Dave Bing

In 1966, after being selected 2nd overall in the 1966 NBA draft by the Detroit Pistons, Bing scored 1,601 points (20.0 points per game), and won the 1967 NBA Rookie of the Year Award while also being named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team. The next year, he led the NBA in scoring with 2,142 points (27.1 points per game) in 1968.

On November 23, 1968, Bing recorded a triple-double of 39 points, 16 rebounds and 10 assists in a 127–128 loss to the Baltimore Bullets.[11]

Bing sat out 2½ months of the 1971–72 season due to a detached retina incurred from a preseason game against the Los Angeles Lakers, playing in only 45 games that season.[9] While with the Pistons, he played in six NBA All-Star Games (1968, 1969, 1971, 1973–1975), and was named to the All-NBA First Team in 1968 and 1971.

After leaving the Detroit Pistons, Bing went on to spend his next two seasons with the Washington Bullets, for whom he was named an NBA All-Star once more in 1976, this time winning the game's MVP Award.

He played his final season with the Boston Celtics, averaging 13.6 points. He then retired at the conclusion of the 1977–1978 season.

Overall, in his NBA career, Bing averaged 20.3 points, 6.0 assists and 3.8 rebounds in 901 games over 12 NBA seasons, scoring 18,327 points with 5,397 assists.[10]

In 1980, Bing opened Bing Steel with four employees in a rented warehouse from $250,000 in loans and $80,000 of his own money. Losing all his money in six months, the company shied away from manufacturing to focus on being a middleman. With General Motors as their first major client, the company turned a profit in its second year on revenues of $4.2 million. By 1984, Bing was awarded by President Ronald Reagan the National Minority Small Business Person of the Year. By 1985, Bing Steel had expanded to two plants with 63 employees posting revenues of $40 million.[9] Company assets were sold off in 2009.[15]

Bing Steel transformed itself to the Bing Group, a conglomerate with headquarters located in Detroit's North End. The company, among other things, supplies metal stampings to the automobile industry.

At the 1990 NBA All-Star Game, Bing received the Schick Achievement Award for his work after his NBA career.

On October 16, 2008, Bing announced that he would be a candidate for the Mayor of Detroit in the 2009 Detroit mayoral special election to finish the term of Kwame Kilpatrick, who had resigned as part of a plea bargain agreement after being charged with the crime of perjury. Bing finished first in a 15 candidate non-partisan primary on February 24, 2009. On May 5, 2009 general election, Bing was elected, defeating interim mayor Kenneth Cockrel Jr.[20] Bing had only moved to a residence within city limits shortly before his campaign for mayor. Bing had previously resided in suburban Franklin, Michigan.[16]

Bing was reelected to a full term on November 3, 2009.[21] Bing's inauguration for his full term was held at the Fox Theatre.[16]

In comparison to his predecessor Kwame Kilaptrick, Bing opted for a more low-key presence as mayor[16][22] and opted to forgo enjoy many of the benefits to which the mayor was entitled.[16] Bing additionally forwent accepting salary as mayor during at least his first year as mayor.[16][22] Bing did not shy away from making decisions that were unpopular.[22]

Bing (right) with U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan at the Detroit Economic Club in 2011

When Bing took office, the city was suffering significant economic trouble and its government was suffering major fiscal trouble.[23] The city was suffering a $30 million budget deficit.[24] The city also had overall accumulated $332 million in deficit, more than $15 million in long-term liabilities.[22] The city government's fiscal troubles persisted under Bing, with Detroit suffering increased budget deficits during much of his tenure.[24][25] However, by the time he left office, the city's deficit had decreased by $7 million from where it stood when he assumed office.[22]

In 2011, Bing proposed that the city's next budget include a $4 million decrease in funding for City Council staff, and fund new hires for the city's fire department.[26] In mid-2011, Bing vetoed the budget passed by the City Council, claiming its cuts were excessive and could be to the detriment of the services of the city's police and fire departments. The City Council's budget made $50 million more in cuts than Bing's initial proposed budget had made.[27][28] Bing's budget proposal was for $3.1 billion in spending.[29] The City Council overrode this veto in an 8–1 vote.[27] The city's 2012 budget made a 20% decrease to the city's fire department. This has been seen as having a detrimental effect on the city's ability to handle fires, including arson.[30] In mid-2012, the fire department announced 164 layoffs.[31] In 2013, Bing proposed a $1 billion budget, a $300 million decrease from the previous year's budget.[32]

By the time he was reelected to a full term, Bing had dismissed more than 400 city employees and had ended 16 out of 51 contracts that the city had with trade unions.[16] Bing faced protests by unions during his mayoralty. By the end of his mayoralty, Bing had eliminated 1,000 positions in the city government, a 9% decrease to the municipal workforce. Additionally, many city employees faced decreased salaries, decreased benefits, and even furloughs. Bing also outsourced many roles of the city government. The city's public health department was replaced by the Institution for Population Health public-private partnership. The workforce-development department was replaced by Detroit Employment Solutions, a nonprofit organization. Management of payroll and benefits for city employees was also outsourced.[22]

The city enjoyed new private development over the course of Bing's tenure. This included both the opening of new small businesses as well, an investment of $198 million by Chrysler in its Mack Avenue Engine Plant (which created 250 new jobs), and significant development in the city's downtown by businessman Dan Gilbert.[22]

Bing speaking at the 2011 inauguration of Governor Rick Snyder

Bing proposed the idea of demolishing neighborhoods and decreasing city services.[33] Bing spoke of his intention to depopulate neighborhoods, including through forcible means such as eminent domain.[22][34] This was controversial among city residents.[22] Bing sought to incentivize residents to relocate from largely depopulated neighborhoods so that those neighborhoods could be demolished and the public services could be consolidated to more densely populated areas of the city.[34] Past mayors had made pledges to demolish abandoned homes but taken little action to do so.[35] Under Bing, the city took action to demolish abandoned homes, reporting in early 2013 to have demolished 6,700 since Bing took office. However, the city still had tens of thousands more abandoned homes.[35][36] Bing's program of demolishing abandoned homes was controversial with some city residents.[35] Aiming to repopulate certain neighborhoods, in early 2011 Bing began a program to frolic $150,000 in grants to assist in renovations of foreclosed homes in select neighborhoods. Hoping to encourage members of the city's police force to reside within city limits, Bing required police officers to place only $1,000 in order to acquire the residence and be eligible for grants.[37][38]

Bing launched the Detroit Works Project (later renamed Detroit Future City), an effort to create a 50-year outline for the city's future. The project was intended to create a community-planned vision for how the city would manage its problems. The city government underestimated how many citizens would attend community meetings. Controversy arose during the process, when Bing publicized his intention to depopulate certain neighborhoods by forcibly relocating residents to denser neighborhoods. The public anger at this threatened the project.[22]

Bing sought to fix the city's broken street lights, which were considered a serious problem.[39] In 2012, Bing persuaded the state legislature and governor to create the Public Lighting Authority of Detroit and dedicate utility and income tax revenue for the $185 million in bonds for this purpose. Bing appointed a lighting authority board, which then signed a contract with DTE Energy to repair the city's streetlights. However, the contract did not take place until early 2013, by which time Bing had left office. Bing's Mike Duggan built upon Bing's efforts to repair the city's streetlights to significant success. It has been noted that, due to Bing being out of office when the work was carried out, he has not received much public credit for it.[40][41]

During Bing's tenure, there was trouble within the Detroit Police Department. This included instability in leadership, with the city cycling through four different police chiefs during Bing's less-than-5-years in office.[22] While he gave no explicit reason for the firing, it was speculated that Bing dismissed the first police chief of his mayoralty, Warren Evans, due to police raid that resulted in the killing of Aiyana Jones and due to Bing's dissatisfaction with Warren's pursuit of television exposure through participation in reality television shows such as The First 48. [42][43] Even as crime in large cities was declining overall in the United States, Detroit saw its homicide rate rise to a 20-year high in 2012.[22]

Bing (center right) with Senator Carl Levin (far left) and Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus (center left) at the 2011 naming ceremony for USS Detroit (LCS-7)

Early into his mayoralty, Bing began pursuing a renovation of Cobo Center, the city's main convention center.[44] Renovation occurred while Bing was mayor, taking place under the management of a new cooperative governing authority for the convention center.[22]

Bing established the city's Active and Safe Campaign public-private partnership to raise funds for public safety initiatives, as well as raise funds for recreational programs and enhancements to the city's recreation facilities.[45]

Bing made an unpopular proposal to decrease city bus service on Sundays. This never came into fruition.[22]

On March 1, 2013, Governor Rick Snyder announced that he would appoint an emergency manager for the city of Detroit due to the city's fiscal troubles, making Detroit the United States largest city's to be placed under emergency management.[24][46] Bing had, in the years prior, warned that this was a possibility, and expressed his desire for the city to avert such a situation.[25] The placement of the city under emergency management deprived Bing of much of his mayoral authority.[47] Bing declared that while he opposed emergency management, he was willing to work collaboratively with the emergency manager that would be appointed.[46] Kevyn Orr was soon after appointed to the emergency manager role.[47] Many in the city criticized Bing for not being more resistant to emergency management.[22]

In July 2013, before Bing left office, Detroit became the largest city in United States history to declare municipal bankruptcy.[48] This was the decision of emergency manager Kevin Orr.[49] Many criticized Bing for not doing more to fight this move by Orr.[22]

In addition to losing authority to the emergency manager, Bing suffered numerous health problems,[50] and had suffered approval ratings as low as 14%.[51] Bing announced on May 14, 2013, he would not run for reelection to another term in the election to be held later that year.[52]