Detroit Suburb Activists Say SEMCOG Is Undemocratic

Tom Barwin’s Ferndale City Hall office has become a war room and the 50-year-old public administrator the commanding general of an aggressive legal attack on the powerful Southeast Michigan Council of Governments. Backed by his city council, a large church-based citizen group, and capable public interest attorneys, Mr. Barwin has set out to reverse the region’s raging engines of growth by correcting an imbalance of power within SEMCOG, which controls spending for transportation. The suit asserts that SEMCOG’s decisions harm Detroit and its inner ring suburbs with policies that promote sprawl.