Detroit ‘Gut Kick’ Poses New Test for Long Suffering City

[Purveyor]

By Chris Christoff, Keith Naughton and Jeff Green - Jul 19, 2013

Michigan Avenue’s LJ’s Lounge has survived its share of setbacks over the years in Detroit. The latest “is like a kick in the gut,” manager Sue Wallace said.

“There’s going to be a lot of people suffering” from the city’s race into bankruptcy court yesterday, Wallace said in an interview. “I pray like hell we’re not one of ’em.”

Kevyn Orr, Detroit’s emergency fiscal manager, sought protection for the Motor City under Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to deal with more than $18 billion in debt and long-term obligations. In a statement, the bankruptcy lawyer said he had “no reasonable alternative” to seeking a legal shield from creditors through the court filing.

Detroit’s new status as the nation’s largest municipal bankruptcy elicited reactions of sadness, hopefulness and resignation in the city and from observers around the nation.

It was inevitable, said Steven Rattner, a New York financier who headed President Barack Obama’s auto-industry task force in 2009 that reorganized the predecessors of Detroit-based General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC in bankruptcy court.

MORE...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-18/detroit-gut-kick-poses-new-test-for-long-suffering-city.html

[FarCenter]

1. One of the news shows said that 911 response times were more than 50 minutes on average.

If you run a bar, provide your own police.

[Purveyor]

2. Living in Detroit with these response times, how could one not own a gun or two for self-protection?