What is it about the word 'democracy' that Gov. Rick Snyder does not understand?

NOTE: This letter to the editor (written by yours truly) was published in the Dec. 6 edition of the Metro Times.

By Metro Times readers
PUBLISHED: DECEMBER 5, 2012
The doctor is in

As a lifelong Detroiter, I agree with Jack Lessenberry's column ("Saving Detroit," Nov. 28) that something drastic needs to be done for the municipality — but Detroit Public Schools has been caught unwillingly in the vortex calling for an emergency manager for the city. DPS never should have been taken over by the state in the first place. At the time of the 1999 takeover, we had a $93 million surplus and our test scores were at the state midpoint and rising — so why us and no one else? Part of the answer lies in the fact that voters had just approved a $1.5 billion construction bond, and affiliates of the Engler administration and other outsiders were voraciously eyeing lucrative contracts to be let. After 13 years of state-controlled "reform," minus a mere two, the scores have plummeted to the lowest in the country and there was a $350 million deficit at the time of Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb's departure. Enter EFM Roy Roberts, who turned over 15 of our schools to the new and untried so-called state "Educational Achievement" Authority instead of reconstituting those fifteen schools and keeping them, which is what should have happened. The current governor needs to recognize that the state's "reform" movement in DPS has been an abject failure. We have a good, new, elected DPS board now and a knowledgeable and committed president in the person of LaMar Lemmons and a knowledgeable and committed superintendent in the person of yours truly. Governor Snyder needs to thank Mr. Roberts for his service and send him on his way — and he needs to let us put our own financial and academic houses in order. That's what my fellow Detroiters said we want when we voted decisively to repeal Public Act 4, the undemocratic emergency manager law.

—John Telford, Superintendent (interim), Detroit Public Schools