;HIGHLAND PARK -- Claiming the city is flat broke, Emergency Financial Manager Ramona Henderson Pearson Friday issued layoff notices to every city worker -- including every cop.
   All layoffs are to take effect Friday. All workers, except police offers, are to be called back as needed beginning Jan. 7.
   Gov. John Engler in June appointed Pearson to manage Highland Park's finances. The city has a short-term outstanding debt of $11 million. And Pearson said the only way she can generate any cash flow is to sell off city assets.
   The private Waste Management will continue trash pickup, and snow removal is also outsourced. Contractors will be hired as needed to maintain other city services, such as tree removal and water main repair.
   New fire department workers will be hired as soon as the layoffs occur, Pearson said. The layoffs for police officers are indefinite. If the department is ever rebuilt, officers would have to re-apply for their jobs.
   Pearson admitted she is still in negotiations with Michigan State Police and the Wayne County Sheriff's Office to provide police protection.
   "We don't have a permanent arrangement, no," Pearson said, adding she will be meeting with Wayne County Executive Ed McNamara.
   William F. Bledsoe, 30th District Court judge and a member of the Wayne County Charter Commission, said the county sheriff must provide police protection.
   Highland Park police have vowed to fight the layoffs in Wayne Circuit Court.
   The city -- which is 2.9 square miles in size and has 16,000 residents, according to the 2000 Census -- has 51 public safety officers.
   "This city cannot afford the management of a police department," Pearson said. "There will be no police."
   She added police cost the city from $7-$8 million a year out of a total city budget of $13 million.
   Lt. Morris Cotton, president of the Highland Park Police and Fire Fighters Association, accused Pearson of "abusing her power" and "bad faith."
   "It's totally devastating to manufacture an emergency to do the layoffs," said Cotton, who is a 22-year veteran. "You're not negotiating fairly when you have already given someone a layoff notice. Should the city have to suffer because of mismanagement?"
   Cotton said the cops' attorney, John Lyon of Troy, is preparing to sue the city, seeking to force Highland Park to follow the contract it has with police. That agreement calls for 57 public safety officers.
   Pearson denied using layoffs as a bargaining tool.
   "No," Pearson said. "It's not a ploy. The city is out of cash."
   When he was mayor of Highland Park, Wayne County Commissioner Robert Blackwell in 1985 created a public safety department and joined the Michigan Employees Retirement System as a way to cut pension costs. Every public safety officer is trained to enforce laws and fight fires, too.
   Now, Highland Park Public Safety Director Melvin Turner is to abolish the public safety department and set up a new fire department. Turner, formerly Wayne County Undersheriff, also serves as police commissioner for Hamtramck.
   Judge Bledsoe said 30th District Court will remain open.
   "It all started in April 1982, when the state appointed a financial monitor," Bledsoe said. "Something needed to occur and, essentially, nothing ever did."
   A worker who will be laid off, eight-year employee Thomas Johnson, a Highland Park resident, is one of just three Department of Public Service workers left. And he agreed with Bledsoe.
   "I think it was just bad management," Johnson said. "We just made a lot of bad decisions. I'll draw unemployment for awhile and keep working my second job."
   Danial Konja, owner of the Republic Liquor party store on Woodward at Davison, was unhappy about the layoffs.
   "My reaction is like everybody else, you know," Konja said. "With no city employees, what's going to happen. My opinion is, we'd be a lot better off with the same police, because they know the problems."

Detroit News

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