Who won final Detroit mayor debate?

Posted by Minni

Thursday night the third and final Detroit mayor debate of the special election was aired live on Detoit's
Channel 7 (WXYZ). The debate was predictable and did not produce one clear winner though Bing did stutter at bit and Cockrel got a lot of heat for the failed Cobo deal. Neither candidates showed a lot of passion and stuck to the old familiar speak points: Police mini stations, The failed cobo deal, The budget, past scandals ... yawn. Heard it all before in the first two debates! Bing offered as few specifics as possible and cockrel spent a lot of time defending his place as Bing attacked with often ridiculous charges saying Cockrel made the budget go up from 150 mil to 300 mil in a month. If I HAD to say there was a winner I'd say Cockrel only because he's had experience as mayor and knows a bit more specifics of what's going on than Bing. But neither one of them's stellar.

At one point in the debate Cockrel was talking about scrubbing toilets for a day in Cobo Hall? Really? And apparently he saved the city 400 million on some bonds controversy? Huh?

And Bing said his "relationship in Lansing is very good". With Who? That's sooo vague but that's how Bing debates.

New anchor Steven Clark asked the first question:

“Gentlemen, first of all we’re here tonight because of failed leadership. Specifically leadership run amuck by the Kilpatrick administration. So far as interim Mayor Mr. Cockrel your biggest leadership test has been the Cobo deal and by all accounts you failed at that one. You and the council ended up in court over that, the deal didn’t get done, it fell through, you haven’t been able to get all the parties back to the table. Mr. Bing your political leadership is untried and untested. This question is for both of you. Mr. Bing if you’re given the opportunity and Mr. Cockrel if you’re given another chance, what kind of leader will you be? What will you do to unify the council reengage the region? In short Mr. Bing what kind of leader will you be?


Bing: My relationship with the council members is very very good. I believe that the Cobo deal is a deal that has to happen.I thought it was a good deal when it was announced. I have great relationships with the Wayne county executive and the Oakland county executive and I don’t know the macomb executive as well... My relationship in Lansing is very good.

I do understand why president of city council was opposed to deal. She wanted to make sure that Detroiters were involved in the deal You have to get Detroiters involved in the deal. This was not the case. That seemed to put the deal to the shelf. I would not have brought that deal to the table without knowing if I had enough votes. And that’s the mistake of faild leadership.

Cockrel: We engaged council very early in the process. It’s important to know that the same deal that the council ultimatly voted on is the same deal presented to the council last summer. Yes, the membership of the authority did change but that was a result of some late night menuvering in the senate.

In reality it wasn’t ‘til 11th hour that certain council members started to raise issues. The people have spoken. I’ve already spoken with presisent Conyers about this. What I plan to do moving forward -- we plan to re-engage everybody and come up with an alternative plan that works and a plan which represents the interesets and concerns of everyone and which seek to address concerns of everybody.


It’s all about where do we go from here? What I had first and foremost with this deal, people like Sheila Horton is a janitor who works for ABM at Cobo hall and I had the opportunity to work with her for one day doing her task at cobo hall. Cleaning toilets scrubbing bathrooms and wiping off table tops. I wanted to protect her job and the jobs of other people working at Cobo Hall and the jobs of those working in hotel rooms who desperately need concevion business and an auto show to keep going


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Bing: Budget: "First thing that I would do is go back and look at when my opponent first went into office we had at that time a 155 million deficit. Now I’m hearing that the deficit has grown to 280 mill maybe 300 million? He got there by inaction. Had my opponent made the decision to do the cuts that were necessary early on I don’t think that was as a city would be losing a million dollars a day and building that deficit up even more. I’m wondering where were are you going to get the $ from to buy these employees out. [Cockrel said he'd buyout city workers who've been around more than 30 years]. Sometime in the month of May that [Detroit] may run out of cash --- I don’t want to put fear in any body. Nothing worse than a payless payday...

My opponent is talking about a 10 percent pay cut across board. Look at each dept on dept by dept basis not necessarily Cut them. Look where your valuable employees are …

Cockel's Response: I became mayor on September 19 – we divulged to the public a month later the 280 million deficit. There’s not way I spent that much money in less the month –let be realistic about that. The reason why the amount went up is I revealed those numbers to public. The true numbers were never revealed. I also saved the city 400 mill by eliminating a controversial problem with a bond swap. I also indicated that I would take a 20 percent cut to own salary.