CHICAGO -- Detroit Tuesday defended its proposal to take U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes on a bus tour of the city as part of the plan of confirmation trial later this summer.
The bankrupt city's financial creditors, including bond insurers, are fighting the bus tour as irrelevant and a wasteful use of limited trial time. They warn it could be dangerous and become a spectacle if advertised in advance.
Detroit has proposed taking Rhodes, who is overseeing the bankruptcy case, on the tour for three hours to view "relevant locations" accompanied by U.S. Marshals or other security of the court's choosing. Stops would include blighted areas, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and downtown redevelopment areas.
To prove that its confirmation plan is feasible and fair, the city needs to "present evidence of its needs and challenges, and show how it can and will meet those needs and challenges,"
The planned testimony and documents supporting the plan are abstract and no substitute for the context a live tour would provide, Detroit's Jones Day attorneys argue.
"By showing both the depths of the needs of the city and its residents, and the possibilities for rebirth and revitalization, the site visit will enable the court to better assess how the plan will allow the city to move forward as a viable municipality," attorneys wrote.
Detroit had originally asked that the three hours not count against its 98 hours of allotted trial time, but withdrew that request in its latest filing.
Rhodes has already signaled his interest in the tour, saying, "I do think it would be valuable" in a May court hearing.
The objectors are bond insurers Berkshire Hathaway Assurance Corp., Financial Guaranty Insurance Co., National Public Finance Guarantee Corp., and Syncora Guarantee Inc., along with several European banks that hold some of the city's $1.4 billion of pension certificates of participation.
A committee representing the city's retirees filed a limited objection in which they did not oppose the tour but asked to participate.
