afternoon, everybody. We're going to get started as soon as everybody grabs their seat. The setup today is a bit different to encourage some different conversation. Oh, my bad. All right, good afternoon everybody. Thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. Happy Saturday, happy spooky month. I'm going to go ahead and start the meeting with our Roll Call, and then I'll go into my mandate really quickly. Member Callaway is present. Member Williams, member Lars OSA, member Tyus, member Chike, member Robinson, member Collins, member Parker, member Hicks, member house, member Hazel, member Ford and member Jack and thank you all so much. We've met quorum. All right, so you know how I like to start my meetings? If you've been to one before, I always start with the mandate for black people, by Mary hooks out of the song foundation in Atlanta. It's usually call and response, but today I'll just recite it. The mandate for black people in this time is to avenge the suffering of our ancestors, to earn the respect of future generations and to be willing to be transformed in the service of the work. So that's how I like to start my meetings. That's how I usually get into my work when I'm advocating and being an activist in these streets, really quickly. Line item number three is the approval of the agenda from the members. Any objections, any opposition to the approval of the agenda as is. Thank you so much. Hearing no objections. The agenda has been approved. Line item number four, the approval of the minutes from the body. Any objections or amendments to the minutes? Member Hazel May I,
on sale, yeah.
All right,
thank you so much so the amended minutes that I think you said something about a date was incorrect. As long as that's been corrected, according to our project manager, we will adopt the minutes and approve the minutes from last meeting. Thank you so much as corrected, thank you, parliamentarian. All right, moving into our Treasurer's Report. Member Hazel,
it's on. Okay? Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for coming out as those of you who've been following us, we have been working to assemble the cost. As you know, I'm a volunteer, so I don't work for the city of Detroit, therefore I don't see the the paid expenses firsthand. I will report to you that, as you know, last year the city council was able to appropriate $350,000 that was for fiscal year, 2024 which was July 1, 2024 through september 30. I'm sorry, July 1, 2023 through september 30, 2024 our fiscal year, 25 2025 which is what we're in now, we received an additional $66,000 appropriation for what we believe we would need for more research. And so that took our total budget, because we were able to carry over, and that's typically not done, but there was a allowment for us to carry over the unspent funds from fiscal year 2023 to fiscal year 2025 so our total budgets, $416,000 I do not have all of the invoices that were spent between January and September, which I need to see before verifying and presenting you A Treasurer's Report. But I will tell you that of that $416,000 right now we have $305,929.97
and so hopefully we are still working our project manager to get all of the invoices that were spent out before he became project manager, so that I can provide you with an actual line item, itemized report. Thank you.
Thank you. Member Hazel, all right, so moving into line item number six, it's facilitated discussion. So for those of us, or those of you who joined us last month in September, we had a facilitated large group discussion focused on repair and remedy. So I know we often talk about the harms a lot in the black community, so in order to hold that trauma and not be re traumatized, but really start to move forward and thinking about being progressive, in this work, we hosted a session, I think it was like at least an hour long discussion about what we want to see as repair, what we're going to demand as remedy to our community. So the sheet that you received has quite a few of the recommendations that we collected from that discussion. And what we want to do is thank you all for engaging with us and for providing some ideas, some thoughts about what we are going to see and how we're going to get this done. But we did give you a one sheeter that has quite a few of them on there. I'm not going to read them all, but we do have some really hard hitters in here, and we today are going to spend some time talking about these, adding some more and building out what we believe is going to sustain this work, right? So see here, before we get into the discussion, I did want to pass it off to one of our guests, our guest speaker today, Russ bellant, who's done a lot of work with the property tax justice organizations in Detroit, and sure he'll give you the proper title of his organization. Momentarily and introduce himself. But yes, I'm going to pass off the mic. It's fine. He can have this
one ready to go. Yes,
thank you. My name is Russ Belan, and I, I'm co founder of Detroiters for Tax Justice, and we work very closely with the Coalition for Property Tax Justice. It's all in the same world of tax abuse. We've the document that I handed out today was just updated and got back from the printer last night, so it's hot off the press, and what we're documenting is what we believe is $3 billion of tax abuse in Detroit. The large page with the with the cells on them, there's 490 cells that each cell represents a tax capture from our schools, libraries, special needs, children, city services, city debt, school debt, and others that has been taken without public notice, without documentation of its purpose, without the fact that it's even occurring. And these are called Tax captures. It's done through a state law, but the Constitution requires that everything of this nature be publicly reported and be the information be accessible to in public. And this constitutional mandate is not being followed. And the second tier, below those 490 cells, is is tax abatements, a phenomenon where they say to suffering billionaires like Tom Gore's that obviously you can't afford to build luxury condos unless we give you a total tax abatement for 35 years. Or to Dan Gilbert, whose entire empire downtown, what we might call gilbertville is tax exempt, thanks to a deal that the Trump administration cut with the mayor of Detroit and many other kinds of tax abatements, add up in seven years to a loss of $500 million add that to the $517 million taken out of our property taxes without public notice, and we're over a billion dollars. And we took the liberty of averaging out those seven years of tax abatements to see what it would be from 2014 to 2016 for another three years, so that we have a total 10 year picture. And you'll see that those lines add up at the at the very bottom, it's just a one line along the bottom, another $231 million so we're talking about one and a quarter billion dollars in tax incentive takeaways from the people of Detroit, from Our public institutions, for the school district. That means they lost $421 million for our libraries, if you add the so called administrative fee that the city took, and when we FOIA to say, What's this fee paying for, and we want the documentation, the list of what it's paying for, and the documentation three and a half months later, which means they violated the state law dramatically. They said there is no documentation of what this administrative fee is for, but it was about 4% of the library's budget. That's how dramatic it was. So when you add all that together, $75 million was taken from the Detroit Public School Public Library in two years, which is equivalent of about two years of its budget. In other words, big hits. This is a reverse flow of money, what we've called in the past, reverse reparations, the money is flowing to absentee white billionaires in the region and across the country. Tom gorge lives in LA right, 100 million dollar mansion, 55,000,050 5 billion in personal wealth, but we subsidize him with our tax money. The the school district lost that money, I should say also city services. When you add the estimated tax losses, and it could be more, it could be less, but the estimate with the X made $400 million lost the city services. We have a huge challenge. When I reported this recently at a charter mandated meeting for District Three, the mayor decided, instead of responding factually, because we called for him to explain where every dollar went that he tax captured, which the Constitution requires, he instead decided to do a long, personalized attack on me, the speaker, rather than address it. And so what you're seeing, however, is that this discussion, which we've been having with City Council since last year and this year, and bringing it up and not and I don't want to personalize this too much, because Detroiters for Tax Justice is a networked organization of activists with does you know our mailing list of people who've been part of Our meetings and so forth is over 100 people, and our average meeting is 20 to 35 people when, when we gather. So we have been at city council. We met with City Council a few weeks ago, gave them this updated report, and we invited them to start discussions with them, and we've had outreach from three, three council members so far, and we're going to continue to follow up with that. But also note that the city council itself, they've been hearing what we've said and what others have said, including the Coalition for Property Tax Justice, which focuses on property over assessments. And what we've the points we're making is that not only have we lost a billion dollars from the tax captures and the tax abatements The property over assessments. You'll remember back in 2017 The Detroit News did this big story. They put a put a piece on the line that allowed you to put in your address and tell you how much you were overtaxed. And that's still active, as I understand it. That was 600 million from 2010 to 2016 now we still have been overtaxed. There was some adjustments made in 2017 that was an election year, and the news was hot, but it's back up, and the professor Bernadette at just made a point of the University of Chicago study that has talked about the fact that in 20 2472 24 72% of properties. It says that $34,700 or less, 72% of them are over assessed. Three out of four. And over assessment leads to what foreclosure Amen. That's exactly right. So foreclosure is a major factor in depopulation of our city. And, you know, people can interpret things different way, but I frankly believe that's not accidental. And then you add the drainage fee on there. I that 600 million from 2017 that's got to be over a billion. Now it's been going on for seven more years. That first six years was 600 million. I think it's reasonable to assume at least 400 million in over taxation has occurred as this has continued, The third area of a bill, what we believe is a billion dollars of abuse, is what we call the drainage tax on your water bill, though it reads as drainage fee, but that was put on our water bills in September of 2016 without public notice, without public explanation, without any public hearings, and, more fundamentally, without a public vote. When the City of Lansing did this in 1990s the Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional, because any new tax, according to the Headley amendment, requires approval of the voters of this community that is being taxed. And they it was the same thing. They put this charge on their water bills in order to pay for sewage system and, you know, activity, and that's what this is supposed to be paying for. This decision, if you ever want to look it up, is bolt B, O, L, T, versus City of Lansing, the mayor did this and kept it quiet and called it a fee to avoid the fact that the Constitution requires it a lawsuit challenging it filed in 2017 is still winding its way through the courts seven years later, seven and a half actually. So in fiscal year 24 they projected they were going to collect $188 million I believe before the year before, it was about 160 in the mid 160 millions. If you add it all up, it's another billion dollars.
When I I've a year ago, I FOIA DWSD and I'm sorry, in the spring, I FOIA DWSD and asked for an explanation. Where is this money going? Please list the line items in the budget and any contracts and projects related to the expenditure of these fees. Because when the mayor was challenged on this in spring of 2017 of course, that was an election year, and what I call the largest ecumenical gathering in Detroit history, when every faith and every faith building was represented in meetings with hundreds of people challenging, how you can you tax Our churches? And they said, Well, this isn't a tax, it's a fee. And when they filed in court, they told the court that it was a voluntary fee. Anybody ever volunteer to pay the drainage fee here? No. So the courts quickly challenged that part of it, at least. So we've been facing all these strategies of the wealth extension, again, going back to the FOIA, when I asked for an explanation of those fees and what they were going for, while the mayor said in 2017 it was going to be to build stormwater infrastructure to protect areas from flooding, you know? And so when they answered my foyer, they said, Oh, it's just paying for sewerage costs period. And go look at the budget. Oh, the budget doesn't have that data. It doesn't have projects, it doesn't name all this sort of stuff. So, so this is this is evaded. I checked also I did a FOIA to Glee with too Great Lakes Water Authority to see if they were getting any money. They're getting zero. I've talked to insiders that I trust on both sides, and both walk DWC and Glee what? And both said that none of the money's going to Glee, what? It's all being spent in DWSD, and we don't know how it's really being spent, but what, what it does, just like the land value tax, which I haven't talked about, but I'm running out of time here, this has the consequence of raising costs of water, in many cases, doubling them, and it helped accelerate the water shut off crisis. You know how many shut offs were done by Mayor Duggan? Since when he became mayor, about 170,000 water shut offs were done. That was a public health crisis, and it was because of covid that Whitmer said, You can't do it as soon anymore. And he got it, man, and he attacked her publicly for that, one of the few times they feuded. But the this was another factor, when your people's water was shut off and the water bills were high. They moved now you can go to southern Macomb County and see where you couldn't drive on the town, where you could not drive on Gratiot while black now has a black mayor. You couldn't do that before Detroiters moved from Detroit over these kinds of abuses. So we have to look at this massive flow that's bleeding our system, that's challenging our livability as a city, and figure out how when reparations are done this.
Doug Russ has shared with you, and what is in front of you. The baseline of this information is, is several people, Russ being the central person who had four year the city of Detroit and foyer at all these locations. In order to get the information, first, it's important to understand this is their data. It's not any data in which was just made up by by people. Secondarily, if you look at the chart and the data itself, this covers an attempt in here is to cover 10 years, okay, this process, especially, of this aggressive tax abatement activity and preferential tax treatment to corporations date back to 1970 so the $3 billion that you see here, which is a a projection of a 10 year, if you take this and multiply it with some minor adjustments by decades. And the number of decades that we're talking about, that's probably the real figure of the money that's been stolen from us. Okay, so I wanted to make that clear, we oftentimes, we can only bring forth proofs where we have, where we get the cooperation, however forcefully, of the government, in order to get their data. But that's not the total picture. They still have control over the data that they give us, and therefore you can only paint a picture. So why?
So I wanted to point that out.
All right. Thank you so much. Member Hicks, I really appreciate those additional comments and some clarification. So we're moving into line item number eight, which is our breakout session. Just a few housekeeping reminders before we get into it, is that we are in a small room, and we are very it filled up quite quickly. So we want to use our inside voices. We do want to make sure everybody at your table can hear you and that they can participate in the conversation, but we do want to make sure that that conversation stays at that table for the most part. Now we will take some time at the end, if we'd like to kind of talk about what we came up with while we were in our round table. So if you do have your pen and paper ready? Great. We're going to be taking some notes, but yes, we're going to take some time to talk about the the the list of data. And list, not data, the list of ideas that we got from our September meeting, and going through those, but coming up with some more. All right, so
we're going to take about, what do you have? Like, 90 minutes.
Yeah, we could do about 90 minutes. So
there's no need to rush through anything, but we do, what
is it? Okay? We're gonna take like, 60 minutes, 45 minutes, which I think 45 minutes, 45 minutes, 45 minutes on the clock. All right, so do make sure that at least everybody at your table that does want to be heard is heard at least one time. We do want to make sure that we are sharing the talking stick and being considerate at the members of your table. Okay, so without further ado, did you have a question? I saw you? Okay? Without further ado, please go ahead and commence your conversations, but make
sure you maintain that inside voice, thanks, y'all.
So what I'm thinking is,
is there any way we can let
we want to give all you on Zoom an opportunity to engage with us here as well. So we'll be unmuting you on Zoom, one by one, and you'll be able to engage with this table here, and you'll be able to hear everything
that they're saying in the conversation as well.
Maybe you can see the hand raised, who's managing it. Oh, Paul, you're going to stay here. Okay. Can you hear us on Zoom?
I don't know. I don't know how you can Okay.
Does anybody in particular want to take notes? So
what we say here? Okay, okay, great, okay,
all right. So, so as we're participating, just, oh no, we definitely need to take notes. If they raise their hand, they can participate as we are talking. They don't have to wait until a certain time.
Well, if somebody raised their hand, they could start. But what table is this? No, what
department? Oh, no particular one, the recommendations that came last week, we're going to look at those and add to them, or support, whatever those recommendations are. We're in the member of the task force, we're in the process now.
Uh, city council on projects, particularly in housing and economic development. So we want to get the input as much as possible from from the community
on what they think are some priorities that we should move forward with. Okay,
let's go one by one the first recommendation and read it to everybody. Is that
the way you want to do it? Okay? Yeah.
Okay. My name is Eric Chisholm, and I will be reading the recommendations from the reparations task force meeting, September 7, 2024 public session. First one stop providing low income housing tax credits to projects that are only 20% low income housing and refund these tax credits back to the taxpayers. Increase the tax credit requirement to 100% low income housing. Invest in
permanent housing instead of temporary housing.
I'm halfway to home ownership, home ownership subsidies, homeowners. Homeownership
grant,
I guess they have three different ones in here, definitely
three different Well, first we have the 20% just if you all do,
I want to, just want to make sure everybody was on this hearing you guys. So anybody's comment?
Okay, thank you. Okay, what we're doing is adding on to number one,
which says, stop providing low income housing. And you read it, yes. So as Mister Bernard Parker said, there are three sub points within that first one, one being the 20% low income housing. Stop that and refund those credits back to the taxpayers. Okay,
any commentary about that one?
I asked a question I'm not
familiar. I think it's state tax credits. City, this is city, city, all. City,
okay. City council created, okay. So these are people that have low income housing projects, and they're able to only do
20% of those projects of
low income housing, is that? What that means 20%
it says, stop providing
low income
housing tax credits for two projects that
are only 20% income housing, and we find these tax credits back to the tax credit.
We are buddy on that one, yes,
oh, on Zoom, on Zoom. Do you know?
Do you have any comment on
part one eight? Okay, it says stop providing low income housing tax
credits to projects that are only 20% okay, okay.
So anybody got a comment on that Ray? Jen, okay. 30 seconds or two minutes say something we can hear it. Okay. Here. Hear.
James Chandler,
you're unmuted. What would you like to say, sir? Oh, well, it was, it was on a different topic, but still, it's still the same. I'm an activist in Detroit, and I, my complaint was policy being above law. I mentioned before
that we need our own legal teeth outside the judicial system. I think this will help
stop the policies in the midst of housing and all this stuff as well, I had a court case that was dismissed unconstitutionally, and now that they dismissed the case, they won't even give me the video, The hearing video sent to my email because of a policy.
MSC, R, 8.108 e1, LA, O, 20203,
the public act 46 of 1975 is like policies like that needs to be struck down. We can't move forward if
the judicial or the courts will have free reign and abuse the speaking on Zoom, we're focusing on the first one, which is the Low Income Housing Tax Credit. And the questions I asked Is that something we feel strongly about, that we want to make a recommendation to the city council, if you could just make your comments relevant to that, there is an opportunity
later for public comments that you'll be able to speak on your other issue. Well, my thoughts on that is, you know, the text is fraud, you know, anyway, uh, these people are foreign entities. We shouldn't have to pay foreign entities anyway. They're not even a part of the state, but if you consent to do it, that's fine. You know,
it's whatever the people wants. That's all I have to say about that.
Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else?
Anyone else,
anyone else on Zoom?
Can you hear me? Yeah. Can I Can we propose that anyone who is speaking on Zoom, if it is a public comment that you'd like to make, you put your hand down if it is specific to the topics that we are addressing at the table, then you can raise your hand at this time, so please lower your hand if your comment is for public comment at this time, only raise
your hand if you are speaking to the housing
tax Credit.
Can you all hear me Yeah, your name, please.
My name is net. Can you
hear me? Net Johns, we can hear you. Thank you. I just um, I absolutely 100% support that recommendation. But I have one question, because I'm sorry I don't have the documents in front of me. Can you tell me what the revenue potential that is to go back to come back to the taxpayers,
how much is, how much funding or tax
revenue is that? Can you increase the volume? We can't hear that. Okay, we do not have the exact right? Yeah, we don't. We do not have the exact number. What that would be. This is more or less of a recommendation, we would do the research if, in fact, this becomes one of our recommendations, to be able to show how much that represents that they would be refunding back to
taxpayers. But right now, this is just a suggestion, so there's been no research on it.
Thank you. Okay, the next suggestion now yay or nay, increase the tax credit requirements to 100% low income housing. Invest in
permanent housing instead of temporary housing. Yay and a
any thoughts here? I'm Eric Chisholm, and I am in support of increasing that to 100% yes, given the fact that the median income for Detroiters is 32,000 compared to 64,000 for the state, there's no way somebody can really afford adequate housing in Detroit on a $32,000
annual salary.
Medium. I can agree with that, but I also advocate that the invest in permanent housing instead of temporary housing. Too often, we build shelters and other temporary housing, and the person ends up staying there and they never get permanent housing because it's really is
none available. So I I
support that as one of our recommendations. I agree wholeheartedly, and we'll need to increase or develop a marketing strategy for a lot of the people in Detroit who actually make less than the $32,000 median annual salary, so that they will be aware of the process that they need to follow to get permanent housing. This is critical. Zoom, do you agree with this, or do you support with the 100%
low income housing
recommendation.
Yes, this is, Oh, good. I'm sorry. This is James Chandler from Detroit, but yes, I
agree with the permanent housing. That's
all I had to say. Thank you. Thank you. This is Ned. I agree with, yes. This is Ned. I agree with 100% housing. I just ask that you consider how this is going to be funded. Is going to be subsidized or maintained? Is it going to be subsidized by the city? Is
it going to become similar to a
housing project? Okay? Well, we would do the research, and after we do the research and compile our report, our you know, analyze, collect and analyze the data and compile the report, then we would submit our recommendations to the city council and then to the executive
branch of city government, ie
Mayor Duggan,
hello. I believe that the the the percentages related to development of property as it relates to the areas that were Herman gardens, the Brewster projects and Jeffries. What has happened is, is that funds have been allocated federal funds allocated to those areas, and it only requires that they have 20% low income move back in now those areas were 100% low income, and so now you've displaced major populations, and only are allowing 20% to come back. We need to have a higher requirement placed on any development that's using federal dollars. Now
that's the area that I think that we're talking about. Thank you. And this is Ernest. Can you hear me? I would just echo what Sicily just stated as far as increasing the requirement threshold, so no credits to those that are only sticking to maybe a 20% requirement, I think you would probably want to see that raise to 50, if not 100% so I agree with those comments. My only thing is that I also want to state that maybe within the language of this recommendation, there should be something that says this program is intended for legacy Detroiters. I know I'm somebody that's big on language, and I would say that if this is a low income housing project that applies to all groups of people of color, etc, I don't think it would be an appropriate reparations recommendation for those who have actually experienced housing harms in the city of Detroit that are black or descendants of people enslaved. And so my only add to the recommendation is that it would be a high priority focus on those people who have been legacy
Detroiters, who lived in a city who have faced that that this specific home. Thank you very much. Okay, we, in the interest of time, we're going to move to the next item on the recommendations list from September 7, 2024 refund 600 million in over assessed property taxes back to the taxpayers and provide restitution for the 100,000 homes illegally foreclosed. Okay. Zoom, participants, any commentary, any yay or nay. Are you in support of this recommendation,
or you're not in support of it, please respond. This is Ned. I say 100%
yay, in favor of it. Add on some interest and everything else.
Thank you. Anyone else? This is James Chandler,
Detroit, again say 100% yes,
restitution is needed. Thank you. Yep,
I agree as well. Ernest Ruskin,
I agree, yes. Just want to say that this I'm the Chair of the Housing Committee, and this is one of the recommendations that has come out of the housing committee. And the way we thought to be able to do the refunding the 600 million is by giving people a 20% reduction in their taxes for the next five years to make up for that 100% that they were over assessed. So that's the way we thought to be able to do that, the restitution for the 100,000 homes illegally foreclosed was not something that we necessarily recommended because of the challenge of being able to determine which houses were illegally foreclosed on By basis of the over assessment and some other reason why they have lost that home. So we did not include that as one of our recommendations, but we did include the self assessment
property and to be able to reduce taxes by 20% I'm My name is Tahira Ahmed. I'm with the Coalition for Property Tax Justice. We're the ones who went before city council and got them to pass the property tax reform ordinance which dealt with the over assessment. 100% must be refunded. Our organization is saying that everyone must be refunded. The 100,000 homes city council and others need to go come together, find out who was. They know who were illegally foreclosed. It's 100,000 homes. They know who it is if you don't pay your taxes, they know who you are, don't they? They know how to find you. So we're demanding that city council find the people that they overtax illegally. Now they're they're demolishing homes, and so they know which homes they demolished, that are that were illegally foreclosed. So
we are making a I'm for the recommendation.
I'm for I'm Eric Chisholm. I'm for the recommendation as well. You
okay, anybody,
anybody, anybody who does not support
this recommendation?
Okay, in the sure that recommendation
will have to come with some modifications.
Could you, could you state the modifications? And then I did have a comment. So it's 20% over a period of time. I think they should also be immune from any property tax increases during that time. I also think that after the five year period is over, it should be a gradual increase and not a full back to 100% tax increase. And I also think that that can be a recommendation that doesn't necessarily substitute the prior, but in the background, the work that needs to be done to identify those 100k
people are identified and they are given restitution again. Thank you.
Yeah. Any other comments
from zoom participants, okay, third recommendation. Oh, I'm sorry.
Oh, no, I was just seconding, that's ID. I
think it was a great modification. Okay, just one moment, yeah, this is Trammell, yeah. I wanted to speak on item number two. There the bullet. Item Number about the 10 $100 the 100,000 home illegally foreclosed, yes, if, if they don't have record of these foreclosures with the amount of documentation that we have in this in the United States, then that one is be, is be problematic. And two, and then that is true, then that money needs to go back to the group of people who been in this country and built the country for free, which would be if there's any issues with tracking people down. And that needs to go back to the people who built this country, which will be the people who descended from the Freedmen's Bureau, and anybody not familiar with the Freedmen's Bureau, that Freedman Bureau was around about the 1880s a little bit after slavery reconstruction. So those if they don't know who those people are, then that needs to go back to
the people who have been
aggrieved and harmed by the US government. Hi, my name is Arlene Williams. I believe a lot of people who have lost their homes that was stolen from them should get their homes back. They don't want the little money that is being offered in some occasions, but they're wanting their houses back, because they've lived in those houses for many of years. So I believe that it should be looked at both directions, not only giving money, but looking at giving their homes back,
if they sold it, get the house back and
give it to the people. Yes, I wanted to make a comment that every property can be tracked through the Register of Deeds. They know exactly who owned the house. They know exactly when the deed was transferred. That's the impossibility in the United States. Um, they have title companies that do research. Uh, you can follow the mortgage so there's not they don't know. They know exactly who they took those homes from, when, how much, how much the person that bid on it when it was lost. What we need to do is change its law, public act 123, that needs to be eliminated immediately. They also need to return those people's property to them because they were stolen illegally. So it was a crime, and those who participated in the crime should be prosecuted, arrested immediately. They know exactly what they did. They know exactly how and it all anybody has $5 can go down to 400 Monroe and trace their property by the address. If you're the owner,
you don't have to pay the $5
it's called a title search. I agree with the brother that indicated there needs to be some alternative, because we do know. Thank you. And many houses have been demolished. We also know that well, in the case, he won't have difficulty finding out who owned the house or who they sold it to and how much they sold it for. That can be found through the Wayne County that you know Wayne County Land Records, but you are going to have run into the situation where houses are demolished, and so those resources that was accumulated from those situations should be added into a
pot of resources for the descendants. Thank you. Hello. I'd say, in addition to that, if there were developers that purchased that land knowing what they did, and they are now profiting off the land, then the homeowner
who lost that land
should also receive proceeds from those profits. I agree. Just the FYI, you guys have that this meeting is on fire. Well, that's what's on your screen. So if somebody was trying to follow you,
they would be going to fire. Well, it does
not that's what's showing on the screen.
Sorry, what is showing on the screen?
You did not hear me repeat that one more time, please. I said, if somebody was trying to follow you guys or come to be on part of that, you have firewall as where the meeting is today, instead of Northwest activity center is showing fire whale recreation instead
of where you really are,
just the FYI, okay. Yes, it is. It is, yeah, for the the document, we'll recheck that. Just that it says fire Well, instead of Northwest activity center, yes, it does, but today's date, but it may
be the wrong form that you are looking at. I'm not looking at a form. I'm looking at your screen when I sign on to Detroit reparations. It has October 5 farewell Recreation
Center. I'm not looking at a paper. We don't have any papers. Okay? Apologies. I thought you were talking about the schedule.
We do see that, and we'll notify our tech team. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Okay, in the interest of time, we're going to move on to the third item, frame reparations policies and eligibility around lineage in America, and refrain from referring to black Americans, descendants of slaves as
African or minority in the recommendations report.
Any Yeah, I can comment real quick and say I think that's a great recommendation. I think it gives priority to those legacy Detroiters who did move to the city from the south and had to deal with those policies, as is outlined in the ethnic
report. And so I give that recommendation my wholehearted support.
This is James chamer from Detroit. I had a little concern
about that. Point being is because there are people that's doing surveys and they'll, they won't let you do the survey unless you say your ethnicity. So I don't know if they'll play that, that game, that racist racism game or ethnicity game, when we try to act for reparations. Are you black? Well, if
you're not black, you can't get this. So it's like we have to be careful
with that too. So I think to what you're saying, James, maybe we should avoid race, but give it, make it so that it is saying,
Are you a descendant of a person enslaved or a legacy Detroit? I
want them to get to say what they want to say. This
is about lineage based reparations. This is David from Ernest. We are actually going to adjust the volume for you. We were
not able to hear your comment, and
we'll come back to you once that volume is adjusted.
That sounds good.
Okay, we can hear you better. Oh, no. I was just giving a quick response to James, just stating that. It's a fair concern, but I think what we need to focus on is, you know, maybe within that recommendation or the programs that come out, it's a strong reference to people who have that lineage or heritage that traces to slavery, and that word legacy Detroit is in the city so so that they get priority, because reparations is about making those people right, rather than, you
know, all black people who may live in the city, who just
got there? So I'll leave it at that. I would like to, we are talking
about persons that were brought
here from Africa, right? So, I mean, I'm a little confused why there would be a concern. I mean, you, you're going to, you're talking about persons that migrated here to Detroit from the south, and they
came to the south as a result of being transported here from Africa. I think the concern is that there may be people who elected to come here from Africa, and it does expand the range of diversity versus those who were brought here from Africa. And so I think it we did note the language concern.
And so we wanted to, if possible, move on to the next point. I believe this is lineage based reparations we're talking about, we're not dealing with the immigrants. We're talking about, the people that was are not immigrants, which are black Americans, and not the
melanated immigrants that came over here recently,
that would not have migrated Go ahead, that would not have migrated from the south,
that would not have had that lineage connection. Okay, I don't know if we just
okay. So I think there is some concern
around the need to,
yeah, a
right, eliminate the word minority, and
maybe rework,
right? And so we will revisit this. And
yes, eliminate the word minority. That's, you know, there's no need for that. Um, this is Ned. I agree with the recommendation. And getting to a point where
eliminating race
as well, but doing linear specificity. Okay, so we will revisit this one, because there's some confusion around the language. In the interest of time, we're moving on to number four, file lawsuits against the mayor and city council for predatory
policies. Are you in support of it or
not? Support of it? Yay
or Nay? Yes. James, Jennifer,
Detroit, yes,
yes. Okay, thank you. James.
I'm in favor of I'm
in support of filing a lawsuit as well. This is Eric.
Can you repeat just need to remind us that what we're talking about is making recommendations to city council on what could be done because of the injustices and harm to African Americans in Detroit. I'm not sure we would want to make one of the recommendations that we should file a lawsuit against them. So let's keep it in the perspective of us making recommendations City Council for reparations for Detroiters, and that might be
another issue that could be taken but not by the
task force.
Thank you. Okay, let's move on to the next one. Build the reparations framework around the genocide treaty from the United Nations. Build the reparations framework around the genocide treaty
from the United Nations. Support or not? Support you? Again.
Okay, so this would require people to do some independent research on what exactly we'll table this because people need more information about what the genocide treaty is from the United Nations. Alright, the next one protect black youth from poverty by implementing an anti gentrification policy modeled after the Woodlawn Housing Preservation ordinance in Chicago.
We're going to have to table this too, because we don't have enough information about what this policy Thank you.
I think that. Did I lose your screen went black? Oh, hello,
yes, the screen went black
on my end. Did we lose you all? Hello, check, check, check, mike, yes. Can you hear me?
Can you hear me? I
can hear you. Can you hear me, yes, can you,
can you repeat I got protect black youth from poverty based on what is it by implementing an anti gentrification policy modeled after the Woodhaven housing Woodlawn Housing Preservation ordinance in Chicago. I think that should be scrapped. Black children have been in poverty way before gentrification was even invented, so that is not a cause of poverty for black children, so that
would be a waste of our time and resources.
I think that should be scrapped.
I can get behind the sister's comments.
I just said, Does anybody here know what the Woodlawn Housing Preservation ordinance in Chicago is? If, if we don't know, then we
will probably have to remove that one for right now. Alright, next one, okay, the next one is restore the power to Detroiters and out of the
hands of authorities. Downtown
Development Authority, yes, can I speak to that woodline housing one real quick, I
got it up on the website. As far as what it does for the five
main goals, help protect existing can we can't speak you. Can't hear you? Can you speak up? Please? Can you hear me better? Yes. Okay, so it says, Help protect existing residents from displacement, create new rental and for sale housing opportunities that are affordable to households at the range of incomes, ensure that existing housing stock offers good quality housing for residents, promote housing options to support equitable and inclusive income diversity in Woodlawn and support economic development opportunities. So, I mean, I think it's pretty broad, but in general, I think that's what we're trying to do with most of the housing recommendations that
you guys have listed anyway. So here
I deal with youth in poverty? Yeah, I think the language is kind of odd, but based on the Woodlawn model, it is all about creating housing opportunities and economic development within those areas. So I think most of us would support that. But again, to the sisters comments, if poverty has been existing way before gentrification and so it may not work unless we're focusing on creating the opportunities
and housing opportunities
in those areas. So I don't
know I would have to say I'm on the phone. Ernest, yes. Hello. Hi. Excuse me. MS, net, I think that there are a few of them that do need more research that we are not declining, but we're aware we need to research more before we agree to move in that direction. So for the sake of time, if we can get through the list
and those that we do need to research, we are noting here at the table. Okay.
Okay. The next one.
Okay, we're repeating the seventh 1/7. Recommendation, restore the power to Detroiters and out of the hands of authorities such as the downtown Detroit
Development Authority.
There's someone at the table who'd like to make an addition to that. We also need to eliminate the Detroit economic growth corporation who is now diverting money from our libraries and public schools to develop, to give tax abatements brownfield authority taxes from the state. So they're also, at this point, rewarding those so called investors, or where they're going to be having access to our tax dollars, where they're returning that money to the developer and not to the city. So that needs to be eliminated immediately. And I agree, economic growth corporation that has to be eliminated as well. All of these things are nothing but corporate welfare, which we cannot afford. They have money for corporations, but they don't have money for it to give reparations. They don't have money for our senior home repair program, which the council is also responsible for because they've always funded that program, which was an instituted by Mary Ann Mahaffey. We always had senior home repair up until now to this administration. So these two things need to be eliminated immediately, because they're giving out billions of dollars that we can't afford to do so that they can make a profit off of your misery. Same thing with all of these nonprofits, we've got 100 and.
Immediately, you got $8 million for Shot Spotter, but you don't have $1 for home senior
home repair. So why are they put on a waiting list when all these other people get their money immediately? And authorities were created, you
know, to wrestle the control the various departments from the city of Detroit, everybody. So I'm going to give everybody. We're going to take this until about 330 because I do want to give us time to kind of come back together as a group and do some report as if you'd like.
And then we are going to finish running through our agenda. Alright, so 330 sound good? Alright. Thank you. Okay, the Detroit says, restore the power to Detroiters out of the hands of the the Downtown Development Authority. I want to add to that also, we need to bring the money back, the claw back, just like Hudson's. We gave abatement, hundreds millions of dollars for abatement, for the down for Hudson's building, for Dan Gilbert. And he turned around and he was supposed to have 2000 new jobs in that building. He turned around and got eight. He and got the GM employees to move into that building. So it's not going to be 2000 jobs. So we need to get
clawbacks. We need to be very Give us our money. You don't get the abatement, okay? And we need to be very mindful of the Great Lakes
Water Authority, valuable authority,
and that's the water department, and they're paying us pennies on the dollar. I'm sorry we can't hear you. Can you speak up a little louder for us, yes, and I'd just like to specifically address the Great Lakes Water Authority, which is underpaying the city of Detroit, and it has a 40 year lease, automatically renewed. And the city of Detroit, if they purchase an asset, eventually they will become the total control of all the assets of the water department over this 40 year period. So we need the authorities were used as a way of taking over the departments of the city of Detroit, which provided employment to the residents of the city of Detroit. And this was a way of getting around that whole resident, the whole providing employment and contracting out all of the departments of the city of Detroit
and water department is a multi billion dollar entity that we need to have control of. Thank you. I just want to add that we have roughly 15 minutes, and there are about seven more that we need seven more items on the recommendations list that we need to get through. The next one is address the current harms happening to Detroiters right now, in addition to past harms. And I want to say harms is one of those amorphous terms we'd have to kind of flesh that out, because there are housing harms, their educational harms, their medica medical harms. So I would just, I would say I support this, but it needs to be fleshed out so that it's clear what these harms actually relate to. How
Detroiters have been specifically
harmed by past injustices, racial injustices and discrimination. I agree. Yes. This is Bernard from the task force. We are definitely looking at current harms as well as past harms in our recommendations we're going to make the city council is not
just going to be on past harms. So I think we could move on, unless someone disagrees with that.
The harm. Part of the harms is the fake bankruptcy and whatever we lost, we want to return. Okay, and also, folks the University of Michigan created a harms report that could be found on the reparation Task Force's website, so you can access it there. It's pretty lengthy, but it's interesting and great reading. The University of Michigan, they created a harms report, and it's been out now maybe about
three or four months. Yeah, it's on the website.
Okay, let's move on to the next one. Advocate for increased support and municipal
government contracts for black businesses in Detroit. Support or non support or disagreement, I support, I just say that
hopefully, that you guys are, hopefully it's parity in Detroit, because if it's
70% there seems to be, I'm sorry,
so we couldn't hear you. Could you repeat that please? Yeah, I was just saying I support this. I just hope that it that we're talking about parity, so that it the representation
matches the numbers of of black
folks that are in the city or those businesses that in the city. Okay, so the next one redress, redress for retired city of Detroit workers that who lost pensions and benefits from emergency
management. Yes, yay. Unanimous.
Any disagreements, yes, plus interest, plus and if they're deceased, I love it, because Uncle Sam wants his interest, alright, improve the City of Detroit's public mass transportation system. Support or disagreement,
improve the City of Detroit's
public mass mass transportation system,
mass transit system. Okay, so my only comment on that is that, hopefully it's on the lower end of the list, because that's something the city should be doing outside of reparations. Work is improving its transportation
systems. I wouldn't want them to update the bussing system and then say, see, this is reparation. So I just make that comment. Okay, yes, I agree with good point. Yeah, that should be lower on the list, just due to we want to address direct issues, as opposed to things that should this city of Detroit should be already doing, doing normally, like street lights, you know? We just at that point we can start adding all types of stuff in there. So the city should already be providing street lights, right? So, yeah, so I will put
the mask
the public mass transit system as something that needs to be done by Laura on the list, okay, the next one is, we're running out of time, designate properties in the Detroit Land Bank Authority for black families,
and increase transparency
of the Detroit land bank authority's practices and data dissemination. The land bank should be eliminated immediately. They all should be prosecuted immediately. There's nothing but fraud and and discrepancies. They're selling properties to non Detroiters on the back end, where you never even
see it never comes up on the list.
So it's nothing but corruption. It needs to be eliminated immediately. Okay, the next one. Next one is, this is Eric partner with other reparations groups and task forces across the country, including California and Nexus community partners in Minnesota. I want to say I support that, because there are some groups that are that are doing a lot of really good work, like Evanston with the housing voucher and the state of California and Boston, the mayor of Boston is partnering with the Harvard
ash group, I believe, and Chip Greenidge, and they're doing some good stuff. Any disagreements, I would say that we are doing that right now, partnering with other groups that have completed their reparations, and also
groups are in the process
of developing the recommendations.
So that's something we are doing and will continue to do.
Yeah, and I would, I would say, want to be. I want to be. This is, this is Eric, I want to be very clear. And a lot of the report reparations, reports that I've read from other places, I see a lot of good ideas, housing vouchers, education vouchers and so forth. But we need cash payments as well. Cash Payments should be included with any reparations recommendations that are
submitted by this committee to the city of Detroit.
I just believe that wholeheartedly. So, Eric, I'll just be quick and say I just wanted to add that and say that we can piggyback on the Japanese internment, they received cash payments from the federal government. So if we could look into that from the Japanese internment during the
World War Two, I believe and that we can use that language, yeah, and I would just be quick and say, I support Eric, but I would ask that the task force members look into Evanston, because they're currently being litigated because of racial language used for their programs. And so when we say lineage specificity, we mean don't use racial language that would say all black people get reparations, because then you'll be challenged on the grounds of the 14th Amendment. But more research should be done there as far as what
is currently being
litigated in Evanston and how Detroit can avoid that if they chose a different model,
that's all, okay, you said specifically evanston's reparations settlement, yeah, they're being challenged in the court right now because of racial language, and those people in Evanston are saying, on The basis of the 14th Amendment, that it is reverse discrimination to say that the program is only for black people, even though we know when we say reparations for black Americans, we mean descendants of persons enslaved. And so I would say there should be some research into that, which I think ties into the
next point about what happened with the affirmative action and the
suspect classification of race and okay, I thank you for tying in that last point. Imma, let Mr. Eric, okay. Very last one study
the students for fair initiatives, ie
affirmative action case as a point of reference, yeah, oh, I'm sorry, do we were, were we
in support of the previous recommendation about partnering with other reparations groups and task forces, or not? Yes. And since this is the housing part, I also stress that I see that you put partners in Minnesota, that you look into Saint Paul, and what they've done, what
they've been able to come up with for the descendants of Rondo, see, maybe you can remember some of the actions taken there. Thank you.
Alright,
so there seems to be union you consensus around that One, unanimous.
Here, right,
the Chinese, the Chinese American thing.
Africa, the Asian Americans, the Chinese Americans and Korean Americans, they get none of that reparations. It was
Japanese Americans who got
there. Is very specific, and it was, that was a lineage based initiative. Yep, that that's, that's correct. We need to challenge them on
that. Make the Supreme Court do what they supposed to do. You know, they not, they not honest. Anyways, challenge them, push them. I concur and corroborate that. Last one study
the students for fair initiatives,
affirmative action case as a point of reference.
Agree or disagree.
I don't know what that means. So are you speaking to the rule? Maybe we need to take so what I would say for this one, what I would say for this one, Eric, is definitely study it, because you're trying to avoid what happened with the affirmative action case, in the sense that they ruled programs on the basis of race is unconstitutional. So for Detroit, the Supreme Court, specifically justice Kavanaugh and Justice Clarence Thomas as well as ketanji Jackson Brown stated that a benefit for descendants of slaves is race neutral, in the sense that it is not on the basis of race. So all black people don't get it, but that those who are tied to the class of those former people that were enslaved are still do government justice for past discrimination, which was what that case, which is what you'll hear in arguments of that case. And so I would say definitely study it, because if a program is produced by Detroit and it is
racial leaning, people who just hate reparations in general will challenge it, and that's what you want to avoid. So but I'm my question is, thanks for that, Ernest. I really appreciate that explanation. I'm trying to understand, what does that recommendation mean to turn
to your reparations in Detroit. I'm trying to understand study it for what purpose that's a good point. I would just say, for the legal framework standpoint of what programs can be pushed and, you know, kind of avoid what happened with affirmative action, which was a program originally meant for Descendants of people enslaved, but due to the diversity model, universities were saying, Well, everyone is discriminated against in the the justices stated that not everyone faced the same discrimination as people enslaved, which was what the benefit was about. And thus they said it was suspect in a form of discrimination to just say all groups are being treated the same as this, this group that this program was originally intended for. So my framework, I would just say, hopefully this thing is being looked at, so that when the city council comes
up with programs, they try to avoid missteps that happen with affirmative action in the modern day. So I can agree with that. And I would say one of the ways in which the study can be applicable to the other recommendations is to go lineage based, be specific on those persons, and avoid anything dealing with race, and make sure that you are targeting the actual harm group. So identify that harm group,
target them, and use the study to apply that and some along with the other recommendations.
Okay, I just want to say that we're at 330 and they're going
to break us. Alright, everybody. But does anyone take another 30 seconds to kind of wrap up our last comments. Well, I know one thing that was added was cash payments. That is not on this list. Is that something wrapping up our last comments to this list? Yes, cash payments. Yes. Add cash payments. What about additional time? Strongly about that you can
just stay in one sentence that should be in here, since we're getting ready to break up additional
research and preparatory work for your recommendations. Alright, ladies and gentlemen,
Hey everyone. We're going to end our conversations now and we're going to start to do an open share. Okay, if I can get everybody's attention,
if we can kind of end our conversations, just make sure we can hear everybody as they share out. Thank you everyone.
Thank you everyone.
Thank you everyone.
I'm about to go. Alright, everybody. So thank you so much for participating in our round table discussions. Thank you so much for participating in these exercises, our breakouts. I hope there was a lot of really good and productive, productive conversation around these tables. I know that there were a lot of very provocative kind of topics and lines on these documents that we gave out but I do want to give those who would like to
share the opportunity to share.
Take to our city council. Okay, so I want to hear what came out of these conversations, so I'm gonna give y'all about 30 seconds, because I don't know how many people may want to share 30 seconds to give us a couple of main points and highlights from your conversation. So who would like to go first?
Oh, I got a question. Okay, you keep saying, y'all taking this to the city council or whoever, what are they giving back to you to tell us, and how much information and how long are you going to keep collecting information that you are taking to them to get back to us. We're giving but we're not receiving anything. Thank you. Thank you so much so, yes, this body was seated in February 2023, with 18 months to do a lot of research and in depth data collection in order to compile and curate a report of recommendations to go to city council. Now, with that 18 month period coming to an end this month, particularly, we did ask for an extension of time to to continue our research, to make sure that it's comprehensive. Y'all, it's a lot that has happened to us, right? And we are not focusing on one and two things. We're trying to get as much as we can during this historical moment in our city to take to city council. I got one over here that I got you. I see you, but I want to make sure that we know March 2025, that's when this report is going to city council, and we're going to make sure that y'all see it before it goes out, so we can get all the feedback that we can but right now, we need y'all to read you of them. Read Columbia, watch the meetings that you may have missed. Read the minutes they're all online. Dr Chike, and then I see you
gave us for those that want to report out to do that. So can we stay focused on that for the sake of time? So maybe we should have each group identified a spokesperson and a show of hands of who wants to speak on their group. And then we move forward for the sake of time so we can get it in what we came to do. Yes, sir, she came. You better hold me accountable. Yes, sir, you sharing out, because we sharing out right now. You alright? Share out now. Share in the spirit of sharing out and getting, getting things moving one, just one question was that March? Would you say? March 2025 it's not a date, just 2025 okay, so I guess at our table, we had some spirited, oh yes. My name is Shannon Slayton. I represent the Detroit grassroots correlation coalition, our co chair, and it's right here. So yes, we had a very spirited back and forth. I like to say that what we did agree on is that we should that reparations, if it is going to be given, it should be given to the aggrieved group like you said us, we cited some concerns in the report that indicated that, for instance, in the U of M report that the Hispanics made a suggestion to repair or give them reparations in the form of education. So we were, we kind of narrowed down that language is important. I cited the example of affirmative action, affirmative action and originally was imagined for a specific lineage who descended from the killing fields of the South, went through Jim Crow our ancestors wanted to get side ahead for it, and yet, over time, we've seen that watered down and diluted because of language minorities. White women are minorities. LGB are minorities. This person is a minority. I came from Africa. Now I'm a minority now. Now that is now being being overturned, the original group in which it was for. Now we are being harmed by that. Now nobody get nothing. So
Thank you Shannon. Thank you Shannon. So that demand is that we make sure that we emphasize black period.
Okay, hold on. Give me one second. I'm sorry. I can only hear one voice at a time.
Lindy ish space,
the report that is being referred to our research, research reports that were done by two research entities. Okay, it is not the report of this task force. This task force is still ready and eager to comb over it, for example, where it might have reference of monies given to x minority or monies given to whomever who doesn't fall within side who may not fall inside of our eligibility requirement, I would suspect that either it will be commented on, edited out, or something like that. So don't read the either the U of M report or the Howard report, as if it is the gospel truth from this task force. And I think there's a lot of miscommunications that occurred on that,
yes, just to clarify, Alright, wonderful. Sharing out. Sharing out. Thank you. Thank you. We, we came up with and cash payments. So my name is Tahira Ahmed. I'm with the Coalition for Property Tax Justice, but I'm with this reparation committee right now, and we said that we want to add cash payments. Cash Payments refund $600 million and over, assess property taxes back to the taxpayers and provide restitution for 100,000 homes illegally foreclosed. We also want redress for retired city of Detroit workers who lost their pensions and benefits from emergency manager. We want to designate properties in the Detroit land bank for black families, increase transparency for the dlba and partner with other reparations group and task forces across the country, including California and Nexus community partners. Alright, yes, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. That's good. That's good. Alright, I see you, and then I'll come here. Somebody else might talk after me from this table, but, you know, lineage based, you know, we got hundreds of 1000s of acres of land here. Lineage based land, cash payments, you know, I'm saying and advertisement, we want, we want the whole city of Detroit from now until the last meeting to know that there's a reparations meeting on that day. That way we can have a auditorium full of people. And if you got 400,000 people pushing forward it, it'll change the narrative, as opposed just a room full of people, you know, I'm saying so.
Terence, Ely. Ely, Yep, thank you. Alright, we got Oh, very quickly, looking at lineage based under the lens of international law, then trying to also use the term that is accepted under international law, which is Afro descendant, and that would then apply to the genocide treaty, so that we can make sure that we are now asking for cash payments because we were genocided and in Detroit, the genocide that occurred after the bankruptcy. So that would mean anybody, not just descendants of slaves who were genocided after 2013 thank you so much. All right, yes, ma'am,
hello. How y'all beautiful people? I just want to say first, I'm introduced myself. I'm Almighty God's queen. He called me Mount Zion, but my name is Donna Pitts. US black people been abused way before we got here, by the same people. They didn't change white European Germans. So they have stolen everything from us, everything black men have been maybe women's as well. They have used this as their economical cash and use their own money and have captured us in a system. So we need our own freedom to have our own money. We need our own game. Just the black man been at the number game. They didn't. Took and made billions off of it. We put into it, but we don't get out of it. So we need to be able to have our own games, our own building, our land.
They need to give black men's big machineries, to cut down trees, to do farming, etc, to build houses. They did so much to us. They put FBI, put crack in our city, gave it to the young boys. Every time a black person get up, they killing them or knocking them down. It's time for it to stop, and I ask all this in the name of Jesus and y'all owe us trillion dollars down and so much every often. Thank you,
yes. Thank you. Janice Hazel, for our group, one of the biggest things that we talked about, and we had the great honor of having a former city of Detroit Police Commissioner, William Davis, as well as MS Brenda Goss Andrews, who is over the retiree group for the police department. And so it echoes what Tahira Ahmad's group stated in terms of redress for the bankruptcy and the harms to the the city of Detroit workers, so police, fire, water department, all civil servants who this amounts to an extraction of wealth. Their pensions were reduced andor rated, ergo their health benefits were rated. And that is impacting their quality of life in their retirement. And that is something that the report following up on what member Gregory Hicks stated these two research documents that we received from the University of Michigan and Columbia University slash Howard University, are not representative of what this task force actually has done in terms of research, and we will be looking for a research person to fill in the gaps, such as there is no Real mention of the bankruptcy and the harms to people's pensions, health benefits and extraction of wealth. The other thing that this group spoke to is the eligibility and start point of when we should be looking at and some believe that it should go back to 17 year old one when Africans were brought here by the French and the British to clear this land and their progeny, which is they, Africans then had children who were born here and so on and so forth, bringing us to the present. That lineage is here. So there were thoughts on eligibility and the start point. There were also thoughts on where we begin more in line with 1900 or 1920s so those are things that we'll be discussing further in the task force. And I thank you for that. The other thing that I don't think that the task force has done a good job at, which was a question about, well, what is reparations? A lot of people come to these meetings thinking as reparations in totality, which is a federal issue in terms of enslavement, that's where the real money is. And so I think that thank you one of our members, Mr. White, for asking the question, because we need people to focus on Detroit and Detroit harms to black residents, and that's what we will be as a task force doing more research on and what we would like to ask of you, and we will be coming to you. That's why it's important we have your contact information for more anecdotal information, firsthand testimonials and oral histories of you and yourself. Again, I have a gentleman at my table who's a former police commissioner and who was a young man in the 1970s who can speak directly to the stress unit, the Big Four, the what was it called the Frisk, search and frisk, stop and frisk, stress. And I have stress, right? And so those are first hand evidentiary mentions that we need to have in this report. So I ask you to ask your elders to talk about that and let us know who would like to be interviewed so that we can put that those type of testimonials into our final report. So that was what our group discussed by and large. Thank you. Thank you so much. Member, Hazel, all right, so we have about 15 minutes left. Let me see where we are on my agenda, just to make sure we get through everything. Oh, I'm so Oh, I'm sorry. Don't let me forget. Hold me accountable. There you go. Did you want to did you want to share? You can do it. Okay. Good afternoon. My name is kimley Naylor. We put emphasis on the area of housing, but I do want to mention that one of our table members said we should look at several categories as we're reviewing this. We should be looking at the education where reparations could apply. Education, economics, entertainment, labor, law, policy, political, making, religion, sex, war, and I added health care, so she's going through. What can Detroit do that has wronged us in these categories? So we could come up with a plan, our action and our plan of what we want to see as restitution for our Detroit families in the area of housing. We did specifically state that, first and foremost, there needs to be an adjustment in the AMI reference to affordable housing, and to make it exclusive to the city of Detroit income levels, and then see what 60% looks like at that point, we also talked about new developments requiring the 20% affordable housing, of course, that would abide by the new guidelines of Detroit's AMI and increase that to 35% whether they include 20% in their build, it establishment and the other 15% somewhere else as A standalone with 100% housing never to be changed. And then we talked about building housing units. We talked about affordable housing, and we automatically go to rentals. There's a multi unit rental going up market rate rents and affordable we don't need to rent forever. They need to have something to pass on. So we want to talk about home units as well as affordable rental units. We talked about HUD.
HUD sends money to the city of Detroit. Over the years, one of us have had housing disparity. We talked about the loss of the 600 and over assessment loss of 100,000 homes. The land bank itself currently noted just this past Tuesday, only have 2500 land bank properties by the time we get to march. And my number may be less, but we said the remaining structures should be all fixed and sold, and those allocations are sent to those 100,000 homeowners who lost out, sell the remaining inventory of the land bank, fix it up, whatever happens, and it goes to those 100 families the hunt money that comes from HUD should no longer be at the discretion of the mayor of Detroit, but he has to deliver reports once that budget is set monthly and annually, knowing exactly how he reallocated those HUD dollars, we need To diminish the amount of dollars allocated toward demolition and put that into rebuilding. In Detroit, we've had a lot of homes demolition demolished, and let's take those funds and we can just board up and hold off and take the next two to three years looking at building homes due to our housing shortage. Team, did I leave anything out? Anyone? Did I misrepresent the specifications and use of HUD housing funds is what we want to see the mayor be held accountable to report out monthly.
Thank you so much. Yes, I think there was one more table that wanted to share out. We got about 10 women. Put your hand up, put your hand up. At our table, we looked at the suggestions that were here, and one of the things that came out that I think is important to talk about is not only the suggestions, but how the suggestions are written out, how they're considered in terms of the actual verbiage, and that we stop a thing because of this, we start a thing because of this, or we continue a thing because of this, so that all of our suggestions or recommendations come in some clear kind of conversation to the people who are going to implement it, so that they are clear that we want them to Stop such and such and such, because this is the circumstance we want them to begin something so that that is the benefit, or that if there is something that they're doing good, we continue that thing for the and we explain those things. So that was one of the things that I thought was very important from our table. We also discussed some of the specific recommendations in terms of the language and things like that. But I think of the things that we talked about table is that strong the framework of that recommendation presentation is as important as what the recommendations are.
That's a really, really good point. I see you. I see you real quick. And you gave an excellent synopsis for our group, but a glossary of terms would be very helpful. There were some recommendations that we said it would be beneficial to table because we didn't fully know what they were. So as we put out information and recommendations to let people know what we're talking about would be helpful.
I love that. Yes, really quickly we got about 10 minutes in the meeting. Left. One thing that was left off the list that I saw was the criminal justice aspect. So that has been a major harm to the city for our eliminating recorder court. So that means you took the right to a jury from a million people. So that was one thing that was injustice that wasn't on the list our criminal justice system. So just to reiterate, that list is not comprehensive. So we did want y'all to add as much as you could think of. So if you write that down or make sure that somebody in the body gets that fantastic, then we'll make sure to look into that really quickly, because we do have, we got to put a charge in it. Yeah. Hi. My name is Miss Adams. I wanted to also point out the city of Detroit have to look at alternative options for wealth, economy, our with the geopolitical analysis that's going on now, our dollar, the devaluation of it, there are alternative ways to get our money more equitable than it is right now. And yes, we're so that fiat money. So I need to have that looked at in a more in depth point. All right. Well, thank you so much everybody for your contributions to this conversation. I really appreciate y'all brain power giving us some ideas and things to work on. So yes, give yourselves a round of applause. Absolutely, teamwork. All right, so to quickly run through our agenda to the body line item number nine, any unfinished business?
Hearing none. Thank y'all. Line item number 10, any new business. I'm getting dizzy. All right, now we I have about five minutes for public comment if anybody needs to give public comment, because I know we did do a lot of group discussion today, but is there anybody that just must give public comment? I will have to limit you to 30 seconds strictly. All right, oh, what's your no business?
I did not talk about that. We're gonna put down an announcements. Okay, okay, all right, so if I can get a timer started for 30 seconds, okay, I would just like to invite everyone here to attend the migrant and immigrant resources fair. That's on Wednesday, October 16, from six to 8pm at the Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation. I think we need to show up and find out exactly what resources. None you know what I'm talking about. All right, I hope to see you all there.
Okay, give me that date one more time. October,
immigrant and migrant resource affair, okay? Development
Corporation, October 16, alright. Y'all alright. Was there anybody else 30 seconds? Yes, I'll be really quick, a really brief attorney. Noelle Hemphill with the people of Detroit. And I want to bring up two things that just put a bug in our ear, that we may need an additional extension beyond March of 2025 the report that U of M did, and also the other report, the report that U of M did, took a year. So we're at a point, I think at a great point, and I applaud the task force for what we've done, and just want to consider that we may need another extension. Also, the Detroit lifeline plan is currently under their recertification period. Everybody was kicked out of the plan. The 26,000 households that were in the plan were kicked out of the plan as of October 1, those who are in the Detroit lifeline plan need to recertify. They're also still taking new people into the plan. So to recertify. So Detroit lifeline plan is a water assistance plan that offers income based water those who are at 200% of the federal poverty level and below water based, excuse me, income based, water bill, those 26,000 households who were enrolled in that plan have all been kicked out, and they started to recertify and putting people back into that plan. As of October 1. Right now, they are doing shut offs. So we talked about reparations. We need to bring draw those through lines to know that those things are still going on today. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Yes, Norell Hemphill, attorney, Norell Hemphill, all right, we got five minutes left, and I know there are a couple more line items, so if y'all could write down your public comment for us, I really appreciate it. I'm sorry we had to cut it short. The conversation went over. Alright. Did you want to talk about C dad really quickly before we get into our oral history? Did you want to talk about the panel we got? Angela? All right. Hi everyone. Angela Carlberg, I'm with Community Development advocates of Detroit. I had the pleasure of inviting the representation from the task force at our Community Development Week or conference this year, had a great conversation with myself, Sydney, Edith and Adina Hill from the Kresge Foundation. They are convening their own reparations roundtable. And I guess I'll just say that you know, one of the biggest takeaways is this is a comprehensive and holistic approach that we could be doing both in the community development and economic space from CDOT perspective. But we also have a policy agenda. We have our own partners. We have a membership combining with the work that y'all are doing in terms of supporting the research and the policy development that y'all are coming up with. And then alongside Kresge Foundation, who they are convening some partners and working on, you know what is? What is reparations as a framework for Community and Economic Development, and what's it going to take for us to see all of us in that kind of movement so that we can advance the well being of folks of color here in Detroit, community development advocates of Detroit. So stay tuned for more conversations from us too. Thank you so much. Angela, all right. So with that being said, I am going to go ahead and slide into our last announcement. So I know member Hazel spoke to really briefly, the the need for us to start really collecting our oral histories, from our elders, from our family members, so we get our stories documented properly. So if you have people that you know we need to speak with in regards to the harms that may have happened and what they know they deserve, and what we're going to demand and advocate for on their behalf. Please send us their names or whatever contact information. If you do have capability to have these conversations with them, record them and send them to us. We do want to start really collecting these oral histories from our ancestors and or not our ancestors, from our elders, before they become our ancestors. And we want to make sure that we are documenting their stories. Okay, so with that being said, was there anything else, did I miss? Anything to the body? Was there anything you want to add?
Okay, so the question was, are we having a meeting in November, with the holidays coming up November and December, and our deadline quickly approaching in March, we are going to have a meeting in November. So that'll be the first Saturday November. I don't have the day in front of me, but we are going to have that meeting. So please, please, please, try to make it there. And we are thinking about a quick, well, not a quick, but we're thinking about maybe figuring out a way to really focus on the report, so we'll do over that in our internal meeting. But yes, November, we'll we November. Thank you. November 2. November 2, we will be probably at Farwell with our our public meeting. Yes, yes. Or will space larger can accommodate? Yes, yes. Yes. Um, that's an excellent question, because we do have two large rooms over there, um, so we'll have maybe twice as many tables set up, at least twice as many, yep. So really, again, a really, really big push to bring your block out, bring your church out, bring your bring everybody out, so we can continue to have these candid conversations. I don't know how y'all felt about these roundtable discussions. Did y'all felt like they were productive? Did we learn something? Did we share something? Was there a knowledge exchange, some idea exchange? Okay, so we're going to do this again in November, on a larger scale. Please share this. And then also, our community survey is still open and active on our website, so that's a place where you can give us more ideas. Let us know what's important to you when it comes to these recommendations, it's on our website. So please make sure to take that community survey. I think we have around five or 600 responses right now. Y'all, it's 400,000 black people in this city, and even 13 of us, even 600 of us, cannot speak for that entire group. So we need more participation, more engagement. So I'm going to make sure to try and do we find the QR code. Okay, so it's going to be on Detroit mi.gov/reparations,
that is our home page, where you can get all of our minutes, all of our recordings, all of our reports or harms reports that we received thus far. Because, mind you, we are still doing more research. So we're not just depending on U of M and Columbia to be the totality of the research that we need to conduct. We are looking for more places, Detroit, M, I dot, G, O, v.gov, backslash, reparations. Okay, yeah, of course. So if there's nothing more from the body, oh,
oh, okay, so fantastic. So for those of you who heard me, my pitch about the oral histories and the elders we need to speak to, if somebody immediately came to your mind and you have their conference contact information, and you don't mind sharing that with us today, we do have some index cards. Go ahead and write down their name, um, a good phone number for them, or good email address for them, and we can make sure to start reaching out to them now to see if they're open to having these conversations with us. Okay, what was that?
Anybody? Right? Ain't no age. We need everybody, uh huh, yes. So everybody, everybody, if you know that they have a story that needs to be shared, that needs to be amplified. Please make sure to share that with us. We will ask for consent before we start having these conversations, but we do want to make sure we're getting as much as we can when it comes to organic research and quantification.
Yes, it does need to be based in Detroit, because we are focused on repair for Detroiters in Detroit, yes, ma'am studies. Uh, studies, no, no,
yeah, we're not and it's 401 the two reports that you have received copies of the University of Michigan undertook one. We had a memo of understanding with them that started September of last year. Their methodology was utilizing two courses, a class course last year, which was August through December, a class course January through, I believe, April, and they then provided the report in August. Those were their students researching it. There are gaps in that which, if you've read it, you see. And so that was done at no cost. There was a grant that the University of Michigan poverty solutions and social solutions received the Columbia University Howard University Law School report, which I believe was called an impact report. There was no cost to us for that. Either. We are going to need to do more research, and so that will cost us unless we enter into an agreement. But my view of it is, my mother always said, you get what you pay for, and I am an alumnus of the University of Michigan, but I knew going into it, it was going to be thin with regards to Detroit specific. So we are going to be doing more research to fill this out, because we need the specifics, such as ordinances and laws that were in the city of Detroit that prohibited us from thriving. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. Member Hazel, so to answer your question, the two reports that we have received were not at any cost to us. Member Chike, I'm sorry.
Oh, there's a second. So the motion on the floor is for adjournment, any opposition from the body,
all right, and with Hearing no opposition, the meeting has been adjourned. Thank you. I wanted to say one thing when member Hazel was talking about laws, we do have a body of laws that Detroiters already wrote when we were undergoing the charter revision from 2018 to 2021 that is the book, that is a body of ordinances and laws that was already written by Detroiters. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. We can use that. Thank you. Alright, thank you. Everybody. Have a great Evening. You
