A Human Rights Perspective on Puerto Rico’s Fiscal and Physical Future

October 5, 2018

Good Morning! In this morning’s eBlog, we report on the consideration by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights with regard to perspectives on statehood—and whether the federal government is violating human rights in the U.S. territory created by the Jones-Shafroth Act.

Unequal Treatment? The United States, today, at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), meeting at the University of Colorado in Boulder, will defend itself from the denunciations of statesmen sectors who charge that the lack of voting rights for Puerto Ricans, who are U.S. citizens, represents a violation of human and civil rights. In a way, that seems ironic, as the co-author of the Jones-Shafroth Act, as Governor of Colorado, before serving in the U.S. Senate, kicked the issue off, performing—in a three-piece suit—the opening kickoff in a game at Folsom Field in Boulder in a game between the U. of Colorado and the Colorado School of Mines, prior to being elected to the U.S. Senate, where he co-authored the Jones-Shafroth Act—the issue under heated debate today, where the U.S. mission to the OAS, will seek to defend against a charge filed by statespersons who are seeking censure against the U.S. for denying Puerto Ricans who live in Puerto Rico equal rights to vote and be represented in Congress—and in the electoral college. Former Gov. Pedro Rosselló Rossello and attorney Gregorio Igartúa is representing Puerto Rico. The U.S. alternate representative to the Organization of American States, Kevin Sullivan, has been requesting—in writing—since last June, the dismissal of the complaints—complaints some of which date back to 2006—which were not even admitted for consideration until last Spring, noting that the current status violates the U.S. Declaration of Human Rights. The Trump Administration response is that, under the current territorial status, Puerto Rico “has a distinctive status, in fact exceptional,” with a “broad base of self-government.” The Administration also asserts that Puerto Rico has a limited participation in federal processes, through the Presidential primaries and the election of a non-voting Representative in Congress. Attorney Orlando Vidal, who has represented former Governor Rosselló González in this process, today’s will help educate about the lack of political rights under the current territorial status, or, as he put it: “Sometimes, it is necessary that someone from the outside, as the Commission is here, and with an independent and objective point of view, clarify situations that for many, for so long plunged into this issue, it is perhaps difficult to perceive clearly,” adding, there is an easily available “friendly solution:” to direct the admission of Puerto Rico as a state. Today’s Commission session will be chaired by Margarette May Macaulay of Trinidad and Tobago.

More than a decade ago, under the George W. Bush administration, Kein Marshall, the Administration’s Director of the Justice Department’s Legal Office, appearing before the House Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, had recommended calling a referendum: “territory yes or no,” followed by, if the current status was rejected, a consultation to determine whether a governing path forward would be statehood or independence—with Mr. Marshall defending, in his testimony, the report of the Working Group of the White House which, among other things, affirmed in 2005 that the power of the Congress is so broad that, if it wanted, it has the authority to cede the island to another country.

From an international governance perspective, in the international forum, it was two years ago that, in an explanatory vote, in October of 2016, the Obama administration supported a U.N. resolution in favor of self-determination and independence; shortly before, however, on June 30, 2016, President Obama had signed the PROMESA, a statute roughly modeled after chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy, except that, in imposing both a financial control board and a judicial process, the outcome, as we have seen, has been a ‘who’s on first, what’s on second’ process—with prohibitive fiscal costs, even as it creates the appearance of a denial of democracy for the U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico. It was 15 years ago that the IACHR determined, in analyzing a complaint filed by a civic group, that nations “cannot invoke their domestic, constitutional, or other laws to justify the lack of compliance with their international obligations.”

El Otro Lado. The other side, as it were, of the Jones‒Shafroth Act, was the Jones Act—an act sponsored by the co-author at the behest of the U.S. shipping industry which has vastly compromised the ability to provide assistance towards Puerto Rico’s recovery from Hurricane Maria—assistance desperately needed for this territory where an estimated 8,000 small businesses still remain shuttered—representing about 10% of the total according to the island’s Urban Retailers Association—and continues to undercut hopes for fiscal and economic recovery. The Jones Act, strongly lobbied for by the domestic shipping industry, mandates that  transportation of goods between two U.S. ports must be carried out by a vessel which was built in the U.S. and operated primarily by U.S. citizens—meaning the cost of materials to help the island recover cost far more than for other, nearby Caribbean nations—and meaning that millions of Americans, including Puerto Ricans following Hurricane Maria last year, are paying hugely inflated prices for gasoline and other consumer products which are vital to recovery—and to equity. The act mandates that carrying goods shipped in U.S. waters between U.S. ports to be U.S.-built, U.S.-registered, U.S.-owned, and manned by crews, at least 75% of whom are U.S. citizens. Mark J. Perry, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan this week noted: “Because of this absurd, antiquated protectionism, it’s now twice as expensive to ship critical goods – fuel, food and building supplies, among other things – from the U.S. mainland to Puerto Rico, as it is to ship from any other foreign port in the world. Just the major damage done to Puerto Rico from the Jones Act is enough reason to tell us that now is the time – past due time – to repeal the anti-consumer Jones Act.”

As Arian Campo Flores and Andrew Scurria of Dow Jones last week pointed out, in Puerto Rica’s fiscal year which ended last June, the island’s economy had contracted by 7.6%. An estimated 8,000 small businesses remain shuttered; Teva Pharmacuticals has announced it will close a manufacturing plant in the municipio of Manati—and, manufacturing employment has decreased by 35%. More fiscally depressing: the Puerto Rico government is now projecting that its population will decline by 12% over the next five years—as an increasing number of young, educated, and trained citizens move to the mainland, leaving behind an older, poorer population.

A Physical & Fiscal Bridge to the Motor City’s Fiscal & Physical Future

eBlog

October 1, 2018

Good Morning! In this morning’s eBlog, we report on the commencement this week of a new international bridge connecting Detroit to Canada–a bridge no longer too far.

Not a Bridge Too Far. Construction of the Gordie Howe International Bridge connecting Detroit to Canada is scheduled to begin Friday, with a projected completion in six years at a cost of $4.4 billion. The bridge will be jointly owned by the State of Michigan and Canada, with Canada fronting the funding, and Michigan paying its share via tolls collected on the U.S. terminus over the next few decades. CEO Windsor-Detroit Authority CEO Bryce Phillips described the new bridge as one which will be a “stunning addition to the Windsor and Detroit shared skyline.” The 1.5-mile span will be the longest cable-stayed bridge in North America—likely adding to what is already the busiest U.S.-Canada commercial crossing. The opening will mark the final public victory over the Moroun family, which owns the Ambassador Bridge—and which has long fought—and even requested support from President Trump—to bar the publicly funded project, not set to become one of the most vital pieces of infrastructure between the United States and Canada.

Canada is the largest market for U.S. exports, taking in 15 percent of American goods and services worth $337 billion annually, according to the U.S State Department. Together the quasi twin cities of Detroit and Windsor constitute the busiest trade crossing along the U.S.-Canada border, with more than one-fourth of all goods exchanged between the countries crossing the Detroit River to get to its final destination. On average, 7,000 trucks daily cross the Detroit River. It is the busiest link in the North American auto industry whose supply chains span both countries.

Notwithstanding this week’s commencement of construction, the Moroun family will continue to fight the project, adding to the twenty-five legal challenges they have already made—all rejected, as was a 2012 Michigan ballot measure, to which the Morouns devoted an estimated $50 million—a portion of which was to purchase a commercial on Fox News, urging President Trump to revoke the permit to build the publicly owned bridge based on The President’s “America First” policies.

The new bridge, expected to open by 2020, is expected to make the Motor City an international freight hub—or, as some note, it will define a new reawakening of a city which has emerged from the largest chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy in American history. The six-lane bridge will add to the nearby Ambassador Bridge’s four lanes, allowing trucks access to a streamlined route at the Canadian side and creating more logistics opportunities in both nations due to more direct access to rail, highway, and air transportation. As part of the project, there will also be two state-of-the-art customs centers, with the opportunity to attract more private investment on both sides of the border.

To date, land acquisition in Canada is nearly complete: about 130 acres in Windsor, southwest of the Ambassador Bridge, will be used for the largest Canadian Port of Entry along the U.S. border. Meanwhile, on the U.S. side, acquisition is underway for the 300 houses and 45 businesses located within the 145 acres in southwest Detroit, which will be used for inspection facilities for both inbound and outbound vehicles at the U.S. Port of Entry. Also included in the Detroit portion of the project is a new I-75 interchange which will include four new crossing road bridges, five new pedestrian bridges, four long bridges crossing the railway and connecting I-75 to the US Port of Entry, and service roads and local road improvements.

Among the issues and details to be included in the RFP are the community benefits expected for the Delray neighborhood in Detroit as the host community for the project—benefits which will matter, because, according to Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning Zeenat Kotval-Karamchandani at Michigan State University, while pockets of Detroit are experiencing economic growth, Delray is not among them; rather, he notes, the neighborhood, near downtown, and south of Mexicantown, is “completely surrounded by industry.” Nevertheless, the Professor notes, about 2,500 people make it home—and, of those, about one-third of the households are in poverty.

Thus, this could be a unique moment of not just physical connections and public infrastructure, but also neighborhood recovery—after all, the value of freight traveling between the U.S. and Canada fell to $575.2 billion in 2015, a 12.6% drop, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation; yet about $69.1 billion came through Michigan, the most of any state. Data also shows that trucks carried the most freight to and from Canada, at 58.3%, while rail accounted for 15.7%. Unsurprisingly, the most common freight is auto-related: vehicles and vehicle parts.

Taking Stock in Stockton!

eBlog

September 7, 2018

Good Morning! In this morning’s eBlog, we consider the remarkable fiscal success of the implementation of Stockton’s plan of debt adjustment, before crossing over Tropical Storm Florence to the equally stormy demands of the PROMESA Board to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico’s Governor Ricardo Rosselló to make major changes to his fiscal blueprint for the territory’s quasi plan of debt adjustment.

Taking Positive Stock in Stockton. Stockton, California, a now post-chapter 9 municipality, which was founded by Captain Charles Maria Weber in 1849 after his acquisition of Rancho Campo de los Francese, was the first community in California to have a name not of Spanish or Native American origin. The city, with a population just under 350,000, making it the state’s 13^th largest, was named an All-America City in 1999, 2004, 2015, and again last year. It is also one of the cities we focused upon as part of our chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy analyses, after, a decade ago, it became the second largest city in the United States to file for chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy protection—a petition which was successful when, three years ago last February, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court approved its plan of debt adjustment. This week, S&P upgraded the city’s credit rating to “positive,” with CFO Matt Paulin noting the upgrade reflected the health and strength of the city’s general fund—after, last summer, the City Council approved the FY2018-19 budget, which anticipates $229.6 million in general fund revenues, versus $220.6 million in expenditures—with S&P, last month, noting its rating action “reflects our view of the city’s sustained strong-to-very strong financial performance, sustained very strong budgetary flexibility, and institutionalized integration of a revised reserve policy into its last three budget cycles.”   S&P analyst Chris Morgan noted: “What we’re seeing is a pretty good record of discipline in terms of spending and having a long-term view…“We’re increasingly confident they’re going to continue to meet their obligations,” adding that, over the last three budget cycles, Stockton has adopted a 20-year plan and built up its reserves. Stockton CFO Matt Paulin described the four-notch upgrade as unusual; he said it marked a reflection of the city’s fiscal discipline and improvement: “It’s really an affirmation of the things we’ve instituted here at the city so we can maintain fiscal sustainability.” The rating here, on some $9.4 million of lease revenue bonds, backed by the city’s general fund, had been originally issued in 1999 to finance a police administration building; they were refunded in 2006.

While the new fiscal upgrade reflects key progress, the city still confronts challenges to return to investment grade status: its economy remains weak, and, according to S&P, the city continues to fester under a significant public pension obligation, so that, as analyst Morgan put it: “How they handle the next recession is the big question.” And that, CFO Paulin, notes, is a challenge in that the city is not yet, fiscally, where it needs to be. nevertheless, he believes the policies it has enacted will get it there, noting: “I think if we continue to sustain what we’re doing, I’m pretty confident we’ll get to that investment grade next time around,” noting that the rating reflected the city’s strong-to very strong financial performance, sustained very strong budget flexibility, and “institutionalized integration of a revised reserve policy into the last three budget cycles,” adding that since the city’s emergence from chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy, the city has only issued two refundings. Now a $150 million sewer plant renovation could become the trigger for Stockton’s first post-chapter 9 municipal bonds if it is unable to secure sufficient grant funding from Uncle Sam or the State by next spring.

Mandating Mandate Retention. Without having been signed into law, the Puerto Rico Senate’s proposal to relieve municipios from the mandate to contribute to Puerto Rico’s health reform program has, nevertheless, been countermanded and preempted by the PROMESA Oversight Board after, yesterday, PROMESA Oversight Board Director Natalie Jaresko wrote to Governor Ricardo Rossello Nevares, to Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz, and to House Leader Carlos Méndez to warn them that the bill which would exempt municipalities from their contribution to the government’s health plan is “inconsistent” with the unelected Board’s certified fiscal plan. Chair Jaresko wrote: “The Board is willing to amend the Certified Fiscal Plan for the Commonwealth to permit the municipality exemption contemplated by SB 879, provided that the legislation be amended such that the exemption terminates by September 30, 2019,” a deadline imposed by the Board which coincides with the moment when the federal funds to finance Mi Salud (My Health), would expire. The bill establishes that the exemption from payment to municipios would remain until the end of FY2020. In her letter, Director Jaresko also wrote to the officials that to grant the exemption, the government will need to identify the resources which would be devoted to cover the budget provisions to which the municipios would stop contributing. (Since 2006, municipios have been mandated to contribute to Mi Salud, based on the number of participants per municipio—a contribution currently equal to $168 million. The decision appears to be based upon the premise that once the Affordable Care Act ended, the federal government allocated over $2 billion for the payment of the health plan, an allocation apparently intended to cover such expenses for about two years. Thus, at the beginning of the week, Secretary of Public Affairs Ramon Rosario Cortes, said that the “Governor intends to pass any relief that may be possible to municipalities;” albeit he warned that the measure, approved by the Legislature, should be subject to PROMESA Board oversight—especially, as the Governor noted: “At the moment, there has been no discussion with the Board.”

The PROMESA Oversight Board has also demanded major changes to the fiscal plan Gov. Ricardo Rosselló submitted, with the Board requesting seeking more cuts as well as more conservative projections for revenues, making the demands in a seven-page epistle—changes coming, mayhap ironically, because of good gnus: revenues have been demonstrating improvement over projections, and emigration from the island to the mainland appears to be ebbing—or, as Director Jaresko, in her epistle to the Governor, wrote: “The June certified fiscal plan already identified the structural reforms and fiscal measures that are necessary to comply with [the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act], accordingly, the Oversight Board intended this revision to the fiscal plan to incorporate the latest material information and certain technical adjustments, not to renegotiate policy initiatives…Unfortunately, the proposed plan does not reflect all of the latest information for baseline projections and includes several new policies that are inconsistent with PROMESA’s mandate.” Ms. Jaresko, in the letter, returned to two issues of fiscal governance which have been fractious, asserting that the Governor has failed to eliminate the annual Christmas bonus and failed to propose a plan to increase “agency efficiency personnel savings,” charging that Gov. Rosselló had not included the PROMESA Board’s mandated 10 percent cuts to pensions, and that his plan includes an implementation of Social Security which is more expensive than the Board’s approved plan provided.

Director Jaresko also noted that Gov. Rosselló’s plan includes $99 million in investment in items such as public private partnerships and the Puerto Rico Innovation and Technology Services Office, which were contingent on the repeal of a labor law. Since, however, the Puerto Rico Senate has opted not to repeal the statute (Law 80), she stated Gov. Rosselló should not include spending on these items in her proposed fiscal plan, noting that Gov. Rosselló has included $725 million in additional implementation costs associated with the planned government reforms, warning that if he intends to include these provisions, he will have to find offsetting savings. In her epistle, the Director further noted that she believes his plan improperly uses projected FY2019 revenues as a base from which to apply gross national product growth rates to figure out future levels of revenue. Since the current fiscal year will include substantial amounts of recovery-related revenues and these are only temporary, using the current year in this way may over-estimate revenues for the coming years, she admonished. She wrote that Gov. Rosselló assumes a higher than necessary $4.09 billion in baseline payroll expenditures—calling for this item to be reduced—and that the lower total be used to recalculate payroll in the government going forward. Finally, Director Jaresko complained that the Governor’s plan had removed implementation exhibits which included timelines and statements that the government would produce quarterly performance reports, insisting that these must be reintroduced—and giving Gov. Rosselló until noon next Wednesday to comply.

Why Is the Road Still Full of Mud?

eBlog

September 4, 2018

Good Morning! In this morning’s eBlog, we consider, as Tropical Storm Florence heads west across the Caribbean, efforts in the Congress with regard to addressing Puerto Rico.

‘Twas in another lifetime one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue, the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness a creature void of form
“Come in,” she said,
“I’ll give you shelter from the storm.”

With Congress returning this morning, Puerto Rico’s quasi Member of Congress, Jenniffer Gonzalez, who is permitted to vote in Committee, but not in the House, is seeking to make sure that Puerto Rico’s fiscal and physical future will gain constructive input in the House Natural Resources Committee as part of Chairman Rob Bishop’s (R-Ut.) hearing on the status of Puerto Rico and its pro-security project. With fewer than 30 days left in this Congress, she is anxious that the territory be a priority. Thus, she is attempting to find a way to depoliticize the island’s electric power tussles, especially with regard to the AEE, or Governing Board of the Authority Electrica, noting: “I’m going to make a report with the recommendations to discuss it with him and the Commission’s technicians,” adding, moreover, she intends to press on the longstanding issue with regard to Puerto Rico’s political status, related to her proposed pro-identity project 6246, which proposes the creation of a Congressional working group to adopt a transition process for the territory to statehood by January of 2021. She noted she was hopeful Chairman Bishop would not only call a public hearing, but also set a vote on the legislation. For his part, the Chairman noted: “We’re going to have the public view. From there, we start.” She added that she is deferring to the Equality Commission created by Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló Nevares. Nevertheless, with so few days remaining in this Congress, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) has continued to warn there are insufficient votes to push forward the statehood proposal in the Senate.

The Puerto Rico governance challenge was further conflicted and muddied by the unelected PROMESA oversight Board, which has demanded Gov. Rossello Nevares to eliminate any reference to statehood from the fiscal plan, notwithstanding, as Commissioner Gonzalez tweeted, that the PROMESA statute “establishes that the Board cannot interfere with the future political status of the island.”

A Delicate, if stormy, balancing act. Part of the political challenge for Commissioner Gonzalez is to balance efforts to obtain equitable federal storm relief funds for Puerto Rico, even as she is seeking more equitable political respect and balance for Puerto Rico. Part of that includes her efforts to gain passage in the House this month of legislation to authorize the Department of Homeland Security to conduct a study on drug trafficking and the potential for terrorism, especially in the maritime zone which surrounds Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Inequitable Arithmetic? Hurricane Maria caused at least 2,975 deaths—more than any U.S. storm in a century. Now authorities have raised the death toll to 2,975, surpassing Hurricane Katrina (1,833) and the Okeechobee hurricane in Florida, which killed 2,500 people. Hurricane Maria, which made landfall in Puerto Rico nearly one year ago, with deadly winds gusting up to 120mph, wrought destruction across the island, cutting power, communications and drinking water to nearly every home. Yet, unlike U.S. responses to the hurricane in Houston, the FEMA response and death tolls were radically different. The government, two weeks after the devastating storm, reported the official death toll to be just 16 people. Indeed, President Donald Trump made much of the low death count when he visited San Juan on October 3^rd to throw rolls of paper towels; he said: “We’ve saved a lot of lives…If you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina and the hundreds that died…16 versus literally thousands of people…you can be very proud.” Although the death toll rose slowly over the weeks that followed, from 16 to 64 deaths, it remained surprisingly low given the severity of the storm. But that number hardly appeared credible. Last December, the New York Times analyzed mortality reports, and estimated Maria had killed as many as 1,052 Americans in the period to October 31st. A paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine last May surveyed hurricane survivors and calculated that anywhere between 793 and 8,498 people had perished.

Unsurprisingly, Puerto Rico Governor, Ricardo Rosselló Nevarez doubted that figure—a figure which mostly relied on direct deaths from flying debris and the like, overlooking deaths from power cuts and lack of water that led to medical complications. Thus, last February the Governor commissioned an independent report by epidemiologists at George Washington University to arrive at a more accurate count—a report which GW on August 28^th. The new report calculated a final death toll based on the observed excess mortality over and above what might be expected in normal weather, arriving at an estimated final death toll of between 2,658 and 3,290—a number which would make Maria the worst hurricane to affect the U.S. in more than a century.

Absurd Counting. It seems impossible to comprehend how the official death toll has remained at 64 for so long. Notwithstanding the difficulty—I can hardly forget when our volunteer team from Arlington County, Virginia raced down to Biloxi, Mississippi—only to find street signs had been blown away, causeways smashed, and electricity out, so that it was a severe challenge to even found our way—and that to respond to a fierce storm where the official death count is still disputed—and where the Mayor of New Orleans had simply said the death toll would a “shock the nation.” In contrast, the drastically inaccurate number in Puerto Rico may well have lessened the urgency of relief efforts: just one third of Americans reported they made contributions in the immediate aftermath, which is low by the America’s generous standards. That miserly response, with Puerto Rico in quasi-chapter 9 bankruptcy—and an economy projected to shrink 8% this year, and the Commonwealth’s young and talented leaving for the mainland in droves—not to mention the sharp, 50% reduction in tourists has, has increased the perception of disparate treatment as Puerto Rico is still waiting for as much as $80 billion of federal funds to help its recovery. Delegate Gonzalez notes the federal government “will continue to be supportive” of Gov. Ricardo Rossello’s accountability efforts, adding: “The American people, including those grieving the loss of a loved one, deserve no less.”

The End of State Usurpation of Local Elected Authority? Uneasy shelter from the Fiscal and Physical Storms?

August 31, 2018

Good Morning! In this morning’s eBlog, we consider the end of the State of Michigan to usurp local authority via the appointment of an Emergency Manager, the safety of school drinking water has become an issue in Detroit—especially after Flint, and we consider the extraordinary revisions in the projected Hurricane Maria death toll in Puerto Rica—and the White House response.

Protecting a City’s Children. Detroit Public School Superintendent Nikolai P. Vitti has directed turning off drinking water across the district’s 106 schools  in the wake of after discovering higher-than-acceptable levels of copper and lead in some facilities, with Superintendent Vitti noting his decision came out of caution “until a deeper and broader analysis can be conducted to determine the long-term solutions for all schools.” he said in a statement. Test results found elevated levels of lead or copper in 16 out of 24 schools which were recently tested. Supt. Vitti stated: “Although we have no evidence that there are elevated levels of copper or lead in our other schools where we are awaiting test results, out of an abundance of caution and concern for the safety of our students and employees.” His actions, no doubt affected by fiscal and water contamination in Flint, came even as Detroit officials and the Great Lakes Water Authority sought to assure residents that water provided by the authority is safe to drink: they pointed to the city’s aging infrastructure as the problem.  Superintendent Vitti said he will be creating a task force to determine the cause of the elevated levels and solutions, noting he had initiated water testing of all 106 school buildings last spring to ensure the safety of students and employees. Water at 18 schools had been previously shut off. He added: “This was not required by federal, state, or city law or mandate: This testing, unlike previous testing, evaluated all water sources from sinks to drinking fountains.” The District does not plan to test students: a spokesperson for the school system noted: “Dr. Vitti said…he has no evidence at all that children have been impacted from a health standpoint.”

Fiscal & Physical Challenges: Earlier this summer, Supt. Vitti released details from a facilities review which had determined the school district would need to spend $500 million now to fix the deteriorating conditions of its schools—an effort for the system projected to cost as much as $1.4 billion if there is a failure to act swiftly, with the Administrator pointing to the failure by former state-appointed emergency managers to make the right investments in facilities while the system was preempted of authority and state-appointed emergency managers from 2009 to 2016 failed to make the right investments, sending what Dr. Vitti described as “the message to students, parents and employees that we really don’t care about public education in Detroit, that we allow for second-class citizenry in Detroit.” The remarks raised anew questions with regard to Michigan’s governance by means of gubernatorially chosen Emergency Managers.  

Superindent Vitti said he had notified Mayor Mike Duggan of his decision to shut off the drinking water, and a spokesperson, John Roach, noted: Mayor is “fully supportive” of the approach Supt. Vitti has taken, adding: “We will be supporting Dr. Vitti in an advisory capacity through the health department and the DWSD (Detroit Water and Sewerage Department) has offered to partner with the district on any follow-up testing that needs to be done.” At the same time, the Great Lakes Water Authority issued a statement in an effort to assure “residents and customers of GLWA’s regional system that they are not affected by the lead and copper issues,” noting: “Aging school infrastructure (i.e. plumbing) is the reason for the precautionary measure of providing bottled water,” adding water treated by the authority meets and surpasses all federal and state regulations, albeit adding: “A task force will be formed consisting of engineering and water quality experts” to will help the district “understand the cause and identify solutions.” (Initial results this past week showed elevated levels of copper, lead or both at one or more water sources in 16 of 24 school buildings, according to the statement. Water bottles will be provided at the schools until water coolers arrive. The district also found water-quality issues in some schools in 2016.)

The incident in Detroit raises a host of fiscal and governance issues—especially in the wake of the tragedy in upstate Flint—with, in both cases, the state’s history of appointing Emergency Managers to preempt the authority of local elected leaders. In the case of DPS, Dr. Vitti has contacted the Mayor, the Governor, and a task force of engineers and water experts to understand the cause and possible solutions; Superintendent Nikolai P. Vitti opted to close the water taps out of caution “until a deeper and broader analysis can be conducted to determine the long-term solutions for all schools,” with the decision coming just days before the school district’s 106 schools are scheduled to open next Tuesday. (Water bottles will be provided at the schools until water coolers arrive.) Water officials have blamed aging infrastructure as the cause of the public safety threat. Now Dr. Vitti has asked Mike Duggan and Gov. Rick Snyder to convene a task force of engineers and water experts to determine the cause of the elevated lead and copper levels, and to propose solutions. 

Importantly, it seems the public safety risk is limited to Detroit’s public schools: water officials released a statement Wednesday assuring residents and customers of the Great Lakes Water Authority and the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department that they are not affected by the lead and copper issues at the school district, noting: “Aging school infrastructure (i.e. plumbing) is the reason for the precautionary measure of providing bottled water…The water at GLWA’s treatment plants is tested hourly, and DWSD has no lead service lines connected to any DPSCD building. The drinking water is of unquestionable quality.”

Nevertheless, the threat to public safety—combined with the heartbreaking, long-term threats to Flint’s children from that city’s public water contamination—could add further challenges to Detroit’s recovery from the nation’s largest-ever chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy: a critical part of the city’s plan of debt adjustment was to address its vast amassment of abandoned houses by enticing young families with children to move from the suburbs back into the city—an effort which had to rely on a perception of the quality and safety of its public schools. Now, for a system itself recovering from bankruptcy, DPS faces a bill of at least $500 million to repair its buildings: approximately 25% of the system’s school buildings are in unsatisfactory condition and another 20%are in poor condition, according to the report. The district noted nearly $223 million of high-priority repairs involving elevators and lifts, energy supply, heating and cooling systems, sprinklers, standpipes, electrical service and distribution, lighting, wiring, communications, security system, local area networking, public address and intercoms, emergency lights and plumbing fixtures.

Mayor Duggan’s office and the Detroit Health Department Wednesday issued a joint statement supporting “the approach Dr. Vitti has taken to test all water sources within DPS schools and to provide bottled water until the district can implement a plan to ensure that all water is safe for use,” noting: “We will be supporting Dr. Vitti in an advisory capacity through the health department and the DWSD has offered to partner with the district on any follow-up testing that needs to be done. We also will be reaching out to our charter operators in the coming days to work with them on a possible similar testing strategy to the voluntary one Dr. Vitti has implemented.”

Restoring Municipal Authority. Mayhap it is ironic that Michigan’s relatively rare authority for the Governor to appoint an emergency manager to preempt local elected authority reflects the uneven results of the program—a program I well remember from meeting with Kevyn Orr, whom Gov. Rick Snyder had appointed as Emergency Manager  (EM) to preempt all governing authority of Detroit’s Mayor and Council, at the Governor’s office in Detroit on the first day the city entered the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history—and after the grievous failure of a previous gubernatorially-appointed Emergency Manager to help the Motor City. The very concept of state authority to appoint a quasi dictator and to preempt any authority of local leaders elected by the citizens, after all, feels un-American.

Yet, from that very first moment, Mr. Orr had acted to ensure there was no disruption in 9-1-1 responses—and that every traffic and street light worked. Unlike the experience under an Emergency Manager in Flint, Mr. Orr was intently focused on getting Detroit back on its fiscal and physical feet—and restoring elected leadership to today’s grieving city.

Now, as of this week, Michigan no longer has any local government under a state appointed emergency manager—and observers are under the impression the state program to preempt local authority may be quietly laid to rest. It has, after all, been a program of preemption of local democracy with untoward results: while it proved invaluable in Detroit, it has proven fiscally and physically grievous in Flint, where it has been blamed for contributing to Flint’s water contamination crisis. Indeed, two of Flint’s former EMs have been criminally charged in connection with the crisis. Their failures—at a cost of human lives, appears to have put the future of state pre-emption of local governing authority—may well make state officials leery of stepping in to usurp control a local government, even as some municipal market participants and others see state oversight programs as a positive credit feature. The last municipality in Michigan to be put under a state-imposed emergency manager was Lincoln Park—an imposition which ended three years ago. Michigan Treasury spokesperson Ron Leix noted: “Each situation that led to the financial emergency is unique, so I can’t give a broad-brush assessment about how the law will be used in the future…For the first time in 18 years, no Michigan municipality or school district is under state financial oversight through an emergency manager. This is really about the hard work our local units of government have achieved to identify problems and bring together the resources needed to problem-solve challenging financial conditions.”

In Michigan, the emergency manager program was authorized twenty-eight years ago, granting the governor authority to appoint a manager with extensive powers over a troubled municipality or school district. By 2012, Michigan voters repealed the emergency manager program in a referendum; notwithstanding, one month later Gov. Snyder and legislators re-adopted a similar intervention program—under which local governments could opt among three new options in addition to the appointment of an emergency manager who reports directly to the Governor: chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy, mediation, or a consent agreement between the state and the city to permit local elected officials to balance their budget on their own. (In Michigan, municipalities which exit emergency management remain under the oversight of a receivership transition advisory board while executive powers are slowly restored to elected mayors and city councils.)

The state intervention/takeover program had mixed success, according to Michigan State University economist Eric Scorsone, who noted: “In some cases it’s worked well, like Allen Park where the situation was pretty clear-cut and the solution was pretty clear as to what needed to be done.” (Allen Park regained full local control of its operations and finances in February of 2017 after nearly four years of state oversight. Last June, S&P Global Ratings upgraded the city to investment-grade BBB-plus from junk-level BB, crediting strong budgetary performance and financial flexibility more than 12 months after exiting state oversight. But the appointment, in Flint, of emergency managers demonstrated the obverse: the small city had four emergency managers: Ed Kurtz, Mike Brown, Darnell Earley, and Gerald Ambrose—where the latter two today are confronted by charges of criminal wrongdoing stemming from the lead contamination crisis and ensuing Legionnaire’s disease outbreak that claimed 12 lives. It was the gubernatorially appointed Mr. Earley who oversaw the decision to change Flint’s water source to the Flint River in April 2014 as the city awaited completion of a new pipeline—a decision with fatal human and fiscal consequences. Indeed, two years ago, Gov. Snyder named a task force to investigate the Flint crisis and review the Emergency Manager law—a review which recommended the Governor consider alternatives to the current approach that would engage local elected officials. (No action has been taken to change the law.)

Because only a minority of states have authorized chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy, there is no uniform state role with regard to city or county severe fiscal distress and bankruptcy. Jane Ridley, senior director in the U.S. public finance government group at S&P Global Ratings and sector lead for local governments, has noted that state oversight is considered as part of the rating agency’s local GO criteria: “We do think that having a state that has oversight, especially if it’s a proven mechanism, can be very helpful for struggling entities…If they ended oversight entirely it would likely have an impact on the institutional framework scores and their sub scores.” A Moody’s analyst, Andrew Van Dyck Dobos, noted: “While an EM is in most cases is a last option, the ability for it to implement some policies and procedures is going to be typically viewed, at least at the onset, as a credit positive.”

Ending Shelter from the Storm. U.S. District Judge Timothy Hillman yesterday ruled that temporary housing given to hundreds of Puerto Ricans displaced by Hurricane Maria will end next month, meaning Puerto Ricans will be forced to check out of temporary housing provided by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as part of the agency’s Transitional Sheltering Assistance (TSA) program. Judge Hillman, in his decision, wrote: I strongly recommend the parties get together to find temporary housing, or other assistance to the Plaintiffs and other members of the class prior to that date,” with his decision coming the same week Puerto Rico updated its official death toll from Maria to 2,975, a vast increase from the original count of 64. Judge Hillman’s decision also comes about two months after a national civil-rights group filed a lawsuit which had sought a restraining order to block FEMA from ending the program. The group, LatinoJustice, argued in the suit that it would lead to families’ evictions. It also came as, two days ago, President Trump met with reporters to respond to questions with regard to the mounting death toll—a session in which the President told the reporters: “I think we did a fantastic job in Puerto Rico.” Some 1,744 Puerto Rican adults and children were in the FEMA program when the lawsuit was filed. U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin temporarily extended the program to the end of last July, and subsequently extended it until today—and then, once more, to September 14^th.

Now, the White House is responding to a new estimate which increases the number by about 33% more to 2,975 after an independent study. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed in a statement that the back-to-back hurricanes which hit last year prompted “the largest domestic disaster response mission in history.” She added that President Donald Trump “remains proud of all of the work the Federal family undertook to help our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico.” She also says the federal government “will continue to be supportive” of Gov. Ricardo Rossello’s accountability efforts and says “the American people, including those grieving the loss of a loved one, deserve no less.” The new estimate of 2,975 dead in the six months after Maria devastated the island in September 2017 was made by researchers with the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. It was released Tuesday.

Popping the Cork in Corktown?

August 14, 2018

Good Morning! In this morning’s eBlog, we consider some of the fiscal and physical challenges and changes to one of Detroit’s oldest neighborhoods, Corktown, before venturing to the warm Caribbean waters to witness incipient signs of fiscal and physical revival in Puerto Rico.

Motor City Revitalization. The City of Detroit, first settled in 1701 by French colonists, was the first European settlement above tidewater in North America, founded as a New France fur trading post, before becoming, by 1920, a world-class industrial powerhouse and the fourth-largest U.S. city. One might describe it as a unique municipal center of nations, as the first Europeans to settle there were French traders and colonists from the colony of La Loisiane, today’s New Orleans—traders who were forced to vie with the powerful Five Nations of the League of the Iroquois—setting the stage for what became the Beaver Wars in the 17^th century. The greater Detroit metropolitan region of those times flourished as a center of the nation’s fur trade, so that the Crown’s administration of New France offered free land to colonists as a means to attract families to the region—a perennial challenge, and one of the city’s greatest fiscal challenges today. It was in late 1760 that Fort Detroit was surrendered to the British, in the wake of the fall of Quebec—so that control not just of the Detroit region, but of all French territory east of the Mississippi River, was formally transferred to England via the 1763 Treaty of Paris. By 1760, a British census counted 2,000 hardy souls in the city in the wake of the Seven Years’ War—a head count which, as would happen in this century, dropped 30% by 1773, a decade after the English had reserved the territory, under the Royal Proclamation Act of 1763 for the Indians—land eleven years later transferred to Quebec. In a census taken during the American Revolution, Detroit’s population had soared to 2,144, making the city the third-largest city in the Province of Quebec.

Today, Corktown is the oldest surviving neighborhood in Detroit, with the neighborhood named for its early Irish immigrants, who by the early 1850s, made up half of the residents of the 8th Ward (which contained Corktown), but it is a part of the city which has been reduced in size over the years by dint of numerous urban renewal projects, the construction of light industrial facilities, and the construction of the Lodge Freeway. What remains of the residential section is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is a neighborhood slated for change in this time of radical changes wrought by the emergence of the self-driving car era—so the Ford Motor Co.’s plans to renovate the historic Michigan Central Depot has raised apprehensions with regard to the potential impact such a large-scale project could have on the area and surrounding neighborhoods with regard to affordability and diversity—enough of a concern that Detroit’s leaders and officials have commenced what is to be a yearlong process to gather feedback from the community regarding the future of the neighborhood. That municipal effort is coming in tandem with a separate effort by Ford to collect input on its proposed plans to revitalize its iconic 100-plus-year-old historic building.

Officials with the city and Ford say they are committed to working with the community as they navigate their plans. The company, on June 20^th, had announced its intentions to purchase the abandoned Michigan Central Station, a hulk of a building just blocks from where Kevyn Orr had his office on his first day as the City’s Emergency Manager charged with taking Detroit into the nation’s largest ever chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy—and fashioning a plan of adjustment to be approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. That 18-story building, which starred as a set piece for the flick Batman v. Superman, has been described as representing a “deep, complex wound…a physical reminder of what the city was, and what it many thought it would never be again.”

Simultaneously, the city is seeking to create a strategic framework for the Greater Corktown neighborhood to address the area’s potential for growth, even as it seeks to preserve its heritage and integrity, officials say—a framework which is to detail both a short-term implementation plans and long-term goals for the neighborhood’s development: Detroit’s Planning and Development Department expects, before the month is out, an RFP for a consultant to conduct a series of community meetings in Greater Corktown, with said selection to be announced by the end of next month: the study itself is projected to lead to a recommendations of a final framework in a year.

Not Self-Driving. The city’s plans for Greater Corktown, just one of the city neighborhoods in various stages of planning, was in the planning stage prior to Ford’s depot announcement, creating some governing challenges, or, as John Sivills, the project manager with Detroit’s Planning and Development Department, put it: “The Ford announcement certainly does add a great sense of urgency to it so we can have a plan in place rather than tail-wagging-dog scenario.” That is, as he added: “That the city can have a plan in place such as bring in Ford and provide for inclusionary growth.” Similarly, his colleague, Steve Lewis, central design director for Planning and Development, noted that Detroit’s plan will craft “a vision for the future of the neighborhood that either by optics or by reality is not seen as being dictated by Ford.” Their study is expected to address challenges and opportunities for a number of issues, including zoning, landscape, historic preservation, and housing development.

Will They Drive in Tandem or Self-Drive? Ford is planning to create a 1.2 million-square-foot campus with its anchor at the Michigan Central Depot, with plans to occupy the depot by 2022: the project will include the Grand Hall, which will be open to the public, along with retail space: the 18-story tower will have office space as well as residential space on the top two floors. In addition, Ford intends to develop other buildings on the campus, including the former Detroit Public Schools Book Depository, where Ford plans to house its autonomous vehicle business on the Corktown campus. Ford is, at the same time, seeking community engagement for its Corktown expansion, with the company asserting: “Detroit and Corktown, North Corktown, there’s opportunity and so much potential, and they’re already doing such amazing work that Ford can really just be a platform to shed a light on the work that they’re doing…Maybe help them scale.”

Indeed, scale, as in any city, is an issue: because of the large-scale of the project, it falls under the city’s Community Benefits Ordinance, one approved by Detroit voters in November of 2016, which targets developments worth at least $75 million, if the development gets $1 million or more in property tax abatements or $1 million or more in value of city property sale or transfer: under said ordinance, a neighborhood advisory council is assembled to provide feedback in meetings during the ensuing two months, with the advisory council subsequently working with Ford to create a community benefits agreement.

To date, Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones has selected Hubbard-Richard resident Aliyah Sabree, a Judge in the 36th District Court; City Councilwoman Janee Ayers chose Sheila Cockrel, a Corktown resident and former Councilwoman. The community elected Jerry Paffendorf, co-owner of Loveland Technologies, and Heather McKeon, an interior designer with Patrick Thompson Design. The Detroit Planning and Development Department will name four appointees, and City Councilwoman Raquel Castañeda-López will name one appointee.

Concurrently, Ford has feedback boards and comment boxes in its Ford Resource and Engagement Center, where questions posed include: “Where do you go to get ___ in your neighborhood (nails, hair, dry cleaning, etc.?); What are the top three things you want to see changed in your neighborhood?”; and “Who is an unsung hero, organization and/or business in your neighborhood?” The company reports that it has already received feedback from excitement to issues of apprehension on issues ranging from housing, to jobs, to traffic, and to culture,” adding: “We really love that the community values the diversity of the neighborhoods from Corktown, North Corktown, and Southwest Detroit. We’re really understanding the importance of that. We’re also understanding the importance of workforce. Recognizing that there’s not only potential construction jobs, but also long-term what are some ways we can build a pipeline or clear pathways for some of the other jobs that may be available in the future. Technology jobs, things of that nature. Jobs around (electric and autonomous vehicles.).”

Some have criticized aspects of the Community Benefits Ordinance and the Neighborhood Advisory Council process. Alina Johnson, a resident of the nearby Hubbard-Richard neighborhood, which will also be impacted by Ford’s project, said she feels residents should be trained in advance on advisory council work in order to be most effective on a tight timeline—or, as she put it: “Right now, the main concern is making sure that the folks who have been selected will be able to be inclusive and able to communicate to the public and serve everyone and not necessarily their community in terms when they’re discussing benefits by those impacted by the train station development.”

Blowing Fiscally Back. Despite a double fiscal and physical whammy of hurricanes, and being in the beginning of this year’s hurricane season, Puerto Rico FY’2017 General Fund revenue came in 1.5% higher than budgeted: total revenue was $9.31. Puerto Rico Secretary of Treasury Teresita Fuentes noted: “The level and behavior of tax collections during the past fiscal year in comparison with other years is considered unusual due to the economic effect of hurricanes passing through the island.” That is a sharp fiscal blowback to FAFAA Executive Director Gerardo Portela Franco’s warning last December 5^th that he expected Puerto Rico’s fiscal year General Fund revenues to be 25% less than budgeted.  Secretary Fuentes reported that unexpectedly high revenues from April to June had allowed the government to exceed the budgeted number, while Puerto Rico Secretary of the Interior Raul Maldonado noted: “To a large extent the [revenue] increase is attributed to the temporary economic activity of companies associated with recovery tasks and the flow of insurer and federal government money after the hurricanes.” He noted that the greatest increase was derived from the island’s corporate income tax—some $260 million; however, Puerto Rico’s sales and use tax revenues returned $26 million less than projections from the start of the year. Secretary Fuentes said that many businesses had either been closed or had operated partially in the weeks following Hurricane Maria and that in the period the sales tax on restaurant food was temporarily eliminated; however, the sales and use tax revenue rebounded in the last quarter, with Secretary Fuentes pointing in particular to hardware stores and department store sales.

Back to Escuela.  Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló Nevares has announced the territory will provide more than 2,000 regular slots to temporary teachers—a step by which he hopes to alleviate the recurring challenge of recruiting educators at each school start—as teachers are often attracted to more generous salaries and benefits on the mainland.  His stated goal is for these educators to be recruited under 10-month contracts by September: “We are going to make an effort to convert thousands of temporary places in permanent seats in the education system.” The Governor noted that his action is intended to make it possible to clarify the system and end current uncertainties which have left teachers in the dark with regard to whether she or he still has a job—an apprehension not just of teachers, but also parents, who are confronting their own choices with September looming.

Two years ago, in the midst of an election year, the Governor acted to convert some 1,519 temporary teachers to become full-time employees, noting, then: “You have teachers who were not sure, and now they are going to have certainty, and you have a school system that did not have visibility, now we are building that visibility,” adding that, in his view, this governing decision would not have an adverse impact on Puerto Rico’s budget—and, ergo, not trigger PROMESA Oversight Board fiscal preemption: “If there is any philosophical consideration that they may have, that is another thing. For us, it gives certainty to the system, particularly in the area of needs that we are going to have to supply.” The Governor explained that the measure was possible thanks to two fundamental actions: the creation of an electronic platform which has facilitated the ability of Education Secretary Julia Keleher to assess where staff is needed, especially with regard to what levels and subjects: that is, via the human resources platform, the Secretary can assess, as the Governor noted, the educational organization of each campus, including how many teachers are transient and what subjects they teach. This could be a valuable fiscal step, because online registration will facilitate the ability to confirm the number and location of students—a critical step for the completion of the school consolidation process.

Sec. Keleher has explained that the system will take into account, first, the educators who occupy places where recruitment has proved difficult, such as Special Education, English, and Math—noting the human and fiscal challenges: “You have to honor the transient teacher. It does not seem fair or correct in terms of the reality we want to offer. This is not a good deal for a person who is giving 100% for their students: The Secretary noted the determination is aligned with the anticipated tax revenues. Her request, this year, is for over 5,500 transitory positions—or, as she notes: “The idea is to have the teachers ready for the start of classes, the week before they know where they are going.” Puerto Rico’s statute 85-2018, the Law on Educational Reform “establishes that the Department, in areas of difficult recruitment such as teachers of English, Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, will promote the permanence of the same within the term of one year, if fiscal availability of the square and of being the same vacancy.”

Fiscal, Physical, & Human Challenges of Municipal Governance

August 6, 2018

Good Morning! In this morning’s eBlog, we consider the awful physical, fiscal, and human challenges of municipal governance.  

An Enduring State of Emergency. Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan was in West Michigan yesterday morning: he was touring a water system construction site in Parchment, a municipality in Kalamazoo County of less than 2,000. The construction here includes a new pressure reduction system, which will allow Parchment to transition to the City of Kalamazoo water system. The city’s water supply is being flushed out, and the city of Kalamazoo will provide water to Parchment and Cooper Township residents. The transition, raising eerie memories of a previous transfer by the Governor in Flint, comes in the wake of finding that water in Parchment was contaminated with man-made chemicals called perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). City residents were warned to stop using the water due to the contamination on July 26^th, after water tests showed the PFAS level in Parchment was 20 times higher than the EPA recommended amount of 70 parts per trillion. A local state of emergency has been set for Parchment, and neighboring Cooper Township, after, just last week, Gov. Snyder declared a state of emergency for Kalamazoo County.

Fear for children—fear that the impact of Flint’s lead-tainted water could last decades—and distrust in the state and local governance to make decisions affecting children whose development could be hurt, is, unsurprisingly causing generations of residents to lose trust in government. It is, of course, at the same time tainting the assessed property values of homes in cities in Michigan so adversely affected for decades to come by state-imposed emergency managers. What parents would wish to move to a municipality knowing the drinking water would have long-term devastating consequences for their child?

What are the fiscal challenges for municipal elected leaders—especially in a state where the long-term physical and fiscal damages were wrought by state-imposed emergency managers? What do the long-term health effects for children exposed to the lead-tainted water mean for a municipality with regard to legal vulnerability and to financing a long-term recovery? At a conference at the end of last week, Detroit News reporter Leonard Fleming noted: “They don’t trust government officials: It could take a generation or two for residents to trust the city and state again and its water.”

At the conference, Dr. Lawrence Reynolds, who was on the Governor’s Flint task force, said some health officials have tried to minimize the effects of the water on residents; nevertheless, he warned there are babies who drank lead-tainted formula for six to nine months who could experience serious disabilities later in life: “It was a civil rights crisis, a human rights crisis, an environmental racism, and there is no excuse for what was done.” Moreover, there appears little end in sight: Cynthia Lindsey, an attorney representing Flint residents in a class-action lawsuit, said it could take three to four years for the legal process to play out. That is, Flint is held hostage by decisions imposed upon it by a state-imposed emergency manager, and now the question of who will finance—and how long will it take to replace all the city’s pipes, provide it access to safe and affordable drinking water, and long-term health care appear to be decisions to be made in a courtroom.

The fateful decision that led to the lead water contamination was not a municipal decision, but rather one made by the state in 2011 via a state imposed emergency manager, Darnell Earley. That was a decision which led to the finding that hundreds of children have since been diagnosed with lead poisoning; a dozen Flint residents have died of Legionella from drinking river water. Today, some 15 state public employees have been indicted by Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette for their roles in the water crisis—indictments on charges ranging from obstructing an investigation to involuntary manslaughter.

Now Attorney General Schuette is running to replace the term-limited Governor Rick Snyder. Some in the state claim the candidate is using the Flint charges to “make himself look like a hero.” In the Democratic gubernatorial primary, ex-state Senator Gretchen Whitmer (D-Lansing) has released a plan to speed the replacement of lead pipes, while former Detroit health director Abdul El-Sayed received the endorsement of “Little Miss Flint,” the student whose letter brought former President Barack Obama to the community.

Former Flint Mayor Dayne Walling, who lost his first race for that position in 2009 to a car dealer named Don Williamson, but, when former Mayor Williamson resigned to avoid a recall for lying about the city’s budget deficit, was elected in a special election to replace him: he was elected after promising “to transform Flint into a sustainable 21st-century city with new jobs, safe neighborhoods, great schools and opportunity for all.” Candidate Walling reports that his own trust in government is lower than it was prior to the city’s drinking water contamination; now he claims he wants to take the hard lessons he has learned to the place he sees as the major source of Flint’s problems: the state capitol in Lansing.

Representation could matter: over the last four decades, assessed property values fell more than 40 percent—and with them property tax receipts. That led to, after the city’s police union’s refusal to accept pay cuts, laying off a third of the police force—meaning that for a period of time, the city, with about 100,000 residents, was sometimes able to put only six officers on the street at one time. Unsurprisingly, murders nearly doubled between 2009 and 2010—a year when Flint had the nation’s highest murder rate—and the year when Gov. Ric Snyder announced he was appointing an emergency manager, Ed Kurz, to preempt local control and authority in an effort to eliminate the city’s $10 million general fund deficit. Just prior to that preemption of local authority, the Flint City Council had endorsed a plan to detach the city from the Detroit water system, due to what the Council believed to be unaffordable rates, and join the new Karegnondi Water Authority, which planned to build a pipeline from Lake Huron. Mr. Kurtz authorized an engineering study to prepare the city’s water treatment plant to process Flint River water instead. A sequential state-appointed Emergency Manager, Darnell Earley, implemented the changeover—a fateful decision with precipitous health and human safety and fiscal consequences. Mr. Earley has been charged with false pretenses, conspiracy, willful neglect of duty, misconduct in office, and involuntary manslaughter—charges which will be aired next Monday at a hearing, where he is likely to maintain That the City Council had decided to draw from the Flint River until the new pipeline was completed, and that he was, therefore, only executing their orders. (Mr. Kurz, who has not been charged, has previously testified before Congress that his responsibility was “strictly finance,” thus, he bore no responsibility to ensure “safe drinking water.”

Today, Mr. Walling, currently working as a public policy consultant for Michigan State University, notes he believes there ought to be changes in the relationship between Flint and the State of Michigan, noting: “The distress of Michigan’s cities, starting with Detroit and Flint, is a direct result of policies made in Lansing,” adding: “The only good news is that policy changes at the state level can help restore Michigan’s once-great cities.”

According to a Michigan State University 2015 study: “Beyond State Takeovers: Reconsidering the Role of State Government in Local Financial Distress, with Important Lessons for Michigan and its Embattled Cities,” by Joshua Sapotichne, Erika Rosebrook, Eric A. Scorsone, Danielle Kaminski, Mary Doidge, and Traci Taylor; the State of Michigan has the second-most stringent local taxation limits in the nation—limits which impose what they term “tremendous pressure on local lawmakers’ ability to generate critical revenue.” The fiscal pressure on the state’s local governments has been intensified by decisions to divert revenue sharing, the former program intended to address fiscal disparities, to instead enable state tax cuts. The decision disproportionately impacted the state’s most fiscally challenged municipalities: Flint’s loss was $54 million; Detroit lost $200 million, contributing to its 2013 chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy. Indeed, the state decision indirectly contributed to state imposition of nine emergency managers.

Thus, unsurprisingly, former Mayor Walling has a list of the new policies he wants to enact as a state representative: Allow cities to charge commuters the same income tax rate as residents (instead of just half); broaden the sales and use tax to services; provide state pension retirement assistance. This would have especial import for Flint, where the city’s taxpayers are currently financing the pensions of employees who worked for the city when it had 200,000 residents—pension payments now consuming, he says, a quarter of the city’s budget.

Trust & Intergovernmental Tensions. By candidate Walling’s own admission, throughout most of Flint’s drinking water crisis, he believed assurances from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality that Flint’s water met safe drinking standards. When residents confronted him with discolored, foul-smelling water, he said: “I thought that water had come out of their tap because of a failure in the system at their house or near the house,” adding that it was not until three years ago when, in the wake of listening to Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha describe her discovery that Flint children were showing elevated levels of lead in their blood, did he finally realize the city’s entire water system was tainted, asserting that it was at that moment in time that he ordered the city to issue a lead advisory, advising mothers not to mix hot tap water with formula, and for all residents to filter their water and flush it for five minutes. (In her recent memoir, What the Eyes Don’t See, Dr. Hanna-Attisha devotes an entire chapter to her meeting with Mr. Walling, criticizing him for opting out of joining her news conference on lead levels, because he was more concerned about traveling to Washington to meet Pope Francis.)

Candidate Walling’s campaign flyers assert: “My priorities are roads, schools, jobs.” they declare. As he challenges incumbent Mayor Karen Weaver, he says most voters he interacts with want to talk about the shabby state of Michigan’s roads or the excessive auto insurance rates paid by residents of Flint and Detroit. But, it appears, he is willing to support repeal of Michigan’s Emergency Manager law—a concept which journalist Anna Clark notes, in The Poisoned City, her new history of the water crisis: “The idea of emergency management is that an outside official who is not constrained by local politics or the prospect of a reelection bid will be able to better make the difficult decisions necessary to get a struggling city or school district back on solid ground.” But in Flint, emergency managers made decisions based on saving money, not the health and safety of the citizens with whose well-being they had been entrusted. Candidate Walling, in retrospect, notes: “I wish that I had never been part of any of it: “This has all happened to a community that I deeply love, and it is motivating me to make sure policy changes are made to make sure this never happens again.”

Planning for a Quasi Plan of Debt Adjustment

eBlog

August 3, 2018

Good Morning! In this morning’s eBlog, we consider Gov. Ricardo Rosselló’s ambitious plans for Puerto Rico.  

Governor Ricardo Rossello Nevares believes now is the time to accelerate the pace the pace and demand both programmatic and fiscal results from the U.S. territory’s agency directors to better prepare for a post-recovery quasi plan of debt adjustment. The closing of so many of the island’s schools and the emigration to the mainland of so many health care professionals, and the unhappy state of relations with not just the legislature, but also Puerto Rico municipalities appears to make this a critical point for readjustment. Or, as the Governor put it: “In general, I have always seen the government, particularly in these times, as one which has been in almost continuous transformation—or, to make an analogy with the business sector, as a time to focus on a start-up phase: “Sometimes, you run a lot as if your government was like a Fortune 500 corporation, where things are more or less the same and you keep moving forward. But the reason I aspired was to make some changes…and that requires, in addition to having very specific objectives, to understand, one, that there are changes of roles in that process, as in the start-ups, and two, to know what is the time to execute those changes.”

One area of focus appears to be making his government more open—especially after a year and a half which has seen scandal that touched several of his closest collaborators, the operational and administrative collapse of the Electric Power Authority, the closing of schools, and the flight of health professionals to the mainland. Add to that the ongoing governance challenge imposed by the President and Congress—where the issue of who is steering governance going forward is imbalanced between the Governor, legislature, PROMESA Oversight Board, and. Now, a federal judge—all as Puerto Rico is still not fully recovered from the massive Hurricane Maria—and yet finds itself in the new hurricane season, recognizing it will not receive the same level of FEMA federal assistance in the event of a severe storm as other states or municipalities on the mainland.

Nevertheless, the Governor is focusing on the future—a future beginning to emerge under his “ideas map” which he keeps on his desk: “Puerto Rico: Vision 20/20,” under which he hopes to align his team via setting objectives and what he terms “intangible characteristics” as part of his governing blueprint for the new school year and post-Maria rebuilding.

Thus, in the second half of this year, the Governor intends to focus on reducing some of the bureaucracy of governance, beginning with making the permitting process more practical and less bureaucratically cumbersome—cutting the process in half, and awarding at least three public-private partnerships before the end of the year—or, as he put it: “Accompanying some results with the restructuring of the debt, that would be a great achievement in my assessment,” adding that by November, he hopes his new model of My Health will be implemented, and, by December, new health care legislation will be enacted, followed by a new energy policy for Puerto Rico. Or, as the Governor put it: “My administration has a diversity of people who come from different administrations. My goal is not to select someone because they have gray hair or are very young or certain demographic. The main objective is the commitment to comply with the priorities of this administration and the ability to work as a team.”

A key player on the new team will be Christian Sobrino, who will take the place currently held by Gerardo Portelo, to serve as Puerto Rico’s representative before the PROMESA Oversight Board, while Mr. Portelo will become the main investment officer.

Gov. Rosselló Nevares not only has reconfigured his team of close advisers, but also has transferred to La Fortaleza the tasks to implement the fiscal plan which, until now, has been in the hands of Aafaf—indeed, the Governor has already signed an executive order on the roles of the CFO, but said he could submit legislation on the subject. (The CFO office is one of the reforms in the fiscal plan certified by the Oversight Board which the Governor does not question.)

To address the governing challenges with regard to education, health, and safety, Gov. Rosselló Nevares noted: “We are making sure that students can have a full faculty, that there are challenges and obstacles, of course. If it is a large system, and the transformation, rare as it is soft, is typically a rocky process,” noting his plan to implement educational vouchers and charter schools is still in place. With regard to the vital issue of health care, the Governor noted it is urgent to improve the processes for the response to a disaster, a criterion under which he intends, henceforward, to evaluate all the heads of the respective agencies, adding that he is committed to converting Mi Salud into a model single region with free selection of doctors by indigents. In addition, he has set a goal of reducing crime by 20%, noting that, the havoc created by Hurricane Maria undoubtedly contributed to the significant crime rate increase: “I understand, what happens is that it is not consistent then with what was happening at the beginning of the year. At the beginning of the year, in January, we had a rise particularly in the murders, and it is not after that where one, truth, the capacities to measure all these things improve; they do not get worse, because that’s where the descent happens. Everything is subject to evaluation here, but we have used the same mechanism, the same metrics.”

Restoration of Governing Authority? Asked whether he had given much thought to a post PROMESA Oversight Board governing future, the Governor said: “I have not had that conversation, honestly I have not had it…If there is space to look for something that is optimal for the people of Puerto Rico, I will consider it. But, at this moment, I believe that the Judge must decide…and I cannot predict what her decision will be…after which, we will evaluate that decision, what it entails, and we will take the appropriate actions,” adding that his objective is to present a plan to the President and Congress with regard to Puerto Rico’s reconstruction.

With regard to his relationship with the legislature, he noted: “Our objective, both mine and that of the legislative leaders, I am sure is the welfare of the people of Puerto Rico. I did not start to differences that one can and should calculate that they are going to have on the road; we have a finite time to make some great changes for Puerto Rico. I trust that now, when you see the tax reform, you will act in the best interests of the people of Puerto Rico. I trust that when we see public policy, for example, to mitigate environmental impact, we act in the best interests of the people of Puerto Rico, among other initiatives that we will be presenting. Differences will always be there. I have already established my position: we will be able to work together for the welfare of the people of Puerto Rico.

Getting Schooled in Demography. With Puerto Rico’s new school year set to start Monday, it remains uncertain how many students and teachers will be present. Secretary of Education Julia Keleher yesterday reported that 20,000 regular teachers have already been relocated, out of which only 550 have reported “difficulties” with the changes—only 18,000 students out of the island’s 305,000 have yet to confirm which school they will attend. A declining school population has created jitters with regard to which schools to close—and how to involve parents—or not to—in this Solomon-like process. Nevertheless, as one mother bitterly complained: “Parents were not involved in anything, ever.” Indeed, many parents and teachers believe that the closure was improvised. For instance, a newspaper delivery vehicle (El Nuevo Día) which had stopped opposite a school was hailed by a driver of a truck with the Education logo: its driver asked if the school was open. When they told him it was not, the man said he was to deliver food for the school cafeteria. It seems the decision to keep Jacinto López Martínez School open was taken after the Secretary of Education, along with Mayor Carlos López of Dorado, visited the school at the end of the semester—or, as Principal Lois Santiago described it: “There has been a crazy (student) relocation. The majority appears (enrolled) in the Jacinto López Martínez School, but there are first former students who‒we do not know how‒appear in the Escuela Libre de Música…There is a student listed in the Luisa Valderrama School, which is an hour away.”

Dorado Physical Education Teacher Miguel Rubildo said that, last week, he went to the Arecibo educational region to request some of the available positions, but the options he was given were in the municipalities of Quebradillas and Florida, while the principals of the schools Jacinto López Martínez and Esperanza González confirmed that, a little more than a week before the beginning of the semester, they did not know the number of teachers who would be relocated in their schools, much less whether there would even be classrooms available for them.

The Complex Challenges of Implementing a Municipal Bankruptcy Plan of Debt Adjustment

July 31, 2018

Good Morning! In this morning’s eBlog, we consider post-chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy challenges for the City of Detroit, before turning to learn about good gnus from Puerto Rico.

The Steep Route of Chapter 9 Debt Adjustment. Direct Construction Services, minority-owned firm, which has participated in Detroit’s federally funded demolition program, is suing Mayor Mike Duggan, the city’s land bank, and Detroit’s building authority as well as high-ranking officials from each division—alleging racial discrimination and retaliation. The suit asks the court to award damages and declare the actions of the city, its land bank and building authority as “discriminatory and illegal.” The suit alleges that some contractors had been asked to change bidding and cost figures “to reflect compliance” under the federal demolition Hardest Hit Fund guidelines. Filed in federal court, it charges that Service’s managing member, Timothy Drakeford, was treated unfairly based on his race and that officials in the program conspired to have him suspended for refusing to falsify documents and for cooperating with federal authorities. Mr. Drakeford, who is barred from bidding on federally funded demolition work, is also suing for breach of contract and discrimination against black contractors. The suit charges that some contractors, including Mr. Drakeford, had been asked to change bidding and cost numbers “to reflect compliance” under the federal Hardest Hit Fund guidelines; indeed, the suit alleges it was subsequently suspended—not because of the quality of its work, but rather “because of the refusal to change numbers in bid packages.” The suit adds: “This case arises because of defendants’ breach of contract, concert of action, due process violations, and discrimination on the grounds of race in its implementation of the Hardest Hit Homeowner demolition program, including failure to timely pay black contractors in comparison to their white counterparts, improper and disparate discipline and retaliation.”

This issues here are not new—and have previously been the focus of FBI, state, and city investigations, especially over bidding practices and rising costs. As we have previously noted, the city’s plan of debt adjustment efforts to raze abandoned homes was a particular focus—a program through which federal assistance was misappropriated while the city worked to demolish homes after its bankruptcy—in that case involving federal funds allocated via the Michigan State Housing Development Authority. The suit contends that Direct Construction was awarded three contracts for demolition work by the land bank, and asserts that payments were delayed and harder to obtain from the land bank than for “larger white companies,” such as Adamo and Homrich, two firms awarded the largest percentage of the work to date. The suit asserts Direct Construction was under contract for several demolition packages, but still has not been paid, and references in excess of $143,000 in unpaid invoices, noting: This “repetitive process has gone on for over a year now, with no success,” contending that it had been performing work on two contracts which it had been awarded for a total of 48 homes—before, on December 19, 2016, being hit with an “immediate stop work order” from the land bank, without explanation. A year ago in February, Direct received a letter regarding an Office of Inspector General report, which suggested that photographs submitted for repayment of sidewalk work had been falsified and that the company would not be compensated—a letter followed up the next month by a notice of suspension. (Direct was among a few businesses suspended last year on claims of manipulating sidewalk repair photographs to obtain payment.)

Detroit Corporation Counsel Lawrence Garcia yesterday noted: “The Office of Inspector General found that not only did Mr. Drakeford personally manipulate a photo of a demolition site to conceal tires that had not been removed from the lot, but also gave information that was not truthful to the OIG’s investigators. For the penalties issued with respect to these matters, the Detroit Land Bank, the DBA and the city followed the recommendations of the independently appointed inspector general…These facts more than justify the city’s actions.” Indeed, that office, at the request of the land bank, had initiated investigations in December of 2016 into allegations that sidewalk repair photographs were being doctored. (The land bank mandates that its contractors to take “before and after” photographs of sidewalks, drive approaches, neighboring residences, and surrounding areas to document conditions.) The Office, the following February, flagged Direct Construction over five of its submitted photographs, concluding the photos had been modified to disguise incomplete work; it recommended the company be barred from doing work in the city’s demolition program until at least 2020. (The Michigan State Housing Development Authority began placing greater emphasis on sidewalk replacement photographs in October of 2016, when a new set of practices went into place—at a point in time when federally funded demolition had been suspended for two months after a review by the Michigan Homeowner Assistance Nonprofit Housing Corp.).

Since Mayor Duggan’s election in 2013, the city has razed nearly 13,000 homes—a task that has fiscal and physical consequences—reducing assessed property values and property taxes, but also leaving medical scars: over that time, the percentage of children 6 and younger with elevated lead levels rose from 6.9% in 2012 to 8.7% in 2016, according to state records. Early last year, the land bank repaid $1.37 million to address improper expenses identified by auditors for the state. The land bank last summer reached a settlement with state housing officials to pay $5 million to resolve a dispute over invoices the state determined to be improperly submitted. Detroit’s administration has claimed the city has been transparent with its demolition program and cooperated fully with all inquiries.

Good Gnus. In Puerto Rico, Governor Ricardo Rosselló Nevares and the Labor Secretary Carlos Saavedra are celebrating a turnaround in employment in the U.S. territory: between May and June, some 11,000 people joined the island’s labor market, dropping Puerto Rico’s unemployment rate to its lowest level in half a century. Gov. Rosselló Nevares yesterday reported the unemployment rate to be 9.3%, the lowest rate in the last 50 years, noting: “On this occasion, unemployment drops and the participation rate increases are all numbers going in the right direction.” Sec. Saavedra explained the increase between May and June reflects summer employment programs, but at a level considerably better than in previous years, especially in the commercial and self-employment sectors—and, as he noted: “We have seen a substantial increase in self-employment,” apparently reflecting many involved with repairs and reconstruction for damage caused by Hurricane María, especially electricians, and builders. Economist Juan Lara explained that jurisdictions which have suffered deep economic declines as a result of a natural disaster experience a period of rebound that leads to growth, but cautioned: “[T]his can hardly be maintained in the long-term without a change in the economic model.” He estimated that in the next five or six years, federal investments could keep the economy in positive territory, noting: “The important thing is to remember that these funds do not last forever and that the economy needs sustained redevelopment.”

For his part, Gov. Rosselló stressed that the current economic improvement is occurring without the federal government having released a penny of the more than $1.8 billion in promised HUD assistance. Nevertheless, there can be little question but that the more than $3 billion in insurance claims already paid, according to according to Iraelia Pernas, the Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Insurance Companies Association have had a positive, if one-time, impact. Similarly, the island is anticipating, in August, a large CDBG grant.

Gov. Rosselló Nevares attributed the jobs upturn, interestingly, to emigration: many who were unemployed left Puerto Rico for the mainland, even as he reported the total number of citizens employed has increased, as well as the labor participation rate (not seasonally adjusted), which rose from 40.5% in May to 41.1% last month. percent in June. In the first months following Hurricane María, nearly 200,000 people left Puerto Rico. Many, however, have returned.

Informacion Mejor? PROMESA Oversight Board Executive Director Natalie Jaresko has reported the Board “welcomes the publication” of fiscal information mandated by the Board, after, on July 10^th, the Board had sent a letter to FAFAA Executive Director Gerardo Portela Franco, complaining of a failure to submit documents, including documents comparing the General Fund budget to actual spending; PayGo balances; and public employee payroll, headcount, and attendance. The board said that, according to the approved quasi-plan of debt adjustment, the first two documents had been due on May 31^st, and the third on June 30th. FAFAA released the PayGo report on July 17, and the other two reports last Friday.  Ms. Jaresko wrote: “The Oversight Board welcomes the publication of the General Fund to Actual Report, the Human Resources Report and the Payroll Report: Full monthly public reporting is essential to increase transparency of government finances, increase accountability, and monitor compliance and progress as per the fiscal plan and budget objectives in order to eliminate Puerto Rico’s structural deficits…The Oversight Board is committed to continuing this important work of monitoring full compliance by the government with reporting requirements, in order to achieve PROMESA’s mandate of restoring fiscal responsibility and market access to Puerto Rico.”

Puerto’s Rico’s Demographic Challenges

July 24, 2018

Good Morning! In this morning’s eBlog, we consider what promises (no pun!) to be a brighter fiscal future for Puerto Rico,but a governmentally challenged fiscal and governing future.

Road to Recovery? According to Puerto Rico’s Department of Labor and Human Resources, the annual unemployment rate is lower than at any time than in more than 77 years, as Puerto Rico’s total employment level reached 995,767, and its unemployment rate dropped below 10% to the lowest monthly rate since at least 1975, dropping just over 15% in the last year. The BLS, however, reported that non-farm employment declined 3.5% from a year earlier, though it was up 1.9% from the post-Hurricane Maria low in October 2017: according to this survey of non-farm employers, private sector employment declined 3.4% in June from a year earlier. Puerto Rico’s Department of Labor and Human Resources said that Puerto Rico’s labor participation rate had increased to 41.1% from 39.3% a year ago last June.

The Fiscal Challenge of Demography. Dr. Angel Muñoz, a clinical psychologist and researcher at the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico in Ponce is warning that the question of who will care for Puerto Rico’s aging population is a growing crisis; he appears especially apprehensive that the U.S. territory’s elderly population is particularly at risk amid the new Atlantic hurricane season, which runs through Nov. 30^th—especially after an earlier study we cited by Harvard researchers estimated that 4,600 Puerto Ricans died in the months after Hurricane Maria hit last September: many were seniors who faced delays in getting medical care. That apprehension has grown as projections show that one-third of Puerto Rico’s population will be 60 or older by 2020, even as the number of young people are increasingly emigrating to the mainland in search of employment, often leaving behind aging parents. Dr. Muñoz noted: “We have more [older adults] being left alone to almost fend for themselves, or being cared for by other seniors, instead of a younger family member.” Adding to the fiscal and physical challenges is that in Puerto Rico, Medicaid does not pay for long-term nursing home care.

Challenging PROMESA. In yet another governance and legal challenge, Puerto Rico’s Financial Advisory Authority and Fiscal Agency will seek, today, to convince U.S. Judge Judith Dein that the fiscal budget signed by Gov. Ricardo Rosselló Nevares should be the controlling fiscal guide, marking the Governor’s first formal complaint against the PROMESA Board. The suit makes for an exceptionally full docket: it gets in line with more than 75 lawsuits filed against Puerto Rico or the Board. Last week, Judge Dein denied a request from the Association of University Professors and Teachers of the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez to intervene in the litigation between the government and the Oversight Board, after the Board sought the dismissal of the case, claiming it was acting in accordance with the powers conferred by Congress. The legal challenge has an element of Rod Serling, the former host of The Twilight Zone, because of the constitutional and principles of self-government questions raised—especially compared to chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy, where filing for chapter 9 is only permitted in states where such authority has been enacted by the respective Legislature and Governor. In contrast, the PROMESA law appears to rely on different institutional and Constitutional frameworks, and veers sharply from the principles of self-government upon which our nation was founded by the states. Nevertheless, Puerto Rico constitutionalist Carlos I. Gorrín Peralta and the ex-Judge of Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy court, Judge Gerardo Carlo Altieri believe it unlikely that the statute will be declared unconstitutional. The former. A professor at the School of Law of the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico (UIPR), is of the view that it is unlikely that Judge Swain would declare unconstitutional the statute which, among other things, created the special position that she occupies by appointment to preside over the Title III cases of Puerto Rico. Mr. Peralta notes: “Puerto Rico does not even have sovereignty to accuse a person of drugs that the feds have already accused and, then, the second message was the declaration of unconstitutionality of the restructuring law,” he noted referencing Puerto Rico v. Sánchez Valle and Puerto Rico v. Franklin California Tax-Free Trust. He adds: “The Congress has exercised the colonial mollero,” which, in Spanish, can generally be translated to mean to show one’s biceps. Adding that the current dispute between the Oversight Board and the Commonwealth is, as he called it, the result of “conceptual ambiguity,” which can be illustrated by Law 600, wherein he described the statutory language as “the nature of a pact” adopted in the statute which gave rise to the Constitution of Puerto Rico, although in practice, there was no agreement between the United States and the United States.

In PROMESA, ergo, Senor Gorrín Peralta said the vehicle which is understood to be the vehicle with which to restructure Puerto Rico’s debt, in reality, he believes, is a statute designed to: protect the economic interests of the United States, and contain the effect that Puerto Rico’s debt would have on the state and local municipal bond market.

From the perspective of Judge Carlo Altieri, the allegations of Gov. Rosselló Nevares and the island’s legislative leaders regarding a possible usurpation of powers are of great import. The same, he added, applies to the case of Aurelius Capital Management, which alleges that the PROMESA Board is null because its members were not appointed with the consent of the Senate as dictated by the U.S. Constitution.

Nevertheless, according to a former president of the Bankruptcy Court in Puerto Rico, the backdrop to settle the dispute between Gov. Rosselló Nevares, the Legislature, and the PROMESA Board is not a purely civil case or a claim for constitutional rights, but rather the procedures of U.S. bankruptcy law which are oriented to pragmatism and the rapid resolution of disputes, mainly monetary, or, as he put it: “In the Bankruptcy Court, what are sought are fast, practical, technical,and efficient processes. Of course, PROMESA is a special law; it is not chapter 9 or chapter 11: it is a very special law and definitively, constitutional attacks are not the norm in cases of traditional bankruptcies either of municipalities or Chapter 11 cases. These constitutional arguments are very important, but they have the effect of delaying cases and resolving cases, creating confusion and excessive costs.”  He further noted that Judge Swain’s recent ruling in the Aurelius casts serious doubts with regard to the chances for Gov. Rosselló Nevares and the Legislature to prevail. He adds that it is highly probable that this litigation will continue via appeals, so the process of adjusting Puerto Rico’s debts will be delayed: “The candles are deflated. I would not be surprised if the court decided against the Legislature and the government.” Nevertheless, he made it clear that in the future, especially when the confirmation process of the plan of adjustment nears, the scope of the Oversight Board’s fiscal plan could change. 

He noted that Judge Swain could rule against the government by determining that Gov. Rosselló Nevares’ requests are aimed at seeking an opinion and that, in reality, there is no controversy surrounding the authority of the Oversight Board to certify the fiscal plan and the budget; rather, he said, “The reasons are eminently political,” adding that as the Oversight Board’s actions begin to increasingly, adversely affect citizens’ pockets, there will be ever-increasing rejection of what is perceived as colonial imperialism. He added that if the court ruled in favor of the Rosselló Nevares administration and curtailed the powers of the PROMESA Board, the body created by Congress would continue to have “gigantic” powers to impose its mandates upon the people and government of Puerto Rico.