SAMUEL LOGAN

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A Real Times Newspaper

479 Ledyard – Detroit, MI 48201

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April 14-20, 2010

JACKIE BERG

Chief Marketing Officer

BANKOLE THOMPSON

Senior Editor

CORNELIUS A. FORTUNE

Associate Managing Editor

JOHN H. SENGSTACKE

Chairman-Emeritus 1912-1997

LONGWORTH M. QUINN

Publisher-Emeritus 1909-1989

Page A-6

Proposed pension fund takeover is bad for Detroit

By Sheila Wade Kneeshaw

Proposed legislation has been introduced

in the Michigan House and Senate that would take control of the General Retirement System of the City of Detroit and the Police and Fire Retirement System of the City of Detroit from the Funds’ employee-elected Boards of Trust- ees and turn it over to the Municipal Employ- ees Retirement System (MERS).

GUEST EDITORIAL

The Detroit Retirement Systems vehemently

oppose this proposed takeover. A transfer of the City of Detroit’s pension systems to MERS would unnecessarily give $6 billion of Detroit’s wealth to an entity over which the city would have no control and would bring no economic benefit to its people.

The Detroit Retirement Systems have man-

aged the assets of the funds remarkably well in these turbulent times and the funds have performed in the top third of municipal funds nationwide. In fact, the Detroit Retirement Systems have not only outperformed MERS in recent years, they also have substantially higher funding levels.

Equally important, this transfer of the De-

troit Retirement Systems would violate the will of the people of the city of Detroit, who created the systems in the Detroit City Charter and specified that they would be locally controlled pension funds directed by city officers and em- ployee leaders elected by the people and em- ployees of the city of Detroit.

This local control has been of great benefit to

the city over the years. The Detroit Retirement Systems’ investment strategies have helped grow Detroit’s economy, create jobs and create wealth in the community because they invest in the city, are staffed by Detroit employees and rely on the expertise of many Detroit-based fi- nancial managers and consultants.

Given the tens of millions of dollars the

Detroit Retirement Systems have invested in Detroit, transfer of local control also means a halt to local investments and their resulting economic impact, including but not limited to a reduction of job opportunities.

Bing Administration officials say that trans-

ferring control of the Detroit Retirement Sys- tems would save the city vast sums of money, but this proposed takeover would not solve the city’s budget problems. It could, in actuality, add to them because the proposed temporary savings that proponents of the pension take- over legislation promise are just that — pro- posed, and temporary. To date, the city has not offered any detailed studies, reports or docu- mentation to support the purported savings.

And, unlike the Detroit Retirement Systems,

MERS charges penalties on late payments of its members’ legally required employer contribu- tions. Given the City of Detroit’s longstanding record of late payments, this could further in- crease the amount the city would owe. More- over, MERS can unilaterally report the city’s failure to make its legally required employer contributions to the State Treasurer to begin

the state takeover process for the entire city

government under the Local Government Fiscal Responsibility Act, which it did in 2007 with a nearby Michigan city.

Another of the Bing Administration’s argu- ments for transfer of the Detroit Retirement

Systems to MERS revolves around travel and admin- istrative costs of the Funds.

It’s

critical that De- troiters under- stand the gross inaccuracy of this argument.

MERS ac-

tually spends a higher percent- age of its total assets on admin- istrative

costs,

including educa- tion and travel, than the De- troit Retirement Systems

com-

bined. Based on the MERS 2008 annual

report,

Sheila Wade Kneeshaw

MERS incurred $16.3 million in

administrative expenses. Conversely, the De- troit Retirements Systems spent only $8.8 mil- lion in administrative expenses, about half as much.

And while it has been pointed out repeat-

edly that the Detroit Retirement Systems spent approximately $380,000 on travel over an 18- month period from 2007-2008, that amount covered 21 trustees. In contrast, according to MERS 2008 annual report, MERS’ nine trustees spent $320,000 for travel and meetings over only a 12-month period. We find it interesting that there has been no similar outrage about a board consisting of less than half the number of Detroit Retirement System Trustees, spend- ing an equivalent amount — or more when pro- rated.

There should be no outrage surrounding

the reasonable education and travel expenses required to meet the standards of a prudent trustee. The law requires the standards of a prudent trustee be met by all trustees. The law also contemplates expenses for due diligence, education and related travel expenses.

The Detroit Retirement Systems believe it

would be unwise for the state legislature to even consider taking control away from such a well-funded local pension plan and turn it over to a statewide pension plan whose perfor- mance does not exceed the locally controlled plans’ performance, opening the city up to the increased risk of contribution liability and the potential for a state takeover of Detroit’s fi- nances.

The Detroit City Council agrees with the De-

troit Retirement Systems on this and recently voted unanimously to join in opposing this proposed legislation — which on its face is not only unconstitutional, it directly violates other statutes, including the Home Rule Cities Act and the Public Employees Relations Act.

We hope that you will join us in our fight

against the latest in a series of ongoing attacks on Detroit and its right to govern itself, by writ- ing or calling your state senator and state rep- resentative to urge them to vehemently oppose this ill-conceived legislation.

Sheila Wade Kneeshaw is chair of the Gen- eral Retirement System of the City of Detroit.

Fighting hate and bigotry is a collective responsibility

By Mark Potok and Heidi Beirich

As citizen militias formed across the coun-

try during the 1990s, few states were closer to the heart of the antigovernment extremist movement than Michigan.

Intense fears of a federal government tram-

pling civil liberties, disarming citizens and imposing martial law turned the state into a hotbed of militia activity. Citizens armed them- selves, joined the movement and prepared for the worst.

It was a phenomenon that would rage across

the country until 1995, when the Oklahoma City bombing took the lives of 168 men, women and children. This stunning act of mass murder — along with beefed-up federal investigations — helped to extinguish interest in the move- ment, but not before the state received another major round of media attention. That came after reports surfaced that the bombing conspirators had attended militia meetings in the state.

It’s a history worth noting, because after

more than a decade out of the spotlight the mi- litias have come roaring back to life across the country. Michigan, once again, is a hotbed of militia activity.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)

recently documented 34 militia groups in the state – a staggering number when one consid- ers that a year earlier the SPLC found only 42 militias in the entire country.

As of 2009, there were 127 militias in the

United States — an increase of more than 200 percent.

This nationwide growth has been fueled by

anger over the changing racial demographics of the country, the soaring public debt, the troubled economy and an array of initiatives by President Obama that have been branded as “socialist” or even “fascist” by his political op- ponents.

A key difference between the militia move-

ment today and in the 1990s is that the federal government

is

now headed by a black man. That fact,

with high levels of non-white im- migration, has helped

much of

infuse the

Mark Potok

movement with a strong element of racial animus, which was not the primary mo- tivation in the past.

The resurgence of these groups remark-

ably parallels the origins of the movement in the 1990s. The modern militia movement was partly shaped at a meeting of radical leaders in Estes Park, Colo., in 1992. At this gathering, known as “the Rocky Mountain Rendezvous,” a cross section of extremist leaders put aside doctrinal differences to focus on a common enemy: the federal government, which, in their minds, overtaxed, wrongfully imprisoned and even murdered its citizens.

Today’s militias have eerily similar roots,

right down to a summit that helped midwife a shared ideology. In May 2009, about 30 self- described “freedom keepers” met at Georgia’s Jekyll Island, where they mapped out “action plans” for a larger movement – one that would confront not only taxes but an array of issues that threaten to “collapse the Republic.”

What followed was their “Continental Con-

gress” in Illinois — an 11-day gathering that aligned a broad section of the radical right. Next month, on the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, thousands of the newly united will march in Washington, D.C., in support of gun rights.

coupled

Sowing seeds of extremism

By George Curry

A plot to kill police officers in Michigan,

along with racist and homophobic attacks on members of Congress, are among the painful recent reminders that hatred is still far too prevalent in America.

Law enforcement officials carried out raids

over the weekend in Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio that resulted in the arrest of nine mem- bers of Hutaree, a so-called Christian militia based in Michigan. According to an indictment, the members discussed luring a police officer to his death by making a false 911 call, kill- ing an officer after a traffic stop, or attacking the family of an officer. The group hoped to kill more law enforcement officers by setting off bombs at an officer’s funeral.

News of the failed plot came on the heels of a

tea-party protest on Capitol Hill in which some demonstrators called several African Ameri- can congressmen the N-word, spat on one, and shouted another slur at Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.), who is openly gay.

Meanwhile, a Philadelphia man was arrested

for threatening to kill House Republican Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia.

The hatred on display in Washington and

the Midwest should be seen within the context of growing right-wing extremism. The Southern Poverty Law Center recently issued a report, “Rage on the Right,” that documents the growth of hate groups.

“The number of hate groups in America has

been going up for years, rising 54 percent be- tween 2000 and 2008 and driven by an angry backlash against nonwhite immigration and, starting in the last years of that period, the eco- nomic meltdown and the climb to power of an African American president,” the report says.

According to the law center, which monitors

extremist groups, “These groups rose again slightly in 2009 — from 926 in 2008 to 932 last year — despite the demise of a key neo-Nazi group.

“At the same time, the number of what the

SPLC designates as ‘nativist extremist’ groups — organizations that go beyond mere advo- cacy of restrictive immigration policy to actu- ally confront or harass suspected immigrants — jumped from 173 groups in 2008 to 309 last year.”

Even more disturbing has been the increase

in militias, a paramilitary wing of the Patriot movement. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, 363 new Patriot groups appeared in 2009, bringing the total to 512 (127 of them militias) — a 244 percent increase.

As troubling as the increased number of hate

groups is the increased respect being accorded to their far-fetched ideas. Mark Potok, director

George Curry

of the law cen- ter’s Intelligence Project, said ex- tremist

ideas

that were usu- ally dismissed in the past are now being popu- larized by some elected officials and media fig- ures.

view on NPR’s “Fresh Potok

“Glenn three shows spec-

ulating on whether or not FEMA had construct- ed a whole set of secret concentration camps. Ultimately, in the fourth show Beck decided it was not true and, quote-unquote, debunked it, but the real point was that, for three entire shows, he hawked this idea.”

Potok also noted that after a Texas man flew

a plane into an IRS building in Austin, Repub- lican Iowa Rep. Steve King “basically excused the attack, saying, ‘Well, you know, the IRS is a terrible thing. If it had been gotten rid of, as I thought it should be, years ago, this never would have happened,’ which to me sounds an awful lot like saying, ‘You know, if that person wasn’t standing in front of the murderer’s gun, they never would have died.’ “

Rather than take on the difficult task of

confronting bigots, some public figures have chosen to minimize the problems of racism, sexism and homophobia.

For example, former Education Secretary Bill

Bennett endorsed the view of a letter to Nation- al Review that dismissed the incidents on Capi- tol Hill and at a South Jersey Wal-Mart, where a teenage customer made a racist announcement over the public-address system. “That these events are even remotely newsworthy leads me to one conclusion: Racism in America is dead. We had slavery, then we had Jim Crow - and now we have the occasional public utterance of a bad word.”

On his syndicated radio program, Bennett

said: “Is there occasional racism? Of course. But this country’s been transformed on the issue of race.”

Not exactly. The Justice Department reports

that a hate crime is committed in this country nearly every hour. If the hate groups have their way, that number will only go up.

George E. Curry, a former New York bureau

gcurry@phillynews.com.

Abolition: The only party to nuclear security

By Dr. Joseph Gerson

In Prague, President Obama signed the

modest START 1 Follow On Treaty, or “New START,” between the US and Russia. It helps to stabilize the relationship between the two remaining nuclear superpowers, and extends and updates verification measures, setting the stage for negotiating deeper reductions later.

New START will be praised as an encourag-

ing sign of a renewed commitment to nuclear nonproliferation by both sides. That’s fine as far as it goes. But neither New START nor the Obama administration’s narrowly revised nu- clear strategy (the Nuclear Posture Review) se- riously begin to eliminate the danger of nuclear apocalypse.

That will require full implementation of the

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It calls for the abolition of nuclear arsenals worldwide. Fulfilling the US NPT obligation is the only way President Obama can achieve his stated com- mitment for a nuclear-free future.

Note that even with the New START reduc-

tions in each country’s nuclear warheads, the US and Russia still will possess more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons seven years from now. Despite President Obama’s in- tention to reduce the US nuclear stockpile, the Federation of American Scientists finds that New START “doesn’t force either country to make changes in its nuclear structure.” Never- theless, the US Senate should ratify it quickly as a positive move to reinforce nonproliferation diplomacy.

The key to a world free of nuclear weap-

ons, however, is the four decade-old NPT. One of the seminal agreements of the 20th centu- ry, the NPT is the grand bargain whereby the non-nuclear nations (except Israel, India and Pakistan) forswore becoming nuclear powers. In exchange, they were guaranteed access to resources and technology for nuclear power production for peaceful purposes. The nucle- ar powers promised in the NPT’s Article VI to engage in “good faith negotiations” to elimi- nate their nuclear arsenals.

The NPT Review Conference, held at the United Nations every five years and set to start

May 3, provides the most important opportu- nity for the world’s nations to demand that the nuclear powers finally fulfill their Article VI ob- ligations.

The last NPT Review Conference, in 2005,

was crippled by the Bush administration’s in- transigence, and no agreements were reached. The conference adjourned in failure, putting the NPT in jeopardy. That failure also severely undermined the first priority of US national se- curity policy since 9/11: preventing a nuclear attack by nonstate terrorists. It was this failure that spurred George Shultz, Henry Kissinger and Barack Obama to publicly embrace the vision of a nuclear weapons-free world.

A year ago, when President Obama repeated

his pledge to work for nuclear weapons abo- lition, he followed a familiar political path by committing the US to work toward the fulfill- ment of its part of the NPT bargain. In fact, this week’s Nuclear Posture Review failed to renounce the US first-strike policy, a point emphasized by Defense Secretary Gates when he reiterated that “all options are on the table” as the US confronts Iran and North Korea. The double standard of insisting that we can pos- sess nuclear weapons and threaten first-strike attacks, while other nations cannot, is right- fully seen as old-fashioned hypocrisy and fuels proliferation.

Even as he signs New START, President

Obama is undermining his nonproliferation goal. Despite our economic travails, his budget calls for a $2 billion increase to modernize the US nuclear weapons production infrastructure, additional money to study development of a new nuclear weapon he opposes and $800 mil- lion to develop a new nuclear-capable cruise missile.

As the resolutions adopted annually in the

UN General Assembly demonstrate, the over- whelming majority of the world’s nations want more than a New START. In May, when the NPT Review Conference convenes, delegates will be welcomed by the urgent demand delivered via tens of millions of petition signatures and tens of thousands of nuclear weapons abolitionists: Begin those “good faith negotiations” to elimi- nate the world’s nuclear arsenals.

In an inter- Air,”

said, Beck

of Fox News, of course,

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