After a closed-door meeting today in downtown Detroit, officials with the city’s main pension plan said they are poised to file an appeal of Tuesday’s decision that the city is eligible for bankruptcy.

The bankruptcy process will hurt the city’s retirees and future retirees and must be stopped, said Michael VanOverbeke, general counsel for Detroit’s General Retirement System, a pension plan with about 12,000 retirees and about 8,000 active employees.

As soon as U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes issues his written ruling, expected today, the pension fund’s trustees intend to appeal it federal court, VanOverbeke said. And he said that a meeting is scheduled for Thursday of trustees of the city’s other big retirement fund – the Police and Fire Retirement System, which shares office space with the General Retirement System on the 9th floor of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Building.

The police and fire fund also is expected to appeal Rhodes’ ruling, which officially declared Detroit to be the largest municipality in U.S. history to enter Chapter 9 bankruptcy....