Wilce Cooke grew up in Benton Harbor, Michigan. He was elected as the city’s Mayor twice.
The Mayor said that over the years the city of Benton Harbor has lost its tax base of retail and agricultural businesses. “At one time we were called the Shenandoah of southwest Michigan. We had seven or eight different foundries. We had the largest outdoor fruit market in the world and we had all the retail stores downtown here in Benton Harbor. Urban renewal came in and displaced a lot of individuals and white flight, we lost our tax base. So with no tax base, you can’t run a city on property taxes alone when your residents are unemployed.” Cooke said.
During Cooke’s first term as Mayor from 1982-1989, Cooke said the city was in a similar position financially, but he said there was one difference; he had control of city council. When Cooke left office, there was a million dollar surplus. The city had a very aggressive marketing program and brought in a new financial manager and the city was on the rebound.
The city’s government has been portrayed in the media as being incompetent. Cooke responded to that charge saying, “It’s stupid to even say that. You can’t say that this council is incompetent. The theory that Benton Harbor’s city council members have absconded with money is that. You have never read yet where they said that we have stolen anything. The council doesn’t have any money. That’s handled by the finance department, the finance people, not by the city council. We do approve bills, but we don’t handle money. When I was Mayor in 1980, we did bring in a new finance director, a new city manager, an economic development person. We brought in all new people to handle what we had to do and we did a great job. In 50 years this city hasn’t run so smooth. I was out of office for 17 or 18 years, the city got right back in the same position.”
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