Kevyn Orr Wants To Convince Creditors To Help Him Fix City

“There are other cities with these problems, yes, but there’s nothing like what we’re facing in Detroit,” -Detroit EFM Kevyn Orr

This week it was announced that Detroit Emergency Financial Manager Kevyn Orr will take Detroit’s creditors on a tour of Detroit’s worst neighborhoods in order to convince them to accept his debt repayment plan.

Orr stopped paying on $11 Billion worth of Detroit’s unsecured debt in last month and has defined who he claims is an unsecured creditor. This scares bond investors because if Detroit can reclassify what is unsecured and what is not, there’s nothing that can stop other municipalities from doing the same thing.

Orr told panel members on Detroit Public Television’s MiWeek, Stephen Henderson of the Detroit Free Press, Christy McDonald and Detroit News Editorial Page Editor Nolan Finley,

“If they can see what it’s like for Detroiters, what they endure every day in this city, I think they’ll begin to understand what’s at stake,Imagine what it’s like to be a mother riding that bus with no air-conditioning, that shows up late and takes an hour and a half to get you where you need to go. See what these neighborhoods look like, what you travel through and go home to every day. I think people don’t really believe it when I describe it. Even my friends in Washington say it can’t be as dire as what I’m describing. But it is.”