Sunday, September 26, 2010

Flint, Dayne Walling and The New York Times

Michael Cooper of The New York Times has a piece on mayoral recalls that mentions the unsuccessful effort to oust Dayne Walling in Flint:

This year the new mayor, Dayne Walling — an energetic former Rhodes scholar — found himself fighting yet another recall campaign after he laid off police officers and firefighters to try to make ends meet in a city with an unemployment rate of more than 25 percent.

“Having to make public-safety layoffs is something that I’d hoped to never have to do,” said Mr. Walling, 36, who noted that he had resorted to layoffs only after the police and fire unions failed to agree to the concessions he had sought, and after he cut his own salary, auctioned off the mayor’s car and started paying his own cellphone bills.

When the latest recall was derailed in court this month, the mayor posted the news on his blog: “Flint’s recall fever has broken.”

As we've discussed, Flint is not being ignored by the Times. Here are links to some of the recent coverage of the city:

The fallout from population loss in Michigan, Florida, and California.

G.M. sells off its old buildings, including those in Flint.

Thieves prey on the abandoned factories of Flint.

The Carriage Town neighborhood anchors downtown revitalization, with slide show.

Dan Kildee and shrinking cities.

As Medicaid payments shrink, patients are abandoned in Flint.

Amid the ruin, seeing a garden of hope in Flint.

And, of course, there's coverage of the serial killer, via The Flint Journal and AP.



2 comments:

Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.