Detroit—
Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr and members of his former law firm discussed
the potential of Orr taking the job and filing a Detroit bankruptcy
weeks before he was formally appointed, emails obtained through a court
order show.
Union activist Robert Davis
distributed a snippet of the January and February correspondence between
the Jones Day firm, Orr and an aide from Gov. Rick Snyder’s office
during a press conference Monday at the AFSCME hall in downtown Detroit.
Snyder appointed Orr as emergency manager in March.
“It’s
an outright slap in the face to the citizens in the city of Detroit,”
Davis said of the emails. “It clearly indicates from Day One ... the
decision (to seek bankruptcy) was already made.”
The
emails are the latest batch released by Davis who obtained them through
a lawsuit seeking to nullify Orr’s appointment. An Ingham County
Circuit Court judge is expected to rule Wednesday on whether the case
will go to trial, he said.
Orr spokesman Bill Nowling called Davis’ allegations “baseless,” noting the emails show nothing more than proper due diligence.
“The
notion that a Chapter 9 filing was a foregone conclusion is absurd,”
Nowling said in a released statement. “Kevyn Orr held more than 100
meetings with creditors, stakeholders and unions in the last three
months before deciding that the best course for restructuring the city
was to seek federal bankruptcy protection.”
In
one Jan. 31 email, a Jones Day attorney, Daniel Moss, tells Orr that
the “ideal scenario” for Detroit would be for Snyder and Detroit Mayor
Dave Bing to agree “that the best option is simply to go through an
orderly Chapter 9.”
“This avoids an
unnecessary political fight over the scope/authority of any appointed
emergency manager ... and, moreover, moves the ball forward on setting
Detroit on the right track,” Moss wrote on Jan. 31.
The
emails also include a summary sent to Orr from Snyder aide Richard
Baird, detailing a “partnership” prepared by Bing, pledging cooperation
and urging others to be part of the solution.
Bing, in a statement released Monday, said he’s been “very vocal about being against an emergency manager.”
“I
did not cut any type of secret deal with Lansing,” Bing said. “When it
became obvious that Lansing had made the decision to bring in an
emergency manager, I thought the best choice was for the city to work in
partnership with Lansing to protect the interests of the citizens of
Detroit.”
To underscore his point that the
draft agreement reference was not formal, Bing also noted in his
statement that the state had not kept his executive team intact, did not
support maintaining federal funding for DDOT and that no lease deal had
been arranged for Belle Isle, as outlined in the emails.
Sara Wurfel, a spokeswoman for Snyder, said Snyder has been “transparent and visible” in reaching and sharing his decisions.
“That
record speaks for itself. And all laws have been closely followed,” she
said in an email. “Gov. Snyder acted to do everything possible to avoid
the need for an emergency manager for the city of Detroit in the first
place, and then to avoid the need for a bankruptcy filing.”Davis is
under federal indictment in a separate matter for allegedly stealing
$125,000 from Highland Park schools.
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