Detroit City Council members are trembling over a bill flying through the state Legislature.
If adopted by the Senate, a House bill sponsored by Ken Daniels, D-Detroit, will place the following question on Detroit’s August ballot: Do voters want to continue electing council members to represent the entire city, or would they prefer to elect council members by district?
Councilman Ken Cockrel says the bill is particularly odious in that it calls for the mayor to appoint two of three members of the panel that would draw the districts. The council would appoint the third. Is Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, the former House minority leader, behind the greased bill? Shannon McCarthy, the Kwamster’s spokeswoman, says no. And while his stand on the at-large vs. district issue is vague, McCarthy says he thinks such a proposal should come from Detroit, not Lansing.
Lisa M. Collins is a Metro Times staff writer. E-mail [email protected]
