan. I expect that I can convince the governor and the emergency manager of the reasonableness of my positions."

So far, local attention has been fixed on a possible runoff between Mr Duggan, who is white, and Mr Napoleon, who is black and is currently the sheriff of Wayne County, which includes Detroit.

Mr Napoleon, a former Detroit police chief, talks often about his strong neighborhood roots, his childhood in Detroit and the house he has lived in since 1985.

Mr Duggan, who moved from a suburb to start his campaign, has received backing from Detroit’s business community, raising more than $1.2 million, compared with Mr Napoleon’s $600,000. Supporters praise his turnaround experience and his good relationship with state officials, saying city governance could be returned to Detroit faster with him in office.

Underlying the potential matchup are questions about whether a city that is more than 80 per cent African-American could elect its first white mayor since Coleman Young took office in 1974.

This at a time when Mr Snyder, a white governor in Lansing, is viewed by some Detroiters as an outsider who stripped power from the city’s black leaders by appointing the emergency manager. Candidates say race is not a factor in the election.

Though born in Detroit, Mr Duggan has not been helped by a perceived lack of hometown credibility. His campaign suffered a blow in May when his candidacy was challenged by Tom Barrow, an accountant making his fourth mayoral bid. Courts ruled that Mr Duggan had not been a legal resident of the city long enough when he submitted election petitions - he filed them two weeks too early - striking his name from the ballot and forcing him to run as a write-in candidate.

Such campaigns are difficult enough, even with endorsements from the editorial boards of both major newspapers in the city. But Mr Duggan's run was complicated further when a local barber with a similar name, Mike Dugeon, filed as a write-in candidate last month.

The move could call into question the intent of voters who misspell Mr. Duggan’s name even slightly. There are now billboards scattered across the city that illustrate the write-in process and multiple jingles — “D-U-G-G-A-N, that’s Mike Duggan, he’s a write-in” — created by supporters to help other voters remember.

Chris Thomas, the state director of elections, said that if the top two candidates were not clear when polls closed on Tuesday, the process of counting write-in ballots could delay election results for several days as officials interpreted the intent of any ballot that contained misspellings.

Others in the race include Lisa Howze, a former state representative, and Fred Durhal Jr, a current state representative.

Amid the political melee, candidates dismiss the notion that the job they want will be anything but active in shaping the city’s future. Mr Orr’s time in Detroit will eventually end, they say, and the mayor’s influence will again be unmatched.

“There will be a Detroit when all of this is over,” said Mr Napoleon, “and the leadership that we have in place at that point has an opportunity to re-engineer this community in a way that no one could have ever possibly imagined they would have an opportunity to do so.”

New York Times