I don't generally write about things with which I am not fully conversant, and I haven't been in Michigan long enough to consider myself an expert on Detroit. For starters, I still haven't been there. I spent three months here in Ann Arbor, then three months in California, and I've only been back for a couple of weeks.

Still, I am doing my best to keep up with area news, and I do subscribe to the Detroit Free Press. While most people think of Detroit as a troubled city which is home to a troubled auto industry, what was on the front page of yesterday's paper hammered home the fact that Detroit is also home to a very troubled, very dysfunctional, city government. So troubled and so dysfunctional that I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that is the government of Detroit that is either the cause of many of its problems and/or the roadblock to any solutions.

I might not have bothered to write about the current shenanigans in Detroit, but then I saw that the story also made the Wall Street Journal, so a little background is in order.

Detroit's convention center is called the Cobo Center, and because it is in a dire state of repair (collapsing floors and stuff like that), unless something is done fast it stands to lose a huge amount of business, including possibly the Detroit Auto Show. So the state has tried to pull together to save it, with the state and regional governments cobbling together a deal to buy and renovate it.

The plan, however, displeases some of the members of the Detroit City Council, which voted to reject the deal. Their veto was overridden by Mayor Ken Cockrel, so now he and everyone else are being accused of "racism":

Cobo Hall, site of the auto show since 1988, is 49 years old, cramped, leaky and in desperate need of repair. The struggling city needs Cobo as an economic engine, but doesn't have the money to fund a renovation. The $288 million expansion and renovation plan, signed earlier this year by Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, was the result of years of wrangling between the city, the suburbs and the state. It would pay Detroit $20 million to transfer control of Cobo to a five-member regional board, while eliminating $15 million in annual operating expenses from the city's books.

The renovation would be funded by a hotel and liquor tax that applies in a three-county area, including Detroit. That tax has been in place from an earlier expansion and was set to expire in 2015. To extend it, suburban leaders demanded more control over the facility, as well as access to contracts and jobs at the convention center.

City Council members who voted against the plan saw it as a power grab by the state and white-dominated suburbs seeking to use the city's budget woes as an excuse to wrest away control of an important Detroit institution. "It's like everyone is so against Detroit when Detroit is suffering the most," Ms. Conyers said at the time of the vote.

Council members said they would rather use federal stimulus money for the renovation than cede authority over the convention center. Some council members suggested the state was withholding stimulus funds from the project in an attempt to strong-arm them into accepting the deal.

"They are holding this sword over our heads," Councilwoman Barbara-Rose Collins said at the council meeting last week. "We want our stimulus package to come directly to the city of Detroit, bypassing the racist extortions of the state and the region."

Bear in mind that the surrounding counties aren't happy with the burden in the first place:

"But not everybody outside of Detroit is happy about taking on Cobo," Jackson said. "And the city feels like something is being taken away from them. We have to get past this impasse somehow."

Council members opposing the deal have also said the $20 million the city would receive under the deal isn't a fair price for the civic center, but according to a report by council's fiscal analyst, Cobo is a drain on the city's finances.

If repair and expansion needs, operational deficits and deferred maintenance are considered, Cobo has a negative $284 million net value, Fiscal Analyst Irv Corley Jr. wrote in a report to city council.

Wondering how any of this is racism? Read the story from yesterday's paper that inspired this extended post:

...what started with a veto by the mayor ended with strong charges of racism against a majority black city and a promise to meet the mayor in court next week.

Council President Monica Conyers said the council would vote Monday to have its attorney, David Whitaker, file an injunction in Wayne County Circuit Court against Cockrel's veto.

In response, Cockrel's spokesman Daniel Cherrin said the mayor "is confident his veto will withstand any legal challenges."

Conyers canvassed City Council members late Wednesday to secure enough signatures -- four -- to call for a special meeting Thursday with the intent to override Cockrel's veto. But working against her was the city's charter, which states any vote to override a veto must be conducted at a regular meeting.

By midday, it became apparent that coupled with the charter issue, those opposing the Cobo takeover would not have the votes to override, even if the meeting allowed for it.

Only four council members attended the special session -- Conyers, Council President Pro Tem JoAnn Watson, Barbara-Rose Collins and Martha Reeves. Without a quorum, council members held an open meeting dialogue, with themselves and the public.

Collins began by railing against council critics, Lansing legislators, Cockrel and Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, charging a conspiracy to take Detroit land.

"When he resurrected his great honorable warrior father's name, it was a disgrace," Collins said, in reference to the mayor invoking the name of his father, the late former Councilman Ken Cockrel, during his announcement Wednesday of the veto.

"European rulers have traditionally taken what they wanted from other people, be they white, be they black or be they brown.

She also spoke of Patterson: "I'd look like a fool negotiating with L. Brooks Patterson. I'll never forget how my enemies think of me. My purpose of bringing that up was -- do you negotiate with someone who thinks you're a monkey? Would you negotiate with someone who thinks you're beneath human being, to take away your asset? I would be a fool to negotiate."

Patterson dismissed Collins' comments about him as an attempt to start a fight.

What I'd really like to know is precisely how Mayor Cockrel became a "European ruler," but I guess I'll never know.

This all prompted Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley to say,

"It's time that Detroit City Council meetings stop becoming YouTube hits."

To make it on YouTube, they must be good. And sure enough, they are.

Check this wild scene out -- in which Councilmember Monica Conyers interrupts Ken Cockrel and then calls him "Shrek."

I don't know whether to laugh or cry, but it's a shame this once thriving city has become such a pathetic joke.

For those who want a serious view of the latest flap, a concerned Detroit resident (in a video titled "What's wrong with Detroit?") says "I'm so tired of defending the indefensible," and argues that the voters "need to be a lot more educated about the people who represent us."

I've never heard of this guy (his name is Mr. Spann), but he makes a good argument, and his sincerity and civic-mindedness are obvious.

If more Detroiters thought that way, the city might make some progress.