Updated: Friday, 6:25 p.m -- Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr issued a statement: “Today’s ruling is a victory for Detroiters that will help the City reinvest in the services it provides its residents and businesses.
“We’re making good progress in reaching consensual resolutions with our creditors and stakeholders. The City’s $18 billion debt load is suffocating, and the longer parties wait in hopes of a better deal, the more dire our collective situation becomes. I reiterate Judge Rhodes’s request that all parties negotiate and reach resolutions. We don’t have the luxury of time – the offers on the table are grounded in reality and they won’t last forever.”
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Friday, 1:36 p.m.
Well, it was pretty anti-climactic.
But the Judge Steven Rhodes finally gave the OK Friday for a plan for Detroit to pay $85 million two global banks to settle a disastrous financial arrangement referred to as "swaps" made Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s administration, Nathan Bomey and Matt Helms of the Detroit Free Press report..
The approval came after Rhodes twice rejected offers by Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr to settle $288 million in loans. Rhodes saw two earlier proposals as too generous.
The settlement should help speed up the bankruptcy proceedings. -- A.L.
