Judge Steven Rhodes
As if some of the holdout creditors needed to generate less goodwill in the city.
Now this.
Robert Snell of The Detroit News reports that three holdout creditors -- Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp., Berkshire Hathaway Assurance Corp. and Financial Guaranty Insurance Corp. -- are trying to block U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes from taking a tour of the city.
They worry security could be jeopardized if the route through one of the country’s most dangerous cities is publicized in advance, Snell writes.
On Tuesday, in court briefs, creditors' attorneys asked Rhodes to scrap the tour, arguing it's not only potentially dangerous, but is irrelevant and unprecedented, The News reports. City attorneys want the tour to give the judge perspective on what he's dealing with.
“The risk that details of the bus tour could leak in advance, or be discovered by the media while the tour is in progress — or indeed could be revealed through live reporting on social media — creates not only security risks but also the possibility that interested persons or groups could seek to alter conditions or stage incidents or confrontations at the proposed viewing locations,” lawyers Lawrence Larose and Alfredo Perez wrote in a court filing, according to The News.
“Such a suggestion defies common sense,” lawyers for Berkshire Hathaway and FGIC wrote, according to The News. “Whatever ‘context’ might be helpful when addressing plan confirmation issues, that ‘context’ for a city of Detroit’s dimensions and complexity will not come from the brief series of scattered stops that the city proposes to conduct.”
Earlier at Deadline Detroit:
Kevyn Orr Cancels Creditors' Tour Of Desolation And Shame, July 9, 2013
