Orr Cancels Creditors’ Bus Tour of Detroit

Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr on Tuesday scrapped a scheduled bus tour for Wall Street creditors of the city’s worst areas.

Several creditors decided against taking the tour Wednesday and said they would rather spend time researching the city’s financial condition, the emergency manager’s spokesman Bill Nowling said.

Initially, 25 people — mostly bondholders, insurers and other unsecured creditors from New York City and New Jersey — signed up but several have canceled in the wake of media attention and interest in covering the tour. The tour required creditors to sign a waiver indemnifying the city if anyone was injured or killed during the roughly three-hour trip.

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Nowling said a tour could be rescheduled with creditors, who are in town this week meeting with members of Orr’s restructuring team.

“Mr. Orr still encourages the city’s creditors to visit and tour the city on their own to see first-hand the issues ordinary Detroiters must deal with each day,” Nowling said in a prepared statement. “If creditors do take the time to see all of Detroit they will better understand why the Emergency Manager proposed a restructuring plan that focuses on creating a strong, viable and solvent Detroit that is able to provide the most basic of services. Restructuring is not just about balance sheets, it’s also about the 700,000 Detroiters who need the city to thrive again.”

The tour was conceived after some financial creditors balked at agreeing to concessions that would keep the city from filing the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. {snip}

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