Congratulations to former Syracuse/Pistons great Dave Bing, who narrowly defeated Mayor Kenneth Cockrel Jr. today in a special election to determine a successor to former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. That’s not to say everyone is celebrating the Motor City picking a 3rd Mayor in such a short span ; while the Detroit Free Press’ Bill McGray acknowledges “as an NBA star and Detroit businessman, Bing exuded grace, style and know-how,” he also warns, “as a candidate, he sometimes sounded clunky and was vague bordering on amorphous.”
Asked in the first debate what he would do about fixing the city™s $300 million budget deficit, Bing said he couldn™t comment because he didn™t have enough information, even though public officials have been discussing the figures — all public information — in public for months.
On the WDIV-TV œFlashpoint show Sunday, Bing bragged that he had refrained from making campaign promises.
œPeople know who I am in this city, he said.
He announced he had a panel of 25 experts who would help him evaluate city government, but refused to name them.
In September, around the time the disgraced mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, was pleading guilty to felonies, Bing moved into Detroit from a gated community of million-dollar homes in Franklin and leased a condo in a building near downtown.
There is nothing wrong with living in a gated community of million-dollar homes in Franklin.
Except if you are going to run for mayor of Detroit. Then living in a compound in a wealthy suburb 20 miles from city hall is different. No serious candidate for Detroit mayor in memory ” and probably ever ” has had to move into the city to run.