Organizing Meeting – Make the Banks Pay for Detroit’s Financial Crisis, Mon., Jan. 28, 7 PM

The Banks Owe the City of Detroit

Billions of Dollars for the

Destruction of Our Neighborhoods

CANCEL THE CITY’S DEBT — MAKE THE BANKS PAY,NOT THE WORKERS AND COMMUNITY

No financial manager or “financial stability agreement”

Organizing Meeting — Make the Banks Pay for Detroit’s Financial Crisis

Monday, January 28, 2013, 7:00 pm

5920 Second Avenue, Detroit, MI 48202 (at Antoinette, just north of Wayne State University)

The same banks which caused the economic crisis and destroyed the City of Detroit’s tax base with their fraudulent and racist predatory loans resulting in approximately 150,000 foreclosures in the past five years, now get first lien on city tax dollars for debt service payments.

… Public Act 4, the Emergency Manager Act, guarantees these banks “payment in full of the scheduled debt service requirements on all bonds, notes and municipal securities.” The Financial Stability Agreement incorporates these guarantees. Thousands of city workers are being eliminated, city services are being destroyed and city assets sold to pay off the criminal banks.

The March 12, 2012 Report of the Detroit Financial Review Team’s noted that in the prior fiscal year the City of Detroit paid $597 million in debt service to the banks. The city owes $16.9 billion in debt service to the banks, including $4.9 billion in interest (profit) alone. Eighty per cent of state payments from tax dollars to the Detroit Public Schools is earmarked for debt service payments to the banks.

The 2012 City of Detroit Comprehensive Annual Financial Report states in part:

• $116.1 million of the $218.6 million in bonds the State floated to “help” the City of Detroit went directly to debt service payments to the banks.

• The Water Department issued $1.160.5 billion in revenue bonds last year – $547.2 million was used to pay penalties to the banks for prior bond deals gone sour.

• The City of Detroit is on the hook for an additional $894 million in termination fees this year for being hoodwinked by the banks into interest rate swaps that went bad.

• The City owes the County $84 million this year alone for chargebacks on uncollectible delinquent property taxes – at least half of that is because banks have refused to pay property taxes on foreclosed properties in the City of Detroit.

The banks owe the city billions in reparations for the destruction they have caused. We need an immediate moratorium or halt on all debt service payments to the banks. A suspension in debt service payments would resolve the city’s fiscal crisis and allow for the restoration of city services and the recall of laid-off city workers.

Mayor Bing and the majority of City Council have given up any authority over the City because of their subservience to the banks and Gov. Snyder, and their willingness to destroy the City to serve the rich. We need a People’s Assembly to organize the struggle to demand that the people come before the banks. We have already begun with a Freedom on Information Request for every city contract/ bond with the banks for a people’s review.

In the 1930’s, during the depression, Mayor Frank Murphy of Detroit first formulated the demand for a Moratorium on Debt Service payments when he led the National Conference of Mayors. Let’s revive the fighting tradition of Detroit. Make the banksters pay for the rebuilding of our communities!

Organized by Moratorium Now! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions & Utility Shutoffs