"Sources tell me that [Gov. Rick] Snyder has selected an emergency manager" to oversee Detroit finances and government, Nolan Finley writes in his Detroit News column.
The governor reportedly "expects to hear this week whether he or she will take" the job. The prospective appointee, whose identity Finley says he doesn't know, is from outside Michigan.
If the answer is yes, the naming of an emergency manager will come perhaps as soon as the end of the month.
The three-person financial review team has set a soft deadline of this Saturday for releasing its report on Detroit's long-term prospects. That report is the other piece Snyder needs before naming an emergency manager.
In an interview Friday with The Detroit News, the governor said little to discourage the notion that an emergency manager is imminent. . . .
I spoke with several people deeply involved in counseling the governor on Detroit, and none doubted that his next move is an emergency manager. Managing the restructuring of the city's $12 billion of debt and pension liabilities is too complex to be handled through the political process.
Finley is the paper's editorial page editor.
