Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said today that Detroit’s bankruptcy, the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, will end at 12:01 a.m. ET on Thursday.
“The financial emergency in the city of Detroit will be defined as wrapping up today,” Snyder said at a news conference in Detroit.
He said paperwork to officially end the bankruptcy would be approved later today. The move comes a month after a federal judge approved a strategy for the city to exit bankruptcy.
Kevyn Orr, the city’s emergency manager, said he would step down following today’s announcement. Snyder tapped Orr for the job in March 2013 soon after the governor said Detroit was in a financial emergency.
It was less than two years ago that members of the Detroit city council and others were screaming that Snyder was a racist for taking control away from the mayor and council and giving emergency powers to Orr (they never did, however, adequately explain how putting a black man in charge was “racist”).
Cynical observers (“Present.”) believed for a long time that municipal authorities were merely biding time and hoping for a federal bailout of the city. That cynicism proved to be on point when a member of the council called for the president to do just that soon after the 2012 election.
What Gov. Snyder did was proactive, difficult and necessary. It has now proven to be successful.
If the same people who got Detroit into dire financial straits don’t screw it up, that is.
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