Detroit's mayor customarily is a big-deal player at the annual Mackinac Policy Conference, one of the Big Four elected leaders from Wayne, Oakland and Macomb.
This week, not so much, as Nolan Finley describes in a Detroit News column.
Bing arrives on Mackinac Island today for the Detroit Regional Chamber's annual policy conference as a mayor without portfolio, a lame duck who has lost his powers to a state-appointed emergency manager. And he's no longer a factor in a mayoral race that will dominate conversations here over the next three days.
Still, the mayor has six months left on his term and will work overtime to stay relevant and to secure his legacy. That process will begin this evening when he takes the conference stage "to tell my own story in my own words."
He gives Finley a preview of that message, framed in determined feistiness.
"There are those who are very critical about my four years who don't have any idea of the breadth and depth of the problems in city government," Bing says. "They don't know what the hell they're talking about."I don't think anyone could come in here with a 40-year problem and solve it in a term. . . . We're going to find out that even with an emergency manager, that's not going to be an easy problem to solve."
Bing faults a culture of government that resisted change and, as always, the City Council. . . . "I was frustrated." . . .
Bing conveys the conviction that he was benched too soon and would still like to have the chance to take the winning shot.
