DETROIT – The North American International Auto Show will likely stay in Detroit’s Cobo Center because the Detroit City Council refused to reject a state proposal to expand and renovate the center.
The council has until midnight Friday to reject the proposal that the state approved last month, but on Tuesday – the last scheduled council session before its planned August recess (and the August 4 primary) – the council turned down a motion to add to its agenda a proposal rejecting the deal.
Some residents objected to the council refusing to reject the proposal, as the council did in February, charging that letting the plan go forward means effectively giving away the center from city ownership.
But Council President and former Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. said city residents had to accept that rejecting the deal would likely mean the show would be moved to another city, such as Chicago or Los Angeles.
The council’s action also appears to put to rest at least this stage of the redevelopment effort, after a struggle that lasted some eight months.
Last December, on the last day of the 2007-08 session, the Legislature approved a proposal to transfer ownership of Cobo to a regional authority that would oversee a renovation and expansion expected to cost $288 million.
But the council rejected that proposal. Cockrel, then mayor, vetoed the resolution rejecting the deal, but the courts held he did not have the authority to issue that veto.
In the version of the agreement that now appears to go forward, the regional authority will lease Cobo, now Mayor Dave Bing would have been able to veto the council’s rejection (had that occurred) and if after all else the deal to expand Cobo was still rejected, then the deal would have allowed the auto show to move to the Rock Financial Center in Novi.
In addressing the issue Tuesday, Cockrel said the city could not handle the finances needed to renovate and expand the center.
This story was provided by Gongwer News Service. To subscribe, click on Gongwer.Com
a>>
