DETROIT – For Dave Bing, a pro basketball hall of famer and successful business owner, his time as Detroit’s mayor has been as tumultuous as any since the early days of the man whom city hall is named after: Coleman A. Young. Since taking over as mayor in 2009, Bing has dealt with the arduous task of pulling the city out of years of governmental and financial mismanagement, making many unpopular moves in the process.
“The (NBA) career really helped to prepare me,” Bing, 68, said in an exclusive interview with TheGrio. “On any given night, you’re either going to be a winner or a loser. Sometimes you play well, sometimes you don’t. You’re either the star or you’re the goat.”
“I was taught that you never get so hung up and get high on the good things and success that you’ve had,” he added. “You need balance. You don’t get so low when you’re going through a losing streak.”
Bing, who spent 12 seasons with the Detroit Pistons from 1966-1975, inherited a city going through a long losing streak. The city was mired in the effects of the recession, a record budget deficit, the near total collapse of the auto industry, and the resignation of disgraced former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.
“Bottom line, this administration inherited a hell hole, quite honestly,” Bing said in reference to the city’s financial situation. “We had at one point close to 2 million people in the city that were tax payers.
“Now we’re just north of 700,000. We have not made any decisions to make the necessary changes and cuts from a revenue standpoint.
“You can’t continue to try to be everything to everybody when you don’t have the same revenue stream. So you have hard decisions to make.”
Bing, along with the Detroit City Council, oversaw negotiations over a consent agreement with the state of Michigan to avoid the appointment of an emergency financial manager, that was voted into effect in April. During the negotiations, tensions were at full peak with people screaming at – even threatening – council members and the mayor.
Bing hears the criticism and misinformation from some segments of the city: that he is an outsider; that he is “giving away” the city to the suburbanites; or that he does not “care” about Detroit. He hears these claims and largely dismisses them, asking what those who criticize him have done to help the city.
“You’ve got a very small percentage of our population that speaks out very loudly,” Bing said. “The unfortunate thing is that a vast majority of our citizens are willing to stand on the sideline and let this minority group yell, scream, and get people excited without knowing facts. It’s all emotional.
“I think our job is to make sure we have facts and we have data and we’re driven by that and then we have to get that out to the public.” He added that the city is now holding monthly community meetings telling people how deep the problems are in the city.
In terms of the consent agreement, he made it a point to say that it is not the same as an emergency manager, which the Detroit Public Schools are currently under, and is not under the auspices of Public Act 4 – the state’s controversial EFM law. Last Friday, the Michigan Supreme Court put the potential repeal of P.A. 4 on the November ballot, prompting misguided attempts by opponents of the consent agreement to try to have it nullified, but that is not the case.
“It’s not going to have a major effect on us as we’ve signed a consent agreement with the state to keep (an emergency manager) out in the first place,” Bing said. “It’ll have an impact within the city because the school system has an emergency manager [Roy Roberts], who I just talked to.
“He’s a personal friend who is doing something that he doesn’t have to do and he’s catching hell right now. And it’s not going to get any easier.” He added that having P.A. 4 on the ballot is a good thing and it does give people the ability to vote it in or out.
Next: Digging out of ‘years of mismanagement’
In terms of how the city is handling its deficit, which at one point was over $300 million, Bing admits that the process of bringing it down is very difficult but very necessary. Years of overspending and mismanagement put Detroit in this position and it will take time to get it out.
“On a year-to-year basis in terms of our budget, we’re doing what we’re supposed to do,” Bing said. “We’re doing what should’ve been done 20 years ago, and that means not to spend more than you take in. We can’t afford to do that anymore and the consent agreement will not allow us to do that.
“There’s some structure in place and there’s an oversight board in place that I’m happy about.” He added that the city is working to pare down the working deficit, which is in the “billions of dollars” range.
A major point of contention with the city’s attempts to cut costs has come from public safety – namely the heavily-taxed Detroit Police and Fire Departments – which Bing has often called his “top priority.” Earlier this week, the city council voted down a ballot initiative that would have allowed the city to vote on a tax increase that would put more officers on the street.
“The men and women who work in public safety place their lives on the line every day, only to be treated like criminals,” said Joe Duncan, the President of the Detroit Police Officers Association, during a July 26 rally in front of the City-County Building. “When will this administration make public safety a priority? When will it put their citizens first by providing their citizens the same protection provided by other communities?”
“When will this administration understand that without public safety, Detroit will never turn around?” Detroit first responders attended the July 26 rally as a way to get the city’s attention that there could be other places to cut money from.
The police department has faced dwindling numbers the last decade due to retirements and resignations, and it has reflected in the city’s violent crime numbers, which are on pace to surpass the last two years. The Fire Department needed a federal grant in early July to stave off having 108 firefighters laid off.
“The only thing flourishing in Detroit is unabated crime,” Duncan said. “Response times are late and houses are allowed to burn. Why? Because of inadequate equipment, the closure of fire houses, and reduced man power.”
Bing insists that public safety is his number one priority but also said that in order for the city to meet its financial needs, every area of the city must make some form of sacrifice. He said that other city employees have been asked to take similar pay cuts.
“For 38 months, there was no impact on public safety,” Bing said. “Other employees had to take a 10 percent pay cut. There was a negative impact on their benefits, but never did it have an impact on public safety. But we now find ourselves in a situation because of the consent agreement, where we’ve got a revenue stream coming in and 65 percent of our budget is public safety.
“There’s no way we can balance our budget without touching (public safety).” Bing says that he doesn’t want to fire or lay off anyone in public safety, but every facet of the city must make sacrifices in order to make things work.
“People need to sit back and look at this from a long view,” Bing said. “Is it better to take a 10 percent pay cut, or not take it and lay off 500 to 800 officers? That’s not the direction that I want to go in. We’re trying as best we can to work with them because we need them. I still say that public safety is my number one priority for the city.”
When Bing first ran for mayor in 2009, he stated during the campaign that he would only serve one term. With the stress of the consent agreement, budget issues, and his health scare earlier this year, the speculation continued that he would be one and done after 2013, but it seems that Bing has started to change his tune on running for re-election.
“By the time this administration’s first term or second term is over, we will have gone through a major transformation for the city,” Bing said, making his first reference to a potential second term. “Then it’s time to start rebuilding, trying to get population back and trying to get businesses to expand here.”
When pressed on the question of if he’s officially running for re-election, he hedged slightly, choosing to focus on the rest of his first term.
“I’ve got about 16 months left in this term,” Bing said. “I want to focus on fixing things. Then the people will really make the final determination as to what I’m going to do.
“If people feel that we’ve done good things – as hard as they may be – and a lot of people don’t like change but when they start to see some positive change and I hope people say they believe in this administration and hope that we can keep doing what we’re doing.”
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