Troubled Pontiac, Mich., Taps Interns to Augment City Hall
Rust Belt city shows signs of recovery, but bare-bones government staffing lingers after major cutbacks
In Pontiac, an artist’s rendering, center, of a 1920s-era performing arts theater that is being restored. Photo: Tim Galloway for The Wall Street Journal
Those positions were wiped out by state-appointed emergency managers several years ago, when the city’s staff of more than 500 was cut to 30. Today most employees administer contracts for essential services such as policing and street cleaning that have been transferred to other districts or privatized.
Instead, Ms. Waterman tapped three interns from Oakland University 6 miles away in Rochester, Mich. The students produced a newsletter that was mailed to Pontiac’s 25,000 homes.
“Those jobs would have been done by city employees—if I had city employees to do that,” said Ms. Waterman, who works out of a nearly vacant City Hall overlooking a resurgent downtown.
The internship program with the university has given the mayor a de facto staff, and the students some real-world experience. But it also points to tensions among the mayor and city council, who have no party affiliations, and state-appointees in this recovering city where elected officials still have little control over daily functions.
The financial crisis has forced cities across the country to scale back. But the severe problems in some Michigan municipalities—already hard hit by the decline of the auto industry—forced cuts that struck at the heart of city government.
Detroit declared the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history in 2013 and emerged from reorganization last year. Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr returned the reins of government to the mayor and city council soon after.
But Pontiac and five other Michigan municipalities, including Flint and Benton Harbor, still are overseen by transition advisory boards appointed by the governor. Pontiac’s board has four members who hold finance-related positions in local, county and state government.
Pontiac, which once had 85,000 residents and played host to the Detroit Lions in the soaring Silverdome, has endured trouble common across the Rust Belt. In addition to the Lions moving to Ford Field in Detroit, Pontiac also lost a total of nearly 3,000 jobs when General Motors shut a truck-assembly plant in 1994 and another in 2009. Today, many residents still work at other GM sites or for the county or a local hospital. Pontiac’s jobless rate was 10.7% in September.
Many residents moved away and property values declined, leaving abandoned houses, bloated expenses and sharply lower revenue. The city had three emergency managers between 2009 and 2013. The last one appointed Joseph Sobota as city administrator and he runs Pontiac on a daily basis.
State officials are now weighing whether to completely hand back power to the city—something Ms. Waterman is pressing. “I’m ready to go back to home rule,” she said.
Louis Schimmel, who served as emergency manager from 2011 to 2013, takes credit for the recovery and yet says it is still not time for business as usual in Pontiac.
Mr. Schimmel sold off the city’s sewage authority for $55 million and drastically cut city jobs. Moreover, he and a predecessor dissolved the police, firefighter and other unions using powers granted by the state’s emergency-manager law for financially stressed municipalities.
“I financially fixed the city big-time,” said Mr. Schimmel who still wields power as an advisory board member. “We don’t feel that we’re comfortable leaving right now, I can tell you that much.”
Today, Pontiac has a surplus of $10.8 million, or about 30% of its roughly $32 million budget, its third straight surplus. Revenues are rising as more residents are paying property taxes and the city has pushed to collect delinquent income taxes, officials said.
The Silverdome, pictured in October, was once home to the Detroit Lions.
Photo:
Tim Galloway for The Wall Street Journal
There are lingering tensions, however, at City Hall.
During a recent council meeting, members repeatedly sparred with Mr. Sobota, the city administrator. And several residents complained that Mr. Sobota and the previous emergency managers shortchanged the city. They said properties were sold off too cheaply and that the city doesn’t have enough firefighters under its contract with a nearby township.
One resident of Pontiac—which is 52% African-American, 27% white and 17% Hispanic—called Mr. Sobota, who is white, a “plantation overseer.”
“Democracy has left the city of Pontiac,” said Walter Moore, who was mayor in the 1980s and 1990s and wants the state to return control to the city. “Until that’s done, there will be no peace.” The criticism doesn’t faze him, Mr. Sobota said.
Ms. Waterman, an ophthalmologist who earns $100,000 a year as mayor, said she is focused on attracting new businesses and cleaning up blight. There are up to 1,000 vacant lots within the 20-square-mile city.
But on Saginaw Street, Pontiac’s main drag, business is picking up. On one end, a barbecue restaurant is expected to open soon next to a 1920s-era performing arts theater that is being restored. On the other end, the Lafayette Market, a brightly lighted space with a wine store and cafe, does a brisk lunch and catering business. “It’s starting to make a comeback,” Cheri Westberg, operations manager at the market, said of Pontiac.
In the inaugural edition of the city’s newsletter, Spirit of Pontiac, one article by journalism major Anthony Spak describes how vacant lots have been turned into community gardens, playgrounds and pocket parks, where neighbors can gather.
“It’s nice to be a part of something where you see the city changing, see it growing and becoming a place where people aren’t afraid to hang out,” Mr. Spak said in an interview.
Write to Kris Maher at kris.maher@wsj.com
