Bing must put actions behind words

Less than three weeks into the new year, this much should be clear to the new City Council and sorta-new Mayor Dave Bing:

A new tone at City Hall may be refreshing, necessary to steering Detroit out of a ditch deepened by its own digging. But it's not sufficient without action and the kind of rigorous financial management that should control wild overspending on overtime ($54.3 million last year), that should be more aggressive in collecting $50 million spent to demolish dilapidated buildings.

In other words, talk sounds even cheaper than it is when the numbers are so grim, because the numbers don't lie. Detroit is operating some $325 million in the red; its tax base is shrinking amid a jobs-killing recession and plunging property values; union concessions, a test of Bing's mettle, remain undelivered.

Time for some wins, Mr. Mayor. With your re-election complete and a new council seated, now is the time to start notching small victories on the road to restoring some semblance of financial sanity to a city whose politicians, bureaucrats and union leaders have spent the past generation or more living in a fiscal fantasyland.

And promoting incompetence. How can it be that a city spends some $50 million since 2004 to demolish eyesores downtown but largely fails to recoup the expenses from sad-sack owners? Why are city departments regularly blowing their OT budgets -- and who, if anyone, will be held accountable?

If the answer is "no one" then you lose. Bureaucratic lifers and union leaders are looking for signs you're willing to flex the muscle you want people to think you have. The longer this year goes without clear evidence you're willing to get tough and exercise mayoral power, the less effective you risk being.

And the less credible. Don't believe me? Look at the management record of your predecessor, when he was managing at all. It was spasmodic and occasional; he was tough and commercial when it benefitted him and disconnected when he was distracted, which was most of the time.

Still, Kwame Kilpatrick, no friend to the city's unions, eliminated some 4,000 jobs during his abbreviated tenure. You, more than six months into a deepening crisis, have cut some 450 slots and reduced pay for salaried appointees by 10 percent, but have so far retreated from promises to take out more.

The hesitance costs the city money, suggests you're more of a politician than you're willing to acknowledge, belies your "businessman-in-a-hurry" image and undermines a core message -- that you say what you mean and mean what you say.

Another example: Look to Lansing, where a two-term governor in her final year in office steadfastly refuses to exercise the prodigious powers bestowed on her office by legal precedent and the state constitution. Gov. Jennifer Granholm is probably feared by no one, and she has the record to prove it.

Detroit's crisis, likely to deepen this year, is your opportunity to change the direction of a city whose leaders -- elected, appointed and union -- have together led Detroiters down an unsustainable path they are unable to finance, much less afford.

But we're not seeing much. Your spokesman still promises 10-percent pay cuts for union employees in the form of furloughs that don't come. Your penchant to let your actions speak for themselves (like they did on NBA basketball courts) would be admirable if you had enough actions to let do the talking.

Not so much. Which means you also need better communications to telegraph the small wins you do deliver, the better to project a sense of progress you and council so clearly need in the early months of new leadership.

It's a cliché, but a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. So is the support of folks inside and out of Detroit counting on you to make the difference you can.

dchowes@detnews.com">dchowes@detnews.com (313) 222-2106 Daniel Howes' column runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.