By Maren Roeske ‘18 | Staff Writer
State
A long time in the works, Lansing legislators still fail to introduce a plan to aid the desperate Detroit Public Schools before the end of session, pushing any movement until the new year when the State Legislature comes back into session on January 13.
One of Governor Rick Snyder’s pet projects, he vented his aggravation for how long it has taken for any movement of the subject of DPS to enter the capitol building in an interview with the “Detroit Free Press” editorial board.
“I appreciate that they’re trying to get more support and people on board,” Snyder said. “But we just need legislators to introduce the legislation.”
This is not the first time Snyder has taken a personal interest in the fate of the DPS introducing his own plan, first in April and again in October, to help alleviate the $515 million in debt the schools struggle with. The plan takes a two step approach:
First, it would split the district into two entities: a “new” and “old” district, as a way to pay off DPS’s massive debt and add extra oversight in areas like finances, school placement and school performance.
It would also take money from the school aid fund, or some other source of state funding, an estimated $715 million total or about $70 million a year for the next 10 years to fund the new Detroit Community School District. The money would make up for the revenue from an $18 million tax that would be diverted to the old district to pay off DPS’s debt.
But there is a long way before these steps can be carried out to fruition and the schools restored to their past status. DPS problem solved, said Snyder, is where the money is coming from and whether that would have a financial impact on other school districts, governance of the school district and how the Education Achievement Authority, charter schools and public DPS schools are treated.
Detroit lawmakers want a locally elected school board restored to power immediately, but Snyder said that may be difficult in the Republican-controlled House and Senate.
“If the state is making a major contribution, people have different levels of feeling on how involved the state should be until that investment is fully implemented,” Snyder said.
So until these decisions can be made and an agreement reached the DPS bailout is stalled. With so much time elapsed the discussions will have to be brought up in the new session, adding to the time crunch Sen. Bert Johnson, D-Highland Park, fears will hurt the schools.
“I’m an optimist, but I didn’t see the sun for long this morning,” Johnson said. “If I were a betting man, I would bet that we’re going to go away without an introduction and see something introduced when we get back. But we don’t have a lot of time to waste.”
He also blames the upcoming elections for the lack of forward motion on this project, not only partisan disagreements.
“It’s very important that we don’t sit and do nothing with an election year looming where Republicans will be motivated to watch their politics more than their policy making,” Johnson said. “And if that happens, we could be looking at the end of DPS.”
In more positive news from Detroit, the city was recently added to United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Creative Cities Network for its “immense potential to assert the role of culture as enabler of sustainable development,”the agency’s Director-General Irina Bokova said in a statement.
Detroit joined the rank of 116 member cities recognized for their unique work in one of seven creative fields: crafts and folk art, design, film, gastronomy, literature, media arts and music with a diverse collection of members including Rome, Singapore, Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Barcelona and now Detroit.
Detroit was specifically accepted into UNESCO Creative Cities Network for the work in design and sustainable urban development. With the automotive headquarters for several of the top manufacturers and hundreds of urban gardens everywhere in the city Detroit is more than worthy of these titles.
UNESCO devised the network of cities in the hope that they would foster more international collaboration
National
The last republican debate of 2015 was held in the Venetian, the largest hotel in Las Vegas, on Tuesday. While the candidates of course received much media attention, many were more focused on the Venetian’s owner multi billionaire Sheldon Adelson.
In terms of superPACs and donors, Adelson is the most wanted, donating more than the famed Koch brothers. In the 2012 election, Adelson donated, by himself, $150 million to republican nominee Newt Gingrich, some say single handedly keeping Gingrich in the running even after his poll numbers tanked in the primaries falling way below front runners Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. In the 2014 congressional elections he gave out another $25 million to republican nominees.
The focus then of the debate was, according to most new sources including prominent figures such as Rachel Maddow, to win the favor of Adelson. Which meant the candidates sucking up to his main political focuses like the Israel Palestine conflict, for which Adelson is a strong voice in favor of the demolition of Palestine and the complete rule of Israel over the West Bank and Gaza Strip as the main beneficiary of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Already Marco Rubio is favored to be Adelson’s pick for the 2016 elections, with Rubio conforming to the main interests of Adelson.
Adelson wants Israel to annex the West Bank; recently, Rubio has taken to saying that “now is not the time” for the US to advance a two-state solution. Adelson loathes the multinational nuclear deal with Iran; Rubio vows to scrap it. Adelson wants his taxes cut; Rubio’s cuts appear to promise him the largest reduction — while promising the country a drastic increase in the deficit. And, in July, Rubio signed on to co-sponsor Adelson’s pet bill against Internet gambling.
Yet Rubio denies the claim that he has taken and shifted to these positions just to win Adelson’s favor and money.
“People buy into my agenda,” Rubio said of the claim that he is taking Adelson’s position. “I don’t buy into theirs.”
International
Typhoon Melor made landfall in the Philippines on Tuesday, Dec. 15 forcing hundreds of thousands to flee the heavy rains and wind.
For the past several days Melor barreled through the archipelagos around the Philippines through what many meteorologists nicknamed the “bowling alley” for tropical cyclones before touching down along the Northern coast line. The storm unexpectedly regained force, with its maximum sustained winds rising to 230 kph (145 mph), according to the U.S. military’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center. Melor was upgraded to a category four hurricane, for reference Hurricane Katrina was a category five.
Melor has yet to strike any major cities and there is only one casualty so far. A man was killed in the Northern province of Samar by a piece of sheet metal thrown by the wind when the storm first made landfall according to state-run Philippines News Agency and citing regional authorities.
Yet over 733,000 people were forced to evacuate just before Melor reached the coast and thousands more were displaced after from the myriad of communities along the shore line.
Besides the evacuated people all around the Philippines there were power cuts, schools closed and flights and other transportation disrupted leaving over 7,000 sea travelers stranded.
