Hello, everyone. We're gonna get started in just a moment, please Get your seats
so we can get started. You
all right. Well, thank you so much, and welcome everyone to the Detroit mayoral candidate forum on public transportation. We Yes, we are excited. We do want to make sure that everyone has access to this information. So in addition to folks who are in the room here, we also have a large zoom crowd, and I want to make sure everyone has an opportunity to to hear and to observe as much as possible if you have any problems seeing or hearing as we move forward, raise your hand and someone from our team will will come check out your issue and help resolve it. Or for folks on Zoom, Jamie Jr is is moderating on the zoom so please message her if you have any questions. Please make yourself comfortable, sit, stand, stretch, whatever you need. The bathrooms are right around the corner, out the door here. And yeah, I think that's what we wanted to and of course, we are thrilled to have some sign language interpreters to ensure that, ensure all of that accessibility. So as we get started, I want to ask who here rides the bus regularly. Yeah, yeah. Like, like, 10s of 1000s of Detroiters every single day. And who here wishes they didn't have to spend so much money on cars and parking and insurance and gas and repairs? Yeah, absolutely. Someone tried to steal my car last week. So dealing with with the joys of insurance and repairs. So which is one of the reasons it's so important that we have transit access everywhere in the city, and that not only that it exists, but that it is reliable and convenient and something people can feel confident in using the city of Detroit has made a lot of progress in in the last few years in improving the reliability and frequency of transit service, but we know that there's a long way to go. So we are I guess I should have introduced myself. My name is Megan Owens. I'm the Executive Director of Transportation riders united, true has spent the last almost 25 years working on advocating, educating, mobilizing for more and better public transportation throughout Detroit and the and the region, because we believe everyone should be able to get where they need to go regardless of whether they drive. We are thrilled to work with a great set of partners, the Amalgamated Transit Union, Detroit disability power, Moses, Detroit people's platform, just to name a few of them. So what we're going to do is we're going to have different partners come up to ask the different questions that we have for our candidates. I do want to clarify. This is a fully educational c3 forum. There will not be any endorsements in in the or or any preferential treatment. We purely want to make sure everyone has an opportunity to hear what our great wealth of candidates, what they commit to do if they are, in fact, elected.
So,
so, yeah, we have done a random selection for the order of where folks will be sitting and for the order of questions to make it as unbiased and and equitable as possible. So to talk a little bit about why this issue is so important. Obviously you wouldn't be here if you didn't agree, but I'm going to introduce someone who probably doesn't need an introduction to most folks here, one of the city's top transit advocates and activists, Cunningham, Thank you, Megan.
So I decided to start a little silly.
The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. The wheels on the bus go round and around all through the town. So a lot of the mayoral candidates have done ride alongs and the importance of public transportation. Your circle that you're around, the circle that I'm around, are poor, and they trying to rise, and you can't rise when you can't get to work on time. So I've committed my life to going to the mayor meetings, the council meetings, and giving out bus tickets and things at the bus stops, and hopefully this forum, I don't know what will be good, that you just relax, listen, and that we get some some great feedback from our mayoral candidates. And if anyone in this place has taken the bus here today, I have 24 hour bus passes for you. We love you, and thank you for coming. Brother Cunningham, you
uh, it wouldn't be a public comment period on transit in Detroit if, if Cunningham wasn't there to To kick things off and his he has learned to keep it tight. So, um, we, we invited all of the candidates for mayor who had made it on the ballot, and we are pleased to have a good majority of that group here. What I'm going to do is invite up each of our candidates, and then I'll talk a little bit about the rules, and then we'll get started. So first I want to invite up santiel Jenkins, who went to Yes,
she went to cast tech and to Wayne State and was trained and worked as a social worker, previously served as City Council President and as CEO of thaw, the heat and warmth fund. And and so welcome so much. Miss Jenkins. And then I'd also like to invite up Jonathan Barlow,
a graduate of Renaissance and Wayne State, a youth pastor at the Mount Pleasant Missionary Baptist Church, former communications administrator at Oakland County Democratic Party, CEO of the wknd company. So lots of experience there as well. I wanted to check, do we have Miss danetta Simpson, okay, she had told us she was going to be joining us, but unfortunately, it doesn't look like she's able to hear but we are thrilled to invite up Mr. Fred der Hall. I
graduated the Detroit School of the Arts in Eastern Michigan University, a current Detroit City Council member for district seven on the west side, former assistant Democratic leader for the Michigan House of Representatives. So again, we've got a great wealth of experience of all sorts. Do we have Mr. Joel Hashim? Okay? He will be joining us shortly. All right, and thrilled to invite up Mr. James Craig.
I was thrilled to learn he was he's the son of a Detroit street railways bus driver from back in the day. Yes, we love the DSR served for nearly three decades on the LA Police Department and is the former Detroit police chief and deputy mayor. And then we are also thrilled to invite up Mr. Todd Perkins, you
an attorney and founder of the Perkins Law Group, city attorney for Inkster, founder of the nonprofit, people's voice. Thank you so much for joining us. I will note that, through a slight miscommunication, we originally
thought that we were going to have another candidate, but
who thought that perhaps they could join on Zoom? But we do need the candidates here in person, but we are thrilled to have up the candidates we do have and will be joined by others if they make it later. As I mentioned, this is a purely non partisan forum. We want to make sure everyone has a chance to hear what each of our candidates plans to do, what their thoughts are, and what they plan to do around improving public transportation for the city and the region. We are going to have six questions. We're going to ask give each of you 30 or, sorry, 90 seconds. Each person is going to get 90 seconds to answer
and
and we have some signs in the front, in case you're unclear. You have we'll have a green sign for 90 seconds. We got a yellow one. You've got 20 seconds, and then we'll have the the red sign for stop we were talking about. Do we need to some of the the awards show music to kind of haul you off? But I think you guys are pretty good at staying within your time, and I trust there won't be any attacking of candidates, and that everyone will stay within their allotted time. So to get started with our first question that you can answer alongside any introductory remarks, I'd like to invite up Casey, who is one of our partners from Detroit disability power to ask the first question Kathy,
good evening everyone.
Good evening everyone.
Thank you. Good evening, candidates. My name is Casey Peller. I am the policy manager at Detroit disability power and a resident in District Four. A little bit about DDP, or Detroit disability power. We are a local membership organization led by and for disabled Detroiters. We do a lot of work to make our city more accessible, especially when it comes to voting, housing and Tonight's main issue, transit. To get to our first question for the candidates. It's kind of a two Pronger with a little bit of background. The DDOT reimagined plan would roughly double DDOT bus service to enable major improvements in route frequency and service accessibility. Full implementation of the plan by 2030 will require roughly doubling the current DDOT budget. So the question is, do you support doubling the DDOT budget in order to double DDOT bus service, as called for in the DDOT reimagined plan by 2030 and how would you develop the funding to achieve it?
So I am. Let's see. We're going to ask for this first question. Everyone will have a chance to answer it, and we'll start with Mr. Perkins, followed by Mr. Craig and Miss Jenkins.
Do we give a introductory statement? Or we're
welcome to give an introductory statement in your with your the 90
with the 90 seconds in your 90 seconds, in the 90 seconds. Okay, good evening. My name is Todd Perkins, and you're looking at your next mayor. And I'm going to tell you why I think that transit, I know that transit is the critical component in the growth of this particular community. So in answer to that question, let me answer that first, yes, absolutely it. Finding the finding the mechanism for funding is the key. So we're currently funded and multi multitude of different ways, through the federal government, and that's going to flow coming forward through the RTA. What we are losing we have to deal with the reality. We are losing what we have as ARPA funding that has been used for the purposes of funding our system. We have to make this intentional. We have to make this a priority. We have to secure from our likely those things will come from our some of it from our general fund, to the extent we can. But we also have to focus on public private partnerships in order to effectuate doubling the size. Because I must tell you, I had an experience, an awesome experience. Take what you want from it. In riding the bus yesterday, as a young man who rode the bus all of his high school and academic career before going to college, it was the bus system yesterday was not what I experienced in the past, and having been a rider in the past, it is definitely in need of attention. This is not a something that we should do. Is something we must do. This is a human issue that is going to be required for the purposes of growing this community and making it effective and usable for all. Thank you. Good
evening, everyone.
Well, as I indicated so many times, I've served 44 years as a public servant. I had the good fortune of starting my policing career here in Detroit in the late 70s. I got laid off, went to LA, spent almost three decades, became the chief of police in Portland, Maine, followed by Cincinnati, Ohio, and then the best part of my career was back here to Detroit. Yes, I would fully fund it. I support the initiative. As it was pointed out, I grew up. My father was a bus driver. I used to ride the bus with my dad as a young man, I probably thought I was going to be a bus driver. I took a sharp right turn and certainly became a police officer and stayed in the profession for all those years. But it's so important when I look at and let me just digress for him, because I want to talk about what I saw on my trip. Now I'm very familiar with some of the safety challenges in public transit, transportation, very familiar. In fact, I was in a room with union officials and to hear the complaints about safety. And as before I left, we ended up providing Detroit police officers to augment the staffing. But what's really telling for me when I went over that Rosa Park Station, something is desperately wrong. Now, know how many of you are familiar with Southern California, but I thought when I was in that compound that was on Venice Beach, I gotta stop. Thank you.
Thank you. All right, we'll have Miss Jensen, Jenkins, followed by Mr. Der Hall and Mr. Barlow, yeah, grab your seat, and then we'll introduce
Thank you for having us here tonight, and thank you all for being here tonight. Transportation insecurity is a real issue in the city of Detroit. We have over a third of Detroiters who don't have access to a car. That insecurity rate is more than double the national rate. So as a city that says we want to put Detroiters to work, we want everybody who can get a job to have one. We have to have a way for them to get there. If 33% of our adults can't get to work, how can we tell them you must find a job and work? So yes, I support increasing the budget for DDOT, but also making sure that at the end of the budget year, we're not turning back a surplus, which happens in the majority of years, because we don't spend all of the money we have for bus drivers. We don't spend all the money we have for mechanics, because DDOT does not have a competitive rate. So we have to make sure that we're paying our DDOT men and women competitive wages so that we can hire them, train them and keep them so that we keep our busses running and we're picking up Detroiters on time, and that we have the resources for routes that make sense on major thoroughfares, shuttles in between, because every bus does not have to be a block long. We can have shuttles taking shorter routes, picking up seniors, picking up people with differing abilities, to ensure that our system is comprehensive. Thank you.
Thank you. And good evening to all of you here. I'm council member Fred durha, know many of you. Big shout out to brother, Cunningham. I got to hear the wheels on the bus for the fifth time today because of my son and 313-444-9114, so here's the thing, I am definitely in favor of doubling the DDOT budget. You can tell a lot about what a person will do by what they've done, and this past budget cycle, the city council added an additional $22 million to the budget. It fell a little bit short of what true had wanted, but we're making significant steps. I will tell you, as your next mayor, I will commit to doubling the DDOT budget. We will raise driver's pay from the $19 an hour to be competitive with smart which is $27 an hour. We'll add more accessible launch pads to our city for our disabled residents, and we will continue to fix the infrastructure and put more busses on the road. We're slated to have over 220 by January, but we still need to increase the number of those busses on the road. Finally, what I would say is funding is important when you look at other major metropolitan cities, true's report shows that regionally, we only fund our bus system by a third in our region, and then as major, major metropolitan cities, we are last. We are losing here, and so we will find the funding by working with regional partners and share that cost and advocate for more state funding to bring more dollars back here to this city to fund d dot the way that it needs to be funded. Thank you. Thank you,
Mr. Barlow, and then I'll introduce our last two.
Good evening. Oh,
come on, y'all can do better than that Good evening. Ain't nobody put y'all to sleep yet. Did they listen?
I rode the bus.
But I understand business, the reimagined plan to double this. And yes, I do support it, but I also know that I have to fund it, similar to how do i Councilman Durrell just explained, and I think councilman, Councilwoman Jenkins definitely addressed the the wage gap and the issue with wages. But this is what it really calls for, approximately 130 to $150 million of annual investment. That's what it calls for. 23 million is very, very short. In addition to that, it calls for at least 200 new bus drivers. Then it calls for at least 150 new busses. That mean contracts will be signed, and that means that workforce development and recruitment needs to take place. That means that we have to facilitate relationships and get new drivers in place. There's a plan that I have that fully encompasses that and takes that in consideration. What you will not hear tonight is someone else that has an 11 page plan to bring the most money, jobs and homes into the city, and so all I want to do is simply share that you need an advocate, but you also need a businessman at the table. Now I could go on and I can't go on and on,
all right. Thank you, sir.
We've also been joined by Miss danetta Simpson, an East sider and lifelong Detroit resident from who's a graduate of Kettering High School and a chairperson of the independent nonprofit party, Julie take 90 seconds to answer the question up here, do you support doubling or implementing the DDOT reimagined proposal to double bus service by 2030 and how Will you fund it? So you've got about 90 seconds.
Hi. My name is Annette A L Simpson. I'm a lifetime resident of the city of Detroit. I was born and raised on the east side. I used to catch the bus to school and to work. So I know how important it is to have public transportation. I also support the means of public trade transportation to be safe, and I like that those undercover officers that was being passengers on the bus, and I will continue to make the busses safe, clean, transparency. And also I support them with this new funding that we would need for the city of Detroit, I will do everything I can do to put things into the budget, whatsoever. Thank you all, and thank you for having me. Thank you.
Hold on to that for a moment. And then we are also joined by Mr. Joel Hashim, a graduate of Cooley high and Shaw College, who opened his first business at age 20 and worked for many years as a wholesaler and distributor and has participated in 15 different international trade delegations. Mr. Hashim, yes,
thank you. You know I have been a resident of Detroit lifetime, Detroiter, and so I've written the bus as well. I've rode the q line, and I've been around 20 countries that had mass transit. And of course, I look at Chicago, I look at Atlanta, New York, et cetera, and look at their transit systems. So we have to look at the fact that Detroit is facing $160 million deficit. So maybe the plans and them funds that's been allocated to grow the our transit system. You know, we're going to have a few issues here, and that's why it's going to be very important that we find additional revenue, whether it be from DC or from the state, but or bringing in revenue into our city treasury, one of the things that we have to Look at, I am all for doubling the driver's salary. It's no way that smaller municipals are paying their drivers more for making sure we take care of the residents in the handicap and that we actually pay for their care keepers a little bit more as well. So basically, thank you. Thank you, sir.
So for the next couple of questions, to move things along a little quicker, we're going to have four candidates each answer the next four questions, although everyone will have a chance to answer the final question as well. So I'd like to invite up Mr. Shatron Collier, as was noted, one of the important issues facing DDOT is making sure we have enough staff. So I'd like to invite Mr. Collier to ask our next question. Ms,
good evening, everyone, thank you. First, let me thank everybody on this panel for your service to this community and your commitment people of this city. I'll go with myself first. I'm chatron. Call your President, Business agent for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 26 I represent the DDOT operators as well as the q line operators. I also represent para transit unit down in Ypsilanti, and I just unionized the Lenawee County School Bus intermediary district.
So I think some of the speakers already has kind of gotten out in front when it came to this particular question, but I'm going to go ahead and give you a little more background information concerning this particular question and some of the answers that you gave. So currently, DDOT pays it starting drivers about $19.36 cent an hour. The wage tops out at about $26.30 cent
smart just ratified a contract
recently in the last year where their operators are making $25.85 an hour, and they top out at $32 and about 34 cent so the fact that DDOT pays that amount of money has contributed to a high turnover rate and an increased cost, because I was just in a meeting yesterday where they told that it costs them about $25,000 because they were speaking in front of the CFO. But I know that's not the right number. They're paying about $40,000 to train an operator, all right? And within less than weeks, months, they're walking away. So they have a real bad retention problem, because these people are taking these those CDLs, and they're going through to other companies, whether it's a bus truck or whatever, and the city is losing its funding. So what I would like to know is, do you support the wage parity smart between smart and DDOT drivers, and how will you improve wages for DDOT employees to make the positions more competitive? And let me say this as well. The current mayor has went on record saying that he supports it as well. I would hate for us to lose the momentum that we've gained over the last couple of years. If, if this is not done, thank you.
Thank you. We're going to ask. Thank you. Mr. Collier,
we're going to ask Mr. Barlow, followed by Mr. Hasheaaa, Mr. Durhall and Ms Simpson, will each have an opportunity to answer that question. So Mr. Barlow,
I think we touched on some of this in my initial answer. It really comes down to funding this reimagined plan and getting that wage parity fix. Some of that comes with unlocking some Federal Reserves and getting some partnerships to be able to go about that. I think we all can admit to that, but like you said, Brother Colyer and I think we touched on the outside, the drivers are on the front line, and wrapping not only resources around them, but getting their wages up is definitely one of the anchors in that reimagined plant that needs to be expanded and coupled with other incentive packages that the new administration needs to offer to all Detroit employees to get that retention in the in the city. See, we have to drive a population. There's a very systematic way to do this without increasing mobility. Nothing starts back in this city. And so we need a very dedicated, strategic leader in place that understands how to get that done. Now, of course, with my technology background, I understand the systems that need to be in place to upgrade the whole upgrade while we're investing into our infrastructure. And I think you all, everyone needs to take into account the background and experiences that are diverse enough to attack a problem like that.
Thank you so much.
Mr. Hasheen and then Mr. Der Hall.
You know this budgeting crisis is a very serious issue, so the first thing I would do as mayor is call for a feasibility study. We need to align a new logistics plan, we need to, of course, double our busses, and we need to learn how to integrate transportation to make sure everyone can get from point A to point B in a timely fashion. So I think the feasibility study is the most important part of this, because there's been many attempts to help or build a better transit system. However, everyone that have been in that position have failed. So we need to take a look at some of these other municipals and be able to cross align systems that will actually produce the intended result, which is making sure that a handicap and our residents can get from point A to point B, as well as making sure that we Increase the pay for our drivers and become more competitive. And as I shared before, we need to make sure that we are taking care of the residents of the city of Detroit first. Thank you so much
so investing in customer service, you have to invest in the people that provide it. Since I've been on council, the first press conference I had was allocating ARPA funding for a bonus for DDOT drivers, and then we were at a press conference to raise the pay to $19 an hour for DDOT drivers. And then in this additional budget, we put money in there to set aside for DDOT drivers. We have to invest in the drivers, not only so they can have competitive and living wages. What's not talked about is, is that when they're paid at that competitive rate, the rider experience also increases. So when folks get on the bus, they are met with friendly drivers. When folks get on the bus, they have the ability to have a driver that is willing to assist them and then take that money back to their neighborhoods and pay their rent and pay their mortgage and provide for their family. So yes, I will continue to invest in our drivers, because it's the right thing to do. And yes, we will not only support wage parity, but look to become more competitive in our region. A world class city starts with a world class transit system, and we've got to start investing in that. We've got to start investing in our people. We currently have 168 busses on the road. 220 slated by January, we're going to need more drivers. We got to attract more drivers. We got to retain more drivers. That starts with pay, and it starts with the investment from the city, and we'll continue to do it. Thank you so much. Yes, yes,
hello again, I do support the wages to be
increased for the drivers,
because the cost of living has risen tremendously, and with that being so, that would make it more easier for the drivers to want to come to work and to want to be bothered with the citizens of Detroit, because a lot of them can be hectic. And if this can stay into the budget, I will put the Detroit citizens first and other outside riders as well. And I have always caught the D, o, t and caught up with the smart system, and it was a very good transition. So I want the D O T to be as accurate as the smart bus system, so I will keep funding available all Detroiters. Thank you.
Thank you.
So as was noted, one of the other critical one of the most important components of public transit is ensuring that Detroiters with disabilities are able to get active, get around where they need to go, to have to be able to contribute to our society, to be able to have just as much freedom and independence as any of us. We are thrilled to to work with warriors on wheels, one of the one of our organizations on this team, which advocates, connects and empowers to raise consciousness to combat discrimination against people with disabilities. So we actually have their question by video, so if we hold on just a moment,
hello. My name is Andre Bryant from warriors on wheels, and my question to the mayoral candidate is, do you support same day service of for paratransit ASAP? And what will you what will you do to ensure that Detroit city residents can travel in and out of the city?
Thank you all right.
For this one, we're going to start with Ms Jenkins, followed by Mr. Craig, Mr. Perkins and Mr. Der Hall.
Thank you. First, I want to give a shout out to warriors on wheels and Lisa Franklin, their founder. One of the transformational experiences that I've had in my lifetime was a day with warriors on wheels, where I was actually in a chair, traveling through downtown in a wheelchair to understand the perspective of people with disabilities just trying to get around our city. And we we got on the people mover, we got on, on and off of busses. We tried to cross the light at Campus marshes, which was a nightmare. And I have to say, although doing it for a day doesn't compare to people who do it every day, all day, it's their life, it opened my eyes in so many ways. So I'm forever grateful to warriors on wheels, because it has changed my approach in my perspective. So to answer the question, yes, absolutely, I would support same day service. I was speaking earlier about the importance of every bus not being a block long. That's one of the reasons why we have to have multiple modes of public transit. So it's busses, it's shuttles, it's vans to fill the differing needs of our residents, and making sure that people with differing abilities have access to a job, to their doctor's office, to health care, to the grocery store, TO EVERYTHING there they need has to be a priority for our leadership. So as mayor, I would support it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I support, fully support. I echo all the sentiments of chantille on what we need to do to make transportation accessible to all people in the city of Detroit. But I do want to kind of digress on something that's as important when we talk about this from the prior question. So indulge me, just for a moment. I know firsthand what it's like when you talk about retention, when you talk about low salaries. I lived it through bankruptcy with police officers that go through the academy and then they go other places. We can change that. And the way we can change it, we have to raise their morale. We have to increase salaries and oh, by the way, the environment in the coaches are horrible. I'm just going to say it. I mean they work in I don't want to use the word hostile work environments, but it's no wonder. Why. When you look at the surveys, the surveys came out and said, Well, you know, the driver friendliness. I don't know if it was titled that way, was one of four issues, top issues among riders. But also, what about the morale of the people who ride the bus in those kind of environments? We must do better. We can do better, but retention is key. It really starts with leadership. We have to lead. We have to create an environment where folks want to come to work. We have to raise that morale up, because if we don't do that, and we don't give them more money, it's going to be a continual cycle of losing drivers, and also include the mechanics in
that. Thank you very much.
So answer to that question is Absolutely, I support same day service. But also what you have to understand it goes into other questions that you've already asked about funding and things of that nature, or things like that. So you also, I look at it from a constitutional perspective. As a lawyer. I look at it these ways, and I look at it being able to compel a city and compel the government to fund these particular necessities in life. And so when we look at the not only the modes of transportation and the equipment that's required. Let's look at the infrastructure, making sure the curbs, as Miss Jenkins was talking about the nightmare and getting across the streets, the curbs, the sidewalks of those things, people who are using modes of conveyance besides their feet, or using a walker, or using a mechanism or a machine to travel to and fro, to get onto these machine onto these busses, and making sure that access onto that bus is actually amenable, making sure that they can get on safely, and having the individuals be able to use these this transportation on a timely matter and in same day service. It's going to require an upgrade in tech. It's also going to inquire additional funding as it relates to going back into the other question about funding our transit system with people who are going to be paid an appropriate wage, these gentlemen who are working in the in the unions, are working and fighting, not only for better wages, but for better benefits. So let's not just talk about the dollars and cents here. Let's talk about the benefits that they also receive, as far as retirement, health and all those considerations, because it's the writer experience that we want to have enhanced. Thank you so much.
So I want to give a shout out to Lisa Franklin, as well as warrior warriors on wheels, Detroit disability power, I can tell you, as the chair of the disability Task Force, I have almost heard every horror story relative to para transit, and whether that's being left down at a casino because you were visually impaired, or whether someone did not strap your chair in the right way and you're flinging you all across the vehicle. We have to continue to support efficient, effective paratransit here in the city, we've come a long way since we were talking just about the people we express and a lot of other providers, but we got to keep it going, and same day service is the way to do that. So folks have direct access. They don't have to wait for hours to get to a doctor's appointment. They don't have to wait for hours to go shopping. So yes, we will provide same day service for our writers. But another thing that we've gotta do as well, when I talk to Jamie Jr, here in our community, we've gotta start looking towards the future and fund environmentally friendly paratransit service here in the city, and we'll take those next steps and invest in electrical paratransit vehicles and ensure that the folks that we contract with utilize those vehicles. And finally, what I would say is we still need to invest and connect the dots and training for those contractors that provide paratransit service, so they have a little bit more of a sensitivity training, so they have invisibility training disability invisible. Invisible disability training is what I'm meaning to say, and have the ability to understand our riders and provide optimal service to them. Thank you. All right.
Next up, I'd like to invite Renard from Detroit people's platform to ask a little bit about Safe Streets.
All right, what up though, everybody? Good night. All right. I want to thank all of the candidates here that showed up today, and all of you will be very quick the Detroit people's platform. We are a community based organization, racial justice organizing group that centers majority black Detroit, and as lead of the transit justice team of our org, we are a group of writers Detroit residents that use DDOT as our primary and sole means of transportation, including myself. So this question doesn't come up a lot, but safety and security is really important. Detroit's car focused infrastructure contributes to one of the nation's highest rates of traffic violence, while improvements have been made in recent years, over 100 people. That's too many. One is too many are killed annually in traffic crashes in our city, and our streets are especially dangerous for bicyclists and pedestrians. It may add children as well. So here's my question to all of you, do you commit to accelerating the build out of safe pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure as called for in the city's streets for people, plan, how else will you improve safety for Detroiters, walking, rolling and biking on our streets? Thank you.
All right, we'll start with Mr. Craig, then Mr. Perkins, Mr. Barlow and Mr. Durham. This
is one of the areas I've always been passionate about. Having been and lived and worked in other cities, and I got back here to Detroit, I was shocked at the blatant disregard for pedestrians traffic laws. It's almost like, if you're going down Jefferson, when people are coming from Grosse Pointe, they adhere to all the traffic signals. As soon as they hit alter they just start blowing it. So zero tolerance for that. And we started that on my watch when I was chief of police, to make sure that we had zero tolerance for blatant traffic violations. There must be consequences, and yes, I do support additional bike lanes, but we have to educate the public. We also have to educate those who are pedestrians. We have to educate bicyclists. But the truth of the matter is, we have a lot of reckless driving, and not a weekend goes down. We think about hearing the horror stories on freeway systems because of excessive speeds and rollovers. I've not seen it to this degree anywhere else in other cities, and so it has to be a robust enforcement of all traffic law, we can't have pedestrians that just blatantly walk across red traffic signals. We have to educate, but we have to enforce as well. Thank you
again. Yes, I do intend to commit to the enforcement, not only enforcement, but to ensuring to the safety of pedestrians, as I was talking about as it relates to, again, segueing from my last question or answer into this one, as it relates to the infrastructure, as it relates to the roadways and the sidewalks that need to be improved, but also the using the creating diverse traffic controls as it relates to the design of streets, as it relates to public transit, making sure that we have the proper equipment. Because as a lawyer, I know what it means is, if transit is involved with the with an accident, I know what the cost associated with that is, because I've been involved in litigation, and lawsuits with that effect and the higher standard that transit o to pedestrians, so we're going to give them better equipment. We're going to give them better use of the access lanes and bike lanes. And again, I can't mention this enough. It's just the cracks in the sidewalk really depreciate the ability for people to move around in the streets. So it's absolutely important to do that, but making that a commitment, making that, you know, a more humane aspect and approach to people traveling throughout the city, you know, because to accept 100 deaths per year is really a failure, and I will not allow that to happen on my watch. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Okay,
if the community really felt confident any of these leaders, they'll be the first one to call they're not. I am family of WN smiley hit a run accident about a month ago, Gratiot, Grand Boulevard,
lime scooter.
1am in the morning,
family couldn't find
wine when they woke up, so they finally found her in the morgue. Had to wait till the next day just to identify the Bali people don't understand the trauma. See my organizers right here, and the 30 that we have between the organizations. You all understand these stories. The bus drivers understand these stories. Dean Evans, a bus driver and a veteran who supports me and would have ran for mayor, but he he's trying to give back to too much to the community. So what I will say to a few things is this, yes, we have to speed up the infrastructure to protect everybody, especially disability, and make it and make disability equity a standard, not just a checkbox. See, our seniors can't get to the bus if the curves are messed up. So you have to understand what lever to pull to make sure that all the dominoes fall in the right way, to make sure that this becomes a safe city, safe design. I am the only one who has the advocacy knowledge and the business acumen to get this done.
Thank you.
So my wife and I, we were having a conversation with someone from Indian village last week about safety here in the city of Detroit for cyclists, but just drivers and pedestrians in general. And we were looking at a study that showed that Detroit ranks close to the bottom, I think, second from the bottom when it comes to traffic safety here across the country, and a lot of that is because of a tone. So as mayor, one of the things that we're going to do, we're going to set the tone and let folks know that you cannot speed up and down our blocks. You cannot speed up and down our streets, and that if you do, we're going to have somebody there waiting for you to get you but not only that, we've got to invest in infrastructure. So when we talk about protection for our cyclists, we do need better barriers that protect them. If you ride down Livernois or some of our other some of our other main streets, a lot of those barriers are laying on the ground because folks have rolled over them. Okay, we need to provide stronger barriers when it comes to investing for our disabled community. We got to provide better launch pads for our bus stops. And Council has made a significant approach of putting more money in the budget to upgrade that. But finally, again, what I would say is we've got to run a city wide campaign on keeping us safe here when we talk about motor vehicles, okay, we've got to make sure we're keeping our seniors safe, our most vulnerable population, our youth, as well as our disabled members, and letting folks know and a city wide campaign that we are not going to stand for the speeding and We're going to introduce more speed bumps as well as more speed humps, not just on side blocks, but Main Streets.
Thank you so much.
So another one of our important partners in this work is Moses, diverse group of congregations that organizes communities develop leaders and builds relationships to advocate for social justice in Metro Detroit. Unfortunately, a last minute emergency arose, and so DeJuan was not able to be here, but Joel is going to ask our next question.
Hi, Joel Batterman with transportation riders united,
this question is about land use critical to affordable mobility and a vibrant city is more dense development, with a mix of homes, shops and other destinations all close by each other. Large surface parking lots make transit more difficult, while wasting space discouraging walking and making the city less attractive. Would you support eliminating parking minimums for new or redevelopment, and what mechanisms would you use to encourage denser, more affordable development, especially along major transit lines?
All right, yeah, all of these issues are so interconnected. We are going to ask Miss Simpson, Miss Jenkins, Mr. Hashem and Mr. Craig to answer this one. I
i Yes, I would support eliminating parking minimums, because people park somewhere in and everywhere, and if you don't keep that under control. You have people parking up on grasses, locking sidewalks, driveways, etc, and on the encouragement to dense development, especially along major transit lines, I would because it's very important that the passengers be able to transport and get their belongings and themselves and to the Next destination safe as possible. Thank you. Thank you. Applause.
Yeah, can you hear me now? Awesome. So I'll start with the last part of the question, which is density and development. A major part of my plan is a strategic master plan for each of the seven districts that will take the land use planning that's underway now, and layer that with a housing plan, layer that with the public transit plan and a safety plan, and planning for all the things that we need to have viable, thriving neighborhoods throughout the city. Each district should have a minimum one commercial corridor. We should have office parks to create that density. And the other purpose of office parks is so that if you are starting entrepreneur and you can't afford rent downtown, midtown, Corktown, you have a place in your district, in your neighborhood, where you could rent space that's affordable. So yes, I would definitely be pushing more density in developments, and be intentional about where those developments are. But as it relates to parking, yes, I would support reducing parking minimum. Parking minimums, not necessarily across the board. I think we have to look at parking minimums for each type of development which would be a part of the strategic planning process. That's why you have a planning process so you can look at the needs in each different area. There is no one across the board answer, but you would review each of those issues during the planning process, and so everybody would go into it understanding what the expectations are, thank you. Thank you.
Think we had Mr. Craig and then Mr. Hershey,
unless I read those backwards,
thank I'm gonna start talking about, we talk about density, and we talk about one, one of the biggest crisis in our city right now is affordable housing. We need 44,000 44,000 so we start making decisions, do we build a new park? Then maybe we should consider building affordable housing. I'm not saying we don't do the green space, not suggesting that, but I am suggesting that we build the affordable housing we incentivize developers and use that as a priority, because it's going to take us a long time to do that, but unless we do that, the homeless situation is going to continue to soar. You know, I think back at this recent tragedy involving the two children in the parking lot at the casino. Could that have been avoided? So this has to be a priority. And yes, the parking minimums, that's something I will certainly take a look at. Certainly I support and have continued to talk about the importance when you talk about small business development in the neighborhoods, but in order for us to do that, we have to cut the bureaucratic red tape. It's alive. It's not working out, and that's why I'm talking about my plan, which is a derivative of the ComStat process that I drove in the police department called City stat, I will be able to track from my office in real time, how many businesses are being developed. And we're going to push the bureau, okay, I'm stopping.
All right, you are exactly on the nose there. Mr. Hasheen,
definitely,
development is a big deal here in the city of Detroit. Certainly, parking is a serious issue. And here in the city of Detroit, one of the things that I want to just speak about, I don't want to repeat with some of the other candidates have shared, I agree with most of what was shared. However, we need to redesign our city. We need to produce more one way streets that will cut back or cut down on pedestrians and bike riders being injured. Many of our streets are very narrow. We it's concentrated with high traffic, and if we incorporate one way streets as relates to parking, we can go build a transit and it could be a free service provided by the city for people to park a distance away and still know that they can be transported to the location where they're going. So this will cut down on the density development. I want Detroit residents first to be able to participate in the development real estate, housing. I spent over 23 years in housing building concepts. So we learned how to build the shopping centers integrated with housing, etc, for better cost. And I want to make sure Detroit residents are included. Thank you.
As we know, these issues are all interrelated, and we could certainly talk for a long, long time, but it is a hot night out there, but at least on the stage here, it's little warm, but we are going to ask each question East Canada. One last question. You can incorporate any closing remarks that you'd like to share, but we'd really like to explore, is regional the role of the next mayor in regional and state leadership, because Detroit cannot fund all of its transportation needs on its own, especially if we're going to develop high quality Rapid Transit connecting across and between cities. So city transit investments need to be supplemented by increased regional and state investments in public transit. So will you commit to work collaboratively and aggressively for increased transit funding at the regional and state levels, and how will you build support for additional transit funding measures in the metro region and in Lansing? Tell us about your leadership in transit investments. We will start with Mr. Barlow, then Mr. Hasheaa and Mr. Perkins, and then everyone will have a chance.
I want to say thank you all for having me tonight, and thank you for all for all being here and all those watching as well. Thank you all for your questions, because I believe they came from the heart and came from a place that uses old school community organizing tactics. I heard some of the questions, so I appreciate the thought and the strategy in that. Let me say this every day that someone goes into the mayor's office, they have to bring the values and the experiences that allow them to make the decisions for you that you will want them to make. That means they have to have sat in your shoes or have been somewhere similar to what you have experienced. Why everybody was up in Mackinac, he here, huh? Hi on St antwern, we had a bus stop filled with several homeless individuals, several so when we talk about the bus drivers being on the front lines, and we talk about putting an advocate in the mayor's office. Understand this, I come from Joseph V Barlow, the founder of Moses. I come from advocacy. And so if you put me in office, not only do you have the strongest advocate to do, not only to conduct either regional or state relationships, and for that matter, to be honest with you, you got to go all the way to the White House. I'm the only one. And you can check the records who has rode the bus and could get to the White House. Thank you all for having me. Thank you.
Yeah, Mr. Hashim, and then Mr. Perkins. You know
bottom line,
when we're talking about how we're going to fix our problems, we're going to have to make sure that we understand it's a regional idea. Now it's not just the city, so we've got to extend an opportunity to the smaller municipals around Detroit and sit down and come up with a regional plan to bring in mass transit. Detroit is an international city, and in order to bring in jobs and opportunities, you must have mass transit today, so anything short of that, we're not going to be able to grow our city. We're not going to be able to bring in revenue into our city Treasury, and the whole region will suffer if one main industry, like the auto industry, goes down. So we have to diversify. We have to bring in those international companies, those other domestic companies, and so we need to focus on growing our revenue here in the city of Detroit. So I will reach out. I do have connections to the White House right now. I will go to DC, I will go to the state, and we will incorporate mass transit. I'll start with the airport. I'll take the q line to eight mile, and we'll go to the airport, running from Ann Arbor through the airport to downtown Detroit.
Thank you so much. Please.
Yeah, Mr. Perkins, followed by Mr. Der Hall and Mr. Craig.
Thank you. And this answer to this question, let's answer the question. The question is, how does this happen? It happens through leadership. And what we don't want to have is have any type of collaborative, have any type of collaboration in which we lose the identity of our city in the city of Detroit, and that's what it comes through leadership. Because oftentimes, as we've seen, when authorities are created, Detroiters lose power. And we don't want to do that, but what we have to remain focuses on the social justice, the the impact on it has on people's lives to be able to go from point A to point B in a reasonable amount of time, which is not in existence today. And there's no fault to the people who are there providing the service. We just have to do better as a city, to provide them the equipment, provide them the wages, the benefits and all of those things. So what you have is the collaboration and that you're going to work with these organizations. What we do enjoy right now is one point in time now we with Oakland, Macomb and Washington, people that I've represented in all of these different communities, powerful individuals who would work in the collaboration of building this particular idea of providing regional transit. We enjoy one that's not acrimonious. It's not as caustic and hateful as it has been over the years. So let's take this opportunity, use our leadership, use our position as being Detroiters and being Detroit as being the largest hub of public transportation, which is grossly underfunded, but we're going to find the funding through federal means and through legal means, by forcing it, even if we have to go to court, and that's what I'll do as your Mayor. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. I just want to say thank you to true and all the advocates in the room tonight, each Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, that you come down there for public comment, you have helped change and move the needle forward for transportation and transit here in the city of Detroit, and as your mayor, I will continue to partner with you to double D that. I'll continue to partner with you to improve service for our disabled residents, to raise driver's wages and to move this city forward. But we gotta have a broader vision, and what I vision for transit here in the city of Detroit is expansive regional transit and fast transit rail, fast rail. And I don't have to wait for those conversations to start, because I've already started talking to county executive hackle, County Executive culture and county executive Evans of how we come together in a collaborative effort and build on regional transit to make us a city that I know that we can be. And we are going to do that. We're going to find the funding. We talk about federal funding and collaboration, that's 5307 funding, for those who don't know that the city of Detroit receives here, we'll work to get more of that funding. And when it comes to state funding, I am the only candidate on this stage and in the race that can say they have served on the state level and the city level, I've served in the legislature. We'll use those relationships to deliver more dollars for infrastructure and to build regional transit here for our city. Detroit is a city that used to move people, and we've got to continue to grow and move people. Attract more talent, retain more talent, attract more business, and again, move this city for I'm looking forward to your vote on August the fifth. Thank you. Thank you, sir,
Mr. Craig, followed by Miss Simpson and Miss Jr Okay,
as your next mayor, what I bring to you is extensive executive leadership, also as a crisis manager throughout and all the police departments are LED, including Detroit, leading Detroit through a very difficult time during the bankruptcy. I understand and embrace collaborations. I've done it. I've demonstrated this is not about partisan politics. This is what what's best for Detroit. We know that the current mayor had a great relationship with Biden, President. Biden funding to help this city, some of the ARPA funds, for example, to help build the bus benches. My commitment, I will leverage my relationship with the White House. This is not about who is in that seat. It's not about me as your mayor. It really comes down to it's all about you. That can happen, but you have to have a leader who can collaborate get things done. Because this is not new for me. As the police chief in three different cities, I had to work with state, I had to work with federal, I had to work with local, city council, elected and non elected officials. But the only way I was successful because I understood the importance of those relationships and those collaborations. So as your next mayor, that's my commitment to you, Detroit, we are going to move the city forward. Thank you. Thank
you very much.
All right, Miss Simpson, followed by Miss Jenkins. You
hello again, I will
support building the transit funding through the state, the federal and the local facilities that they come on that gives the funding to the city. And with that being said, so that shows that we have been lacking funding in the city of Detroit. That's why we've been left out for so long. And with us being left out, it's time for us to rise and shine on all levels. And with me being the next mayor of the city of Detroit. I ran last time, I came close, very close before, and I would like to continue to offer the services that's lacking in the city of Detroit, and we can come up with other new ideas, like other candidates had said something about this, to sell taxes, to fix up the neighborhoods, off the ticket sales or something, put that in transportation, you know, because I feel like if you can't keep raising taxes on people to fund the city, you have to come up with new ideas. Okay? And again, my name is Annette Ellen Simpson, and I need your support. August 5, thank you independent.
Thank you all for hosting this forum tonight. My name is santiel Jenkins, and I'm asking for your support as mayor, because I want to be the mayor I will be the mayor that changes the culture around public transit in the city of Detroit, we have to stop treating public transit as if it's an afterthought that is only for people who cannot afford a car public transit for us to be a thriving world class city, we have to have world class public transit, and we should understand as a community that not only is it, transfer transportation for people who can't afford a car or insurance, is transportation. Transportation for people who cannot drive for multiple reasons. It's environmentally friendly, it's convenient and easy, because you can read, you can actually text on the bus and not put other people in danger. So we have to change the culture around public transit to start, and that starts with leadership. And yes, as it relates to regional cooperation, I'm a social worker. That's what we do. We build call coalitions to solve problems. For the past decade, I've been the CEO of the heat and warm fund, where I built the kind of coalitions that created a statewide water assistance program right here in the city of Detroit. And we're repairing plumbing in homes, and we're repairing roofs in homes, and I've gone to DC and worked on both sides of the aisle to restore funding and provided over $100 million in utility assistance for struggling families. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much to each and every one of our candidates. I appreciate it folks staying pretty timely and addressing a lot of very, very important issues. So another big hand for all of our candidates.
Thank you so much to our coalition partners, to Detroit people's platform, Detroit disability power at you, warriors on wheels. Moses, it's it's through working with so many wonderful advocates and activists from all across the city that we've been able to to elevate this issue to the extent that we have all of these excellent candidates talking about just how critical this is. So thank you to everyone. And I would would be remiss if I didn't invite everyone in the audience here to please get involved with some of these organizations. We can only do what we do with everyone getting involved. So
