(CN) - The mayor of Detroit does not have the power to stop the city council from blocking a transfer of Cobo Convention Center to the Detroit Regional Convention Facility Authority, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled.
Michigan's Regional Convention Facility Authority Act went into effect on Jan. 20. So far, Cobo is the only facility in the state that qualifies for the improvement plans described in the Act.
Unless Detroit City Council objected by March 6, control of Cobo would pass to the authority on April 20. The council voted to disapprove the transfer, but Mayor Kenneth Cockrel Jr. vetoed the measure.
The city council filed an injunction, arguing that the Act gave it the exclusive power to approve or disapprove the reassignment of the building. Judge Talbot affirmed the trial court's ruling for the council.
"We read the plain language of the Act to mean that the transfer is exclusively conditioned on the acts of city council," Talbot wrote. "If a majority of city council affirmatively votes to disapprove the transfer, then the transfer does not occur."
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