Michigan's Hostile Takeover. Article I bookmarked in Feb 2012'

When the city of Pontiac, Michigan, shut down its fire department last Christmas Eve, city councilman Kermit Williams learned about it in the morning paper. "Nobody reports to me anymore," Williams says. "It just gets reported in the press." This was just the latest in a series of radical changes in the city, where elected officials such as Williams have been replaced by a single person with unprecedented control over the city's operation and budget.

snip

I knew this wouldn't go well. I thought at the time that Michigan was where democracy goes to die.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/michigan-emergency-manager-pontiac-detroit