by THOMAS GAIST
Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr met with officials from the Detroit Institute of Arts Thursday to demand that the museum contribute $100 million to the “rescue” package being assembled by Governor Rick Snyder and a group of wealthy foundations, including the Ford Foundation, the Kresge Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
The proposed deal would raise $330 million from the nine foundations and another $350 million from the state, with the money supposedly going to “protect” the DIA and city workers’ pensions from the impact of the bankruptcy.
Orr’s demand that the DIA contribute $100 million exposes the so-called “rescue” plan as a fraud. It is a means of removing the DIA from public ownership, placing it under the control of powerful private interests, and crippling its finances and operations in order to funnel its funds to the city’s bondholders and bank creditors.
The so-called “protection” of city workers’ pension benefits is no different. They will be drastically slashed with or without the “rescue” package.
The $100 million demand amounts to an act of extortion and would have a ruinous impact on the museum’s balance sheet. While an unnamed source cited by the Detroit Free Press said the city considers $100 million over 20 years “a number the DIA can get to,” museum representatives said paying such an amount was “completely unfeasible.”
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