No, I Good afternoon everyone. Welcome back to the expanded budget, Audit and Finance
standing committee
for the purposes of budget hearings. Mr. Clerk, will you please call the
roll Good afternoon. Council member Scott Benson, I've been tonight. Council member FRED DE Hall. The third present. Council member Letitia Johnson, present. Council member Gabrielle Santiago Romero,
Council Member Mary waters,
Council Member Angela Whitfield Calloway, Council Member Coleman Young the second Council Pro Tem James Tate. Council President, Mary Sheffield,
Madam President, there at the
corn. Thank you there being a corn. President, we are in session and we will proceed with the DIA Good. Good afternoon.
Hello. My name is Salvador salor pons, thank you so much. Council President, to have us here today to report on the work that the museum has been doing in the last year. I have with me dia team members on my right, Judy Docker, Deputy Director arts educational programs on my left, Elliot broom, Chief Operating Officer. On the back, I have Ian, who is the public affairs officer as well. I have with us, data Spratt, who is the Chief Financial Officer, and Tony Smith, who is the Vice President for Education and interpretation. With that, I'm going to ask Judy Docker to start a presentation.
Good afternoon, everyone. I'm excited to present to you some of the exhibitions that we have on view. And starting with Tiff Massey, Seven Mile and Livernois, this has been an incredible exhibition, bringing tons of people into the museum, and hopefully you've had a chance to come tiff Massey creates installations public art and wearable sculptures inspired by adornment. She trained as a metalsmith, but she scales for jewelry to what is the size of architecture, creating sculptures that celebrate Detroit's evolving neighborhoods and the history of West African and black American culture and style. The show takes its title from the neighborhood where tiff grew up and where she blends her practice with community kinship. Next slide painted with silk, which opened in December. This show explores an art form that girls in particular learned from the 1600s until 1830 all girls learned three skills, reading, writing and embroidery, and the latter skill underscored a girl's duties to her family and a well kept home. And although these are all the works that you see were hand stitched. They have a quality of paintings. They drew from biblical history as well as classical narratives. Incredible works, and most of the people who made them were in 910, 1112, years old. So incredible craftsmanship for such young hands. Next slide, we are actively working on a re installation of the African American collection. The DIA plans to reinstall its African American galleries and spaces immediately adjacent to the Rivera court, placing this really incredibly important collection at the center of the museum where everyone is sure to see it, the installation will look from the early 19th century until about 1970 and then when we reinstall our contemporary holdings, the other African American works will go into that part of the gallery. So it's going to be really exciting next slide. And then coming this fall, we are doing contemporary Anishinaabe art, a continuation. This exhibition will celebrate the enduring culture and creative achievements of approximately 60 US based Anishinaabe artists, and it demonstrates the continuation of Anishinaabe creativity. It's the first major Native American exhibition at the DIA in 30 years, and we'll have 100 works across media, including paintings, basketry, clothing, film, jewelry, sculpture and woodwork. It's been an incredible opportunity to learn about the works of these artists, many of whom are right here in our state.
Thank you. Judy. As you see, we have great exhibitions that we have are doing, and others that we are planning to do this year, very relevant to our community. So we're very excited to offer all these exhibitions for free for residents of Wake County as well as Oakland and Macomb. Now, I would like my colleague, Elio, Chief Operating Officer, to give us a little bit an update on the cultural district project, the plaza project that we're working on, and the underground parking structure.
Good afternoon to begin telling everyone a little bit about this. You might have heard about the this project last year during the presentation, we continue to try and move it forward, but it is now under the auspices of a nonprofit called the DCCA, which is the Detroit Cultural Center Association led by Elena Rao, who is the president of the DCCA, and it's, it's made up of the 12 partner organizations that you can see on on the screen or in front of you, and we are kind of right in the middle of all of the institutions that are a part of the new DCCA. This project began many years ago, I would say at least six years ago, seven years ago, actually, when we talked about transforming the front of the DIA into a plaza, a place where people could gather and we could begin to open the museum up from inside to outside, and then that quickly transformed into a much larger project, which is now the DCCA, which takes all 12 of the organizations, and it creates a landscape that would connect all organizations. We something that I learned throughout this process is that Detroit, we hold the distinction of having the largest educational and cultural campus in the country. I did not know that before we were working with some of the architects, and they said, you've got the largest in the country, where you have both Wayne State being the education and side of it, along with CCS, and then all of the cultural institutions were all nestled in one in one neighborhood, and which is why having the DCCA is so important, because if we can bring this project, you know, into into being, we will create a magnificent campus. They started doing this in Chicago, down by the Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum. Their work continues to this day, as they continue to connect them. But what we have is actually some something much larger with greater potential. Next slide, please. So in this slide, this is just an inspirational slide of how some of the transformation could look and how it could affect the district. So imagine if you are, if you are the viewer, you're standing kind of right at the edge of Farnsworth, and John R your back is to the Rackham building. You're looking north west toward the DIA that's the building in front of you. You can see the Maccabees building in the distance with that arch, but you can see that right now. That's Farnsworth Street, and that is a, that's a that's a street made for vehicular traffic, but the idea is that in some parts of the district, those streets could be transformed into dual purpose pathways. They would have bollards that would rise up, say, on weekends, so that pedestrians could move freely and walk in the streets, and then on weekdays, bollards could come down, and the and the streets would return to being used for vehicular traffic, and it would be those streets affected in that way would be Farnsworth to the south, Kirby to the north, on on both the east and west sides of of Woodward, as well as John R in the section bound between again, Kirby and Farnsworth Street. Again, it could be transformative, because it would open up these these spaces, and make them very pedestrian friendly in a way that they aren't today. Next slide, please.
And finally, last slide
just it's a bit illustrative of the current state of the underground garage, which is adjacent to the to the DIA you know that the garage was was closed to for use in 2011 and it hasn't been used, hasn't been used since then. So part of this project is, of course, to to rebuild the underground garage. We have been working very closely with Midtown Detroit and now the DCCA to work on fundraising for this. I'm not sure which of of the council members pose the question, but in the written questions, someone did ask about that, how we were doing. It's about, it's about a $35 million rebuild for that garage, yielding is about 250 parking spaces. And as I put in the response into the written question, we're about halfway there. We have a we have a grant that came from the state of Michigan. The DIA has has pledged funds, as well as many of the foundations have also pledged. But to that to that $35 million mark, we're halfway there at this point, so we hope that we will be able to bring the garage back online once we have funding in place, because that district could badly use the additional parking spaces. If I can add anecdotally, last week was spring break for a lot of schools and the museum our we saw our attendance spike, and along with our attendance spiking, met a shortage of parking. The parking lot was full every day, midday. And you know that leads to it's a good problem to have, but it also leads to a bit of frustration for for some visitors that come into the district. Thank you.
Thank you, Elliot, as Elliot appointed very well, this parking structure is crucial for the project to beautify and really make an amazing space in a cultural district that is predicated on the fact that we will use the John our law, the surface lot as a community space, as a green space. So we're hoping that in the next year we will be able to secure the funding to fix the underground parking structure. So I'm bringing this to your consideration. Obviously, I would like now to ask my colleague, Ian rap Nick, who is our public affairs officer, to give an update to the Council on the work that we have been doing with our millage in the last year. Ian, thank you.
You'll see this first slide shows the four categories of services that are benefits for residents of Detroit and Wayne County at large. Those fall into four categories, free general admission, a school program, a senior group program and community partnership programs. I'll go into a little more detail in the next slides about each of those categories, starting with free general admission, we're open six days a week, and residents in Wayne County get in the door for free as often as they wish. Once inside, there's all sorts of other benefits that can be taken advantage of live music, art making in the studio, art making in the galleries, puppet shows, lectures, etc. There's a lot of stuff going on, and some of it's captured in your folders. There's a quarterly calendar that runs through I believe, May with programs at the museum. Most of those are free with the free general admission. Moving on to the school program, K through 12 school groups have access to free transportation to the museum and a number of options for either a self guided visit or guided visits. There's a whole menu of curriculum related subjects that gallery professional gallery teachers at the museum will lead students through, through those experiences. There's also teacher professional development throughout the year that teachers can register for for and often get sketch credits that help them in their careers. There's also exhibition resources and lesson plans available online, so a teacher can prepare their students before the visit. They can follow up after the visit and keep the learning exercise going, keep the engagement going. And we had, actually, I have a stat here. What did we have in 2024 we had, I think it was 16,000 16,000 Detroit students alone in the in length, in the entirety of our our millage, from 2013 through the end of the year, there have been coming up on 300,000 Wayne County students visiting the museum on free field trips. There's also a senior program, which is free transportation for groups of seniors. If you have a senior group that has 25 or more people, you can get a free bus to the museum, and there's a few things that seniors can do at the museum. They can one schedule a visit at their convenience and request a guided tour, or just self guide on their own. We provide all of those senior groups with a voucher for a free coffee and cookie in our cafe as well as discount in our in our gift shop. Another thing we do with seniors is called melodies at the museum, which is a monthly live music program featuring a wide variety of Acts, from jazz to classical to Americana. And we bring in busses of folks to see those shows. And again, we provide them with the hospitality, and we provide them with some time after the show to explore the museum, go shop, just chat with friends before they catch a ride back to the community. Another thing we provide for seniors is called behind the scene, art talks, those are for folks who might not be able to make it to the museum or want to engage with art and culture in the convenience of their own community, at their library, at their senior center, dia docent will actually visit and provide a lecture on A number of topics. There's 20 different subjects that people can choose from, and we have a lot of repeat partners who invite us back on a monthly or BI monthly basis to give a different subject a look. And, you know, really engaging volunteers that talk to people and answer questions. And so those are really popular. Moving on to our partnership programs, this is a wide variety of things that we do with cities, townships, villages. We one big one that you might be familiar with is called Inside Out here on the screen, you'll see the list of 2025, partners in Wayne County this year. This is features a couple Detroit locations will be in in Palmer Park, as well as along the avenue of fashion and at the University of Detroit Mercy this year. And so that those will go up in May, and they'll remain on view through October into early November, sometimes. So we'll get a lot of use out of those. And communities really bring those to life by either inviting a DIA docent to come give a walking tour in the community, or we're happy to book transportation for groups to visit the museum to see the genuine works in the galleries. So look for those in your area this summer, and check it out. We do other community partnership programs, and there's a lot of them listed here. You might be familiar with concert of colors that is hosted on the properties of the DIA every year, and it's a huge, huge live music world world music event. We have smaller partnerships, like our annual Inside Out literary arts program, which culminates in a poetry reading in our galleries. Every year, we do all sorts of outreach in the community, like drop in art making at fairs and festivals. I know we were at Motor City Pride last year. We were at Detroit kite Fest on Belle Isle and the art fair, Bell Isle Art Fair. We were at jazz on the Ave Detroit people mover Family Fun Day. So dia studio staff will actually come to a community event with materials, all free for the public to make a project and take it home with them that day. Another program is partners in public art murals. You'll be seeing those coming to Wayne County this year. We're with the goal to do three murals throughout the county each year, and then we have a lot of miscellaneous partnerships with libraries that reach out to us for either transportation or or lectures at their facilities, and we're open to requests. So if you know somebody interested in working with the DIA, send them our way. But we also have a couple community exhibitions. I wanted to highlight one is our 17th annual community group art exhibition, which is our art studio, working with social services agencies throughout the Tri County area and creating really meaningful multi visit experiences with groups that that culminates in this annual show in December, where people proudly kind of show off their their creations and share the emotions behind them. It's really always a heart touching experience to hear, to hear folks involved in this program talk about their art and a few of the groups we work with on a regular basis as John D Dingell VA Medical Center mariners in we work with Hann center, access, Hope House and Vista Maria. And then we have another exhibition that you may be familiar with that's filled with art right community members, called ofrendas, celebrating El Dia de Muertos. Every year, we open up a call for artists to submit proposals for a friend to alter, which is an altar dedicated to a deceased loved one that is often filled with with things that remind us or remind that person of either that person's favorite food or objects that relate to that person's life. And so this is another kind of tear jerker, but it's a very popular exhibition that moves a lot of people, and we get a lot of school groups coming through when this is open, who are really excited to see it every year. So it's one of our our more popular exhibitions every year. Then two more community exhibitions. These are student art exhibitions. We're coming up real soon on our 88th annual dpscd student art exhibition that opens in April. And we also are in, I believe, the fourth year of our Wayne County high school art exhibition. So it's got a narrower focus in terms of high school art only, but it extends to the whole of Wayne County, and that will open up in the fall at the museum, and following it's it's viewing at the museum, that exhibition will actually move to the Guardian building for an extended showing of some of the Two dimensional works of Wayne County High School artists.
And then lastly, I just wanted to highlight our engagement with youth, since that's often a question that is risen by this group, we continue to have a paid internship program. You see photographed our latest cohort from last summer. And they're they're paid interns. They work part time throughout the whole summer in a number of different departments across the museum. So these are aspiring professionals, some of them museum professionals. Others, you know, they're getting experience in development. They're getting experience in administrative work as well as creative fields. So there's a wide range of individuals participating there. And then we have our team Arts Council, who are also paid staff at the museum, and help organize different youth engagement events throughout the year and and do a lot of work with museum staff, and kind of learn the trade a little bit as they're also paid staff, and that concludes my portion. If you have any questions for me, you can there's my contact there or my cards in the folders there. I'm happy to talk more. Thank
you so much, Ian and for the presentation and Council President, we're open for any questions of the council in my hand
for us. Thank you so much for the presentation, and we will start with questions council member Young.
Thank you so much. Excellent presentation. I really liked it. I do have one question that I like to ask, and I just want to know, is Mr. And Vincent's Whitaker's collection. Are they going to be on exhibit, American exhibit?
That's a great question. We We collaborate with the Whitakers and admire their great tastes and amazing collection, and I believe that when we organize the exhibition Detroit collects, that we're part of the exhibition, if memory serves. And I look forward to other opportunities in the future. Okay,
that sounds about as close to a yes as I go to get I just won't let you know I have an enthusiastic I have an enthusiastic supporter of Mister Whitaker and his art being displayed at the DIA Other than that, I have no questions. Exit presentation. Thank you so much. Look forward to supporting
you. Thank you so much. Member, young pro tem Tate, thank
you, Madam President. No questions at this time, just thank you for thank you for the work that you've done and your stewardship of the funds that have been provided. Thank you. Thank you. Members.
So much. Proto council member Johnson, thank
you, Madam President, and good afternoon. Thank you for the presentation. The one thing that I'm curious of because I've never known of an underground parking structure. Where exactly is it, within the cultural center area. So
the parking structure is located just to the south of of the museum. So it is literally underneath Farnsworth Street and the front the one of the lawns of the of the DIA we call it the South Lawn. So imagine the southern most lawn of the museum bordering Woodward there's actually a currently, it's a 303 50 space parking lot that is two levels. It has the top level, top level of parking, which is the supported slab, and then the basement level, which is the second level.
Okay, thank you. And do you have a sense of where the additional half of the funding is coming from to do the rehab
at this time? We do not, however, there's, there is a small team of us that are comprised of of Dia staff members Midtown, Detroit and now DC. DC, a staff members that we continue to go out and speak to foundations. We also speak to some of the leadership in the state of Michigan, and we just continue to to try and fundraise to reach the second half. Okay,
all right. Thank you, my pleasure. Thank you, Madam President, thank you. Member Johnson, member waters,
thank you, Madam President, good afternoon.
I I want to get just a little caddy for now. Um, one night I was there was an event at the DIA. Of course, it's beautiful. You guys maintain it extremely well. So I want to thank you for that. Went to an event at the DIA walks across from the parking lot to go in that door. Security says you cannot come in this door. So I sit there for a minute and I says, Well, I can show you my ID or whatever. So the then the mayor's security walks up, he lets him write in, and he says, well, the American come in his door, but you cannot. So I just want to know if you consider the city council members your partners as well, because that's not the way I was treated, and I didn't, I don't think it's right, and that's for any mayor
correct you're and you're absolutely right. And on behalf of everybody else that works at the DIA I apologize, because that's not the way you should have been treated as a city council member. And quite frankly, it's not the way that any visitor should have been treated whether they held, held a title or not to be turned away in that manner, isn't it's unacceptable. If I can have an opportunity, maybe at another time, to find out more about when you came to the museum, I would appreciate that
it was bitterly cold too, so I was extra angry.
I can imagine. So, you
know, I'm sorry about that. Truly, I
just had to get it out.
I'm glad, I'm glad you did it, as embarrassing as it is to hear that, I'm I'm glad you made us aware of it.
Okay, all right, maybe you can educate them of something I don't know. I'm hopeful
that's that I and others on my team can Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.
Yeah. So my question, and my first question, is, the DIA has a history of answering into agreements such as the Grand Bargain agreement in 2014 only to modify or extinguish them later, as seeming in 2016 so how does the DIA ensure long term accountability and its financial commitments to the City of Detroit?
I'm not familiar with what you referenced in terms of canceling that agreement, but I can say, you know, we certainly honor our agreements, and as Ian described, the commitment that we have to the to wayne county and the city of Detroit and its residents, we work to make sure that we're fulfilling that all of our obligations and beyond that, that
goes for the same for the pensions and so forth. Yes,
as part of the Grand Bargain, We fundraised for that, and we have met all of those commitments that we made at that time. Okay, great.
I'm supposed to ask the questions,
um,
what about your efforts to have in place, to recruit Detroit Public School students and residents for museum memberships. I mean, do have you have anything in place, any marketing in place, or whatever to because it's such a beautiful place. I mean, I want these students in particular to become members and and be able to come there and enjoy so do you have anything in place to help recruit such members?
To recruit members for our membership for the School of Arts, our current membership is over. Is over 15,000 members now, and many of them are from Wayne County. So we offer extra benefits
for those Wayne County or Detroit.
I don't know exactly how many members we have from the city of Detroit, but I can look into the numbers
like to know absolutely yes, maybe that's something we can do to encourage them as well. Absolutely. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Madam President, thank you. Member waters, member durha.
Thank you and good afternoon to you all. I really don't have any questions. Besides talking about the connection through to our children, we hear you talk about K through 12, what are some of the issues not mentioned due to transportation or rising costs in transportation and getting our students back and forth to the museum?
Sure, certainly that is a concern that the rising cost in transportation. We're also looking at the availability of substitute teachers when students are leaving the classroom, and in addition to that, they are still in the process of making up for lost time during COVID So some some principals are a little bit more reluctant to release their students for field trips, but we are working on all of that. And certainly, as you heard in Ian's report, we have a very robust student field trip program. So we're the students are getting there, but we're still working to get more to come out. And
as a follow up question, do you guys have enough funding to be able to do that?
Yes, okay, we do have the funding, and we pay for transportation. We cover all the costs. So we're very proud to do that as a way to shovel Our gratefulness to Wayne County residents who support the museum through the millage. Okay?
And just a follow up, obviously, I graduated from a performing arts high school with a lot of artists in that school, DSA. How many of those pieces are displayed from our some of our public school students? I know we've seen partnerships around the city with different programs. Can we talk more about how they're displayed and engaged in having some of their pieces throughout the DIA
so we have two exhibitions with the students. We had the DPS CD exhibition that we will be opening in April, and we also have the high school Wayne County exhibition that will open in June. So these are opportunities for students to show their art at the DIA more permanently, we have students from the city of Detroit who have become national, international, recognized artists like Mario Moore or chief Massey that are right now being a prominent display at the DIA.
Well, I appreciate some of the work there. One of my team members, who is a photographer by Trey, works on some of those projects there, Mr. Justin Milhouse, who is an artist himself. And so there's great work that you guys do there, and I appreciate everything you're doing, and please keep up the good work. Thank you.
Thank you council member Benson. All right, thank
you very much, and thank you all for being here today, and thank you for this great presentation, and update on how the DIA is doing, looking at one of the questions from LPD number 11, when it talks about the endowment, can you just talk about the status of the endowment? How much is there? You've increased your goal almost dia doubling the original goal for the endowment raise. How was that going? And then how? And I really want to educate myself and the public as well as my colleagues, about how important having a guaranteed revenue stream is to the health of our museums, especially since we're trying to do something similar with both the Charles H Wright as well as the historic museums.
Thank you for that question. So our operating endowment, unrestricted operating endowment, we were at 444 million at the end of December. So we've made tremendous progress with the growth of our endowment, both through fund continued fundraising, and through being able to continue to invest those funds and allow them to grow. So we are, you know, working towards a very high goal of being able to financially sustain us with providing enough operating support annually from that endowment to, you know, to provide all the programming that we're talking about today. And so that is a top priority for us. It's a, you know, we've come a long way. We also have a lot of work to do, to to be honest. You know, in growing the endowment to really make sure that it's at a level that will generate enough income to to support our needs in the future.
Okay? And then the endowment is any of that raised through the millage?
No, no, no. Millage funding supports the endowment. So with the millage funding that allows us to support our operations currently, so that we can focus on fundraising, but absolutely no millage funding is supporting the endowment. All right, thank you. And
that would be the same restriction that goes for Charles H Wright as well as the historic Museum. But it's just really important that you are able to focus on operations, and then focus your attentions on raising money without having to worry about the roof falling on top of your head, but actually expanding programming really making this a world class institution. So thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you.
Member Benson, member Calloway.
Thank you so much, Madam Chair and good afternoon. Everyone. Love the DIA. Thank you for being so kind to our residents, our senior citizens. We brought about four groups out there over the summer, and they loved it. I had to get them back on the bus. I'm like, we gotta leave. We gotta leave. And it was amazing. Some some of them had not been there before, and it was just overwhelming for some of them. A couple of them just had to sit down just to take it in. And I just want to thank you for that. I saw you all. I can't remember where I saw you. We started talking about the TIFF Massey exhibit, and I think it was you sir who told me that it had broken records in terms of attendance. Can you talk a little bit about that particular exhibit breaking records in terms of visitors?
Absolutely, the exhibition
had two main goals. One, really bring to the forefront the great talent that the city of Detroit has with the work of Chief Massey, make sure the people in the city knew, but not only the people in the city, but nationally and internationally. And I think we met that goal. Clearly. The second goal was to bring the community in the museum. We wanted the community, we wanted the schools to see and be proud of Chief masses work so they connect with it. And I have to say that it's been a great success for two reasons. One, because the connection has been amazing, especially at the emotional level. We see many visitors come see the exhibition, identify or recognize themselves with the art, and even start crying. It's very emotional. And two, we have already almost 200,000 visits for this exhibition, which is a total record for us, we're very close to 200,000 and I think this was a huge surprise for us, because we thought that it will be 60, 70,000 but it's really been very, very successful. It's just not the general visitation during the week, but sometimes we organized special programs around the exhibition, and we have seen in one evening, and my colleagues are here. We had over 1500 people come to an event surprising our operations team. And I said, you know is it's a good problem to have when you are have to manage success. And it's been just phenomenal. One point of great proud for pride for us has been the fact that the governor came last week to visit the exhibition with the artists. So that is a great key performance indicator of the show,
and thank you. I was at one of those events. It was standing room only. We were backed up against the wall. I didn't mind, because the energy was so wonderful there. We had an opportunity to interact with her. We also this body gave her an award, and she was so humbled by it, because she grew up in the area. So are we thinking about extending it? Because I know it was only going to be there for one year, from May 2024, to may 2025, is there any plans to extend it, or maybe not have it at the scale that it's at, because it takes up that like not an entire floor, but an entire space on is it the second floor that it's on?
Yes. Is this the first is the first floor? Okay, first floor. So the exhibitions that we organize in the museum are generally four to six months, but with teeth, because it was so important, we opened the exhibition and extended exhibition The day of the opening to a year. So it's been up. It will be up for a year, and after the exhibition closes, that space will be closed to do the reinstallation of our contemporary and modern collection. So we have plans to redo this space, and therefore we will have to close the exhibition. I want to also say that with the help of my colleague, Judy thoker, we're going to acquire one of the pieces for the collection. So I'm very, very excited about about it. I don't know you would like to add anything about the dismay show,
just to echo Salvador, the show has been a very emotional one for people who are in there. I often take the elevator that serves that exhibition. And when I see people getting on the elevator from the second floor where the show is, I will say, you know, is this your first visit? Or what did you think of the show? And often people say, Oh, I've been here two or three times. I'm bringing my friends so that that is tremendous success to see. There were some kids there the other day. I was talking to them, and it happened that these two little girls were wearing the bar arts and hair ties that are in the exhibition, and they were so thrilled to see that, and to see themselves, as Salvador said, right there on the wall, and they were already wanting to come back. So I think that's a that's a tremendous success, and to some of the questions before about how youth are engaging with the museum, generally, to see these girls excited about this work and to really connect with it, and hopefully maybe one day, to see themselves as artists, or At least seeing the museum as a place where they can come with regularity and see themselves is what we're here
for. Thank you through the chair amazing exhibit. I will definitely come back before it's no longer there, but thank god you guys are going to keep one piece of it, and that's amazing. Thank you for the Inside Out program that's coming to the west side. We're excited about it. I was listening to some folks in Palmer Park talking about it coming to Palmer park, so we're really excited, and particularly on the avenue fashion. We have about three galleries, so it's just going to compliment what's already there, the Inside Out program. Lastly, I'm looking at the youth engagement and I don't see any African American young men. Not one on this page. It's not number, but it says youth engagement. Is it the vlog, paid internship program, and then the teen Arts Council. It's always concerning. We have some amazing young African American men who are outstanding in the arts, as my colleague, member Hall alluded to earlier, are they, they're absent from the picture, or they just absent from the paid program and the council,
I think, for this, in this cohort, we only have two men in the photo. I mean, we, but we, we recruit for our internship program, also men. So African American men, so we, so it's, it's something that we do. So, okay, two Caucasian men, that's what I'm two Caucasian men, yes and American men, and not in this cohort, we were only two. No.
Okay, so through the chair, do you? I'm going to ask that we put these two. I don't know if we really need to put them in Executive Session. I'm just trying to figure out, how can we support you, so not Executive Session. How can we support you? To make sure that this is representative of the entire community, and all girls on the team, all kind of, I guess we have mostly white girls, white young ladies on the team's Art Council, maybe one Muslim
or, sorry, it's a much more diverse group than that. It's a larger group than what is shown here.
So are through the chair? Are there African Americans on the teen Arts Council? Yes, I like how many? What is the number of the council? We
can give you the breakdown if you're
interested. Okay, because we have Loyola High School, all young men, 100% college entrance rate. We have Jesuit school young men. There's we have Renaissance, we have DSA artists all over the city. And I just like these programs to be more representative of our entire community. And if you need help with you know, recruiting or spreading the word about the programs. We can certainly do that in our in our districts and at our high schools, in our middle schools. So if you need help, you know, I'll reach out to you, like I always do, but I'm just interested in this Arts Council because I have a youth and Civic Engagement task forces comprised of comprised of youth and adults, but thank you for all the work that you're doing. I'll reach out to to you later, but looking forward to the Inside Out program coming to district two. Thank you. Thank you very much.
And council person Callaway, if I can just also say you offered any help that we could get to motivate and inspire young African American men to not volunteer, but to to apply to become a part of either of those two programs. That would be wonderful, yeah, because we want, we want there to be diversity. We want, we want both the paid intern internship program as well as the Art Council to be representative of the city in which these two entities exist, so yes, please any any help we could get. Because in the past there have, there have been young African American men that were have been part of the internship, in particular because I took a couple of them out to lunch at the end of their of their cohort. But we can always use more help in attracting more African American young men and women to the both program
and through the chair to through the chair to you. I was at, I think at Saks or Nordstroms over the weekend, and the, I think Somerset and the artists when you're going up the Elevate escalator. Was a student, a graduate of DSA, African American young man. He did the murals. Oh, Phil Simpson, no, I don't know if it's Phil Simpson. I'm not sure. I think his first name is Tony. Somebody's going to text me, somebody who's listening if you know who I'm talking about. I don't think his name was Phil, but he graduated from DSA right around 2010 but his mural, when you're going up the escalator, it was either in Nordstrom or Saks Fifth Avenue, okay, in Somerset. And I saw his name, I just can't remember it right now. But before you leave, hopefully somebody will text me and tell me what it is. And then also, lastly, Elizabeth Catlett, her exhibit is at the National Art Gallery in DC. I'll email you about that exhibit. If we can get that here, it will be amazing while you're laughing. We can get that exhibit. Sculptor, revolutionary black artist, yeah, you love
to have it. I mean, we definitely love to have it and you know about her, sir very well, because they requested we have a fantastic Elizabeth cutlet in our collection, and we didn't land it because our visitors want to see it when they come to the DIA so we are committed to showing this piece to our own audiences. It's just not that easy to bring an exhibition of Dia caliber. Immediately to the museum. I'd love to have an Elizabeth cutlet exhibition. I love to
if we can just through the Chair, if we can get one of those sculptures Mahalia Jackson or Angela Davis. But I think Mr. Whitaker, through the Chair has one of her pieces, if I'm not mistaken, because I told him how ecstatic I was when I saw them. But there they have one. It's called the woman looking up, and it's there, and it's on loan from the cock the cockroach family. I think I was telling mister Whitaker is from there, from their personal collection. But if we can get her one of her pieces, it would be amazing. Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and thank you sir. And I reach out to you later, and I'll help you recruit some folks. Absolutely. Thank you, Madam
Chair, thank you so much. Member Callaway, and most of my questions have been asked. I do just want to get clarity on the amount of positions currently at the museum, and if you have a percentage percentage roughly on how many of those are Detroiters.
Listen there. I think we are preparing a written answer for that question that was sent to us a couple of days ago, so we will provide that answer. I mean, I think right now, our staff is around 449, but I don't have out of the tip of my fingers the number of people living in in Detroit,
I think I have it in front of me. It's 186 Detroit residents out of, out of about 400 positions,
okay? And then lastly,
the foundation for Detroit's future. I know, I think that was mentioned just trying to get clarity, all of the payments that were obligated under the agreement to the pensions have been paid. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Okay. And is the foundation for Detroit future still active in any way
it is? It's operated through the Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan, and so they administer the annual payments to the city of Detroit through through that fund. What annual payments? So I believe there's contributions that are being made annually to the fund from the pensioners, or to for what, to the fund itself, from the foundation for Detroit's future. I'm
sorry. So there's
annual payments from the Community Foundation. going to that fund to the
city, I believe, is, is managing that fund through the foundation for Detroit's future that was set up.
Um, 13th check and some of the needs with retirees. Has there been any discussion from the foundation to kind of reconsider any additional support for retirees through the I mean, I know originally
there was an agreement made that has been met, but has any additional conversations taken place? I couldn't speak on behalf of the of the foundation for Detroit's future in terms of the dias commitments we have made those, and I know that there's ongoing communication between the
foundation for Detroit's future and the city related to the to the fund. Okay? And just so that I'm clear, you said who was making contributions
directly to the city, the Community Foundation or the Detroit Future Fund. It is the Detroit foundation
for the future. So it's a separate entity from the Community Foundation.
Okay, and don't do Are you familiar with this allocation? Mr. Corley, Madam President, somewhat. I can research it more. You know for you, but you know, as they indicated, they've made their commitment to
the general Retirement System, police and fire retirement system. We can look into more for you, okay, but it sounds like
there's still an allocation that's coming from the foundation. And I'm just was curious about what that is, sure, and I don't want to misspeak on their
behalf, but because that's handled through the foundation for Detroit's future in the city, all right? And then lastly, just wanted to get clarity on there was a reference to teacher professional development. Is that taking place as one of your commitments that you have to set aside $550,000
and then what was listed here is teacher professional development. Just wanted to hear a little bit more about that. Yeah, there's a schedule of public events throughout the year that are open to Tri County educators. And then we also work on private events with different schools or districts depending on their needs to create those events. And yeah, those are part of our community partnership, Target, our goal commitment, and we provide for some of those organized through the through the district level. We've We've started even providing hospitality and substitute teacher reimbursement to reimbursement to encourage those, those teachers, to come down and and work with us. And yeah. I mean, they're they're online when available. You can find them@dia.org and even register to or send a teacher there to register for some of those upcoming events. I'm trying to think, if I have an upcoming one listed here that I could tell you about, we do things. Some of them are more targeted towards heritage months and focus on those subjects others. Other things we do periodically throughout the year are like refresh, restore, revitalize, where we invite teachers down to the museum for yoga experience and kind of some personal care that's really important for educators. Let me see, I don't I can get you a list of upcoming teacher professional development
events coming up. I don't think I have those handy. No worries that the that's some of the questions that we have that we'll submit, and I'll, just lastly, stay. I think marketing is a big thing. I know the senior events that you all do, the bus transportation, we are actively trying to encourage our seniors to get there. A lot of them don't know about it, so I have to go and recruit 20 of them to go. But I think there's a way to directly, you know, advertise and market them a little bit better, because they have no idea that it exists, and they are very excited to hear about it once I tell them, but there's no materials, no marketing for us to really or for me, or whoever's interested, to really promote it. So more direct marketing, I think, will be very helpful when
it comes to some of the senior things that you all do as it relates to the bus transportation
that you provide.
We'll take notes with that. Okay, thank you. All right, if there are no additional questions that
will conclude your budget hearing, you had something, member, I have a question.
Have a motion. Go right ahead. I
want to make a motion with the entire board of ethics budget in Executive Session.
Okay, Hearing no objections, that action will be taken. This is not a motion. Man, may I make a comment? Yes, it's not a motion. Okay, okay. The artist name, which I knew I was going to get, is Tony wigland, I'm probably not pronouncing it, but it's W, H L, G N, he's an East Side artist graduated from DSA, so his mural is in the Somerset Neiman Marcus when you're going up the escalator. So it's Tony, I guess. Wigland, okay, W, H,
L, G n, okay. All right, thank you.
Oh, they were shouting, pronounces, okay. Okay, yes. Member durha, thank you. Like to make a motion also to put, I know member young just put the entire board of ethics, but just specifically, the first is to add two part
time staff for 85 or
$86,000 that's my first motion.
Okay, this is for the board of ethics, correct,
okay, all right. Hearing no objections, that action will be taken. Thank you. My next one is also a
recurring 95,000 for the learning management system.
That is my motion. All right, Hearing no objections that action will be vacant. Thank you and member young, did you still want to keep the whole budget in Executive Session? Uh, board of Eddie, yeah, yeah, okay. All right. All right. Thank you all so much
for being here.
All right, we will go to our public comment, And we will proceed with Our first caller. Applause,
Madam President, the first online caller is, we see you.
We see you. Good afternoon,
good afternoon. And through the chair, maybe heard Yes, you can Oh, I would have loved to have asked questions of Mr. Teeter, especially about the independent counsel, I do believe they need to have an independent counsel with the ethics ordinance. They don't need to have an intertwined with Conrad mallet and nor mister Whitaker, who seems to be on Mr. Mallet side and not on the people side,
complaints outside of the jurisdiction.
They go to Wayne County, and I'm wondering if they're about you, and do they do they still rule on it. You talked about loopholes in the city charter. I want to talk about the loophole that you're creating for the land bank with the MOU it creates a loophole to get around the charter. I think that the ethic Board needs more members. I don't know what the EPA you is, but they mentioned that several times. I don't know what that was, in reference to miss Romero wants to add 1,000,000.4 I think Mr. Councilman der Hall pump bumped it up to for parity with the mayor's office. I don't think you understand that these are city funds and these this that this is pork that you're just adding to the budget when we have things that we need to fund. I've asked Mr. Ramirez about low income housing several times. How many units do we have? How long would it take us to bring up, to bring them online if they need, if they can't be brought online right away? We have issues in the city, and it's a crisis, and this body does not seem to understand that we're in a crisis, a homeless crisis, and so we need to work diligently toward resolution to that. And one of the things would be to have a moratorium on any more foreclosures until we can get this
homeless crisis at hand. Thank you. Okay, thank you. The next caller
is William M Davis,
good afternoon. Can I be heard? Yes, you can. Okay, I'd like to start off with the board of ethics. I believe they should have their own outside counsel, just like I think the board of police commissioners should have their own outside counsel, because I think it's questionable when the city is representing both sides. Also, as relates to city council division, I am amazed that the city council does is not more aggressive in doing more like what they used to do, because it appears as if the mayor's department of, Department of Neighborhood, Department of neighborhoods, they doing a lot of the stuff the city council should be actively doing, like they are eclipsing your power and your your authority. And the last is dia Lord. Lord, Lord. You know, as a city Detroit retiree, I voted against the Grand Bargain, but some people voted for the grand bargain because the DIA said there's going to contribute three $50 million towards our pension. But they didn't. They got a big discount, you know, they wouldn't give me no discount, but they gave them a big discount. Said, Three $50 million they end up, you know, contributing like 194 million you know, you know, the DIA art was worth estimate back then anywhere from eight to ten billion so the city Detroit got robbed, as being robbed every single month, because, you know, the city was able to take control of our art for pennies on $1 and, you know, and that does not bother y'all, but It bothers me, and it bothers a lot of city Detroit long term residents. It bothers a lot of city workers. It bothers a lot of retirees. You know, you know, the city Detroit does not try to
regain at you know, control of its assets. This is terrible. Thank you.
All right. Thank you. Mr. Davis, the next caller is
Betty a Varner,
Miss barn, or good afternoon. Good afternoon to all within the sound of my voice, Betty a Byron, the president of DeSoto Ellsworth black Association, advocating for seniors and people with disabilities, I'm asking the council to please consider uh monies for the Detroit home Accessibility Program, also for the senior disabled accessibility home repair program, including the walk In showers, asking for monies for the funding for associations and black clubs to assist them with their neighborhood park projects. If our organization has bought land and created a park in their community, we need help. So we want the same type of love that is being given to the city parks we need to help to improve and beautify our neighborhoods. Monies for a program to help associations and block clubs for their community projects, any projects that that they are doing. We have black clubs, and we have associations that have proven that they can do the projects, they can make a difference in their neighborhoods, and we need funding, so we're asking the council to please consider monies to help the organizations continue to be successful. Also allow monies to help black clubs and associations who aren't 501 C threes to become a 501 c3 and monies to help them pay their fees that's required. Also allow monies to help the black clubs and associations with their corridors that's in their area, help them with monies
to improve the corridors. Thank you for this time. Thank you,
Madam President, the next caller
is torpedo.
All right, good afternoon. Ain't nothing good about this afternoon. Now I'm gonna tell you, Imma give you some Michigan history. A long time ago, Bethan Whitmer was gonna run for Attorney General of the State of Michigan, until somebody stepped in and told her, don't you run, let Dana run, and we gonna make you Governor. Now, Gretchen Whitmer got Lieutenant garland Gilchrist as her lieutenant governor. Now he's the same one that raised the issue about elections here in Detroit, and he wanted to recount some precincts here in Detroit now, Imma, switch it up. Mario Willis, convicted felon,
Kim worthy prosecutor.
Mario didn't do it. Now, I didn't talk to miss Willis. She didn't I talked to her last night. Mario is in jail for something he didn't do when he gets out of jail, because he's getting out. Y'all give him his money soon as he gets out. Now, we got this issue with David Bell down there on the fourth floor, and it's Conrad mallet, character, Conrad mallet and Dante Goss is in cahoots. Dante Goss deputy assistant Corporation Counsel for the city, represents the Detroit board of police commissioners. Nina wants what she wants now, comrade and Dante got in my way. This David Bill character, and it's foster down on the fourth floor, and got in my way. And number on the second floor, number one is Janice Winfield, absentee ballot fraud here in the city. Now, I'm not playing with y'all, I'm a serious dude.
Take
the tag off Mimi's mama.
The next caller is Tahira Ahmad.
All right. Good afternoon.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. Up. I like what the DIA is somewhat doing, but they look like they were scared. So y'all scaring them. You don't think they doing the right a good job. Well, they need to have, maybe a seniors art program. I know that youth are most important, but so are the seniors. You know, we need to cover everybody brother Benny White, who did the mouse green mural. And it's wonderful that Helen Moore's son, Mario Moore, is being given a place within the DIA but I'd like to see more senior art. Seniors encouraged, and we ain't got much to do. You want to keep me off of here. Let me do some of my art. I'm a crochet artist and and I do all other kinds of art. I probably could do the arts instead of getting in yours case, all the time. You do need us to stay on you. We don't mean to be mean, but somebody's gotta do it. And we're older, and we know what the city, the history of the city, also the board of ethics. We need the board of ethics to be independent. We already see that some of the people on Mr. Young told me he wouldn't give me repairs in my house because of what I said. Well, that's a violation of my freedom of speech, and I don't think the board of ethics is going to come up against him, because it seems like some kind of quier Pro Quo here, and then, uh, no, no, um, no more foreclosures. We need a moratorium. And the Coalition for Property Tax Justice have the colleague who are moratorium right now permanently until we get everything straightened out with housing, the city council and the mayor's administration has caused foreclosures and homelessness. This is a
health and a life threatening event,
right? Thank you. The next caller is Marguerite, Scarlet Maddox. Miss Maddox.
Yes, the afternoon
i
i would like to make
a suggestion,
because some people,
some people may not know what the board
we need to figure out as it's need
to figure out a way to educate
with the digital Institute
of forgot to make this one group,
And that is the
disability power band ability group.
And I
The dance ability group.
Mr.
Duha,
and Mr. Duha
about
about the disability
disability
power book,
I'm done. Thank you.
Thank you. Yes council member Young, thank you. I just want to respond to Mister Mayor real quickly. I we've seen the beginning to this pattern when it repeats itself every time, and I appreciate you. But I just want to remind you again that we provided $21,000 to your office, $15,000 from HRD, and then it was six, 6000 from the Community Health Corps, and I actually got an email from you confirming that this is actually true. So I appreciate you. It's good to hear from you again. I look forward to working with you on this in the future, but we have responded to you in your office, and had responded to you and what you asked us for in
his office, and if you have any other issues, we definitely
would like to sit down and work with you. Thank you, Madam President,
okay, thank you.
The next caller is Rhonda Adams,
all right. Good afternoon.
Good afternoon. I wanted to say that this, both of these, the ethic department, yes, need to be independent, of course. But we also looking at this grand bargain from the DEI, I really feel like all of this funding that they're getting 400 and something million US, it's not tying into our community. It's really not tying into our community. And then there should not be a decision where they have an option to have a bargain on our retirees funding. That's a billion dollars. It needs to go to Executive Session, I do believe, because it's necessary, right to dig deeper into their budget. A lot of this is syndication, and a lot of it needs to be expressed to the community as well how we are being, you know, disenfranchised in our own region and everything is not Wayne County. We need to make them focus on our Pacific priorities. I heard council member Johnson speak to the underground, you know, entry and for the garages, we need underground entries for Fallout Shelter, for emergency preparedness.
We have no emphasis on preparing.
Really honestly,
Paris, does she unmute herself? She's she's still on, madam president,
okay, we lost you. I'm sure for phone cut,
I still show her listed as listed in the queue. Madam
President, okay, are you still there? Yep, we can hear you. Okay, yeah, so if you could, you know, really need to deep, dig more deeper in the DEI budget. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Madam
President, the last caller for public comment is Cindy dia.
All right. Cindy DIAR, good afternoon.
Madam President, I show Cindy dia as muted. I can ask her to unmute, but I cannot unmute her myself. Yeah, wait, wait, wait,
wait, wait, give me the unmute sign again. God damn it. We can
hear you. Cindy, you can, you can. We can hear you. Yes, we can. Okay, good, because I tried to unmute, but then it disappeared real fast. Okay, I just like to see you put the transcript that you can get from zoom onto something that would say Detroit. You know how you have New York Daily. You can have the Detroit daily political and then have these meetings. Use the Zoom transcript on official transcript, put it up on the website, let it open up, so people can put their their public comments up there, where they can see each other, see each other's public comment and and even open the chat. So if they want to connect to certain people on the on the chat, that they can so we can start working together instead of just complaining. So I'd like to see that, and the idea that we don't get to ask any questions. And frankly, when I listen to their testimony, I got stuff that you might want to hear before you vote, and you're voting, and then you're asking for public comment, and it seems like we should have a chance to make our public comment after we hear them, before you take the vote, you know. And they can, we can listen to your comments too, but before you make the vote. Now I I'd like to see that it's a change, and I'd also like to see us have approval voting, where you can vote for as many as you want, and you're not limited to one person. When you got 10 or 11 people running this way, gives the voter the strategy, and it's much better than ranked choice, which everybody promotes. Ranked choice is not approval is better. It's election science.org. I'm running for City Clerk. I want my First Amendment rights mr. Benson, and my number is 31341451813134145181,
okay, all right, that will conclude all of our public comments for our afternoon session, and we will adjourn understanding we do have a 5pm public hearing in the Irma Henderson
auditorium. You had something Yes. Member Callaway,
okay, before you
I'm Michael Madam Chair. I move that we put into executive session the reuse of the $9 million in ARPA funding to be split evenly between the nine city council members for projects as each city council member deems fit. And this is the $9 million that was mentioned by Tanya student Meyer and Jay rising on last week,
I also moved in that same
motion. Madam Chair, a part of it was a part of it that each council member list the projects to be funded and the amounts of funds allocated
to each project and each list be placed
into Executive Session. Okay, any discussion on that council member? Johnson, thank you,
Madam President, I believe Miss diameter indicated that there is an additional four
plus million dollars. That's my second motion.
Okay, so it'll be a total of 13
million to
be split amongst council members. Okay,
can we vote on this? Clarity? Clarity. You want to Well, okay, so Madam Chair, Tanya student, Meyer said 4 million. Jay rising said 5 million. And so I was just going to say between four and a between an additional four to $5 million because they both gave two different figures. So I don't know if it will be 13 million
or 14 million.
I don't know. And that was my second motion. Member Johnson, thank you, Madam President,
so member Calloway, are you proposing that additional funding go somewhere else? No, and we can combine them all. I was just going to because they were brought to us separately. I was going to deal with them in two separate motions. But the I can just make one motion and combine the figures so I can withdraw the motion that I just made Madam Chair, whatever. It doesn't matter to
me, but there is two figures that were given to us by budget. Remember, we can just say all of the unspent ARPA dollars that are going to be coming back for programming that it be distributed evenly among all Council offices.
Whatever the figure is the unspent ARPA dollars.
Is that? That's what you're referring to, correct, yeah, the nine and the four. What someone said five. So that's fine. Okay, anything
on that? Mr. Corley, okay, remember young,
yeah, I just want to say this is for existing
programs that already exist, right? There's nothing you said, any project
that will I'm thinking, as long I wasn't finished, as long as it fits into one of those 15 buckets that already exist. For programs already exist, not for any new programs, for like, not like guaranteed income, not anything that you want to do, just
for what already exists. Okay, let's make sure, cuz you said for any program, like, wait a minute here. Alright, thank you. Remember. You had anything else. Okay, alright. Any
objections,
hearing none that action will be taken.
Okay. Yes. Member Johnson, thank you, Madam President. To that point, there was a request to the ocfos office to provide us with a list of programs, ARPA funded programs. I still have not received anything, but would like to to have that sooner than later to determine how to re allocate those funds. And then I do have a motion. I'd like to make a motion to add to Executive Session, a development tracker website, and I believe, I'm assuming that's going to be for creo,
and we'll follow up with $1 figure.
Okay, any objections,
hearing, none that action will be taken.
And as we close out, I know we have a lot in our executive session, and we start Wednesday morning. So Mr. Corley, we hope, hope to get something by tomorrow. You said close of business, so that we can start
reviewing and coming Wednesday prepared with any numbers that we have and additional information as well. Thank you, Madam President, so yeah, probably tomorrow afternoon, we'll have a draft of the Executive Session spreadsheet, and at that point, we will not have funding sources, because we want to hear from the council members with additional you know information that you have for the items that you put into the into the Executive Session. Hopefully when we start on Wednesday at 10, we will have some funding sources, but we gotta my team and I need to go through a lot in terms of looking at potential funding sources. That's why we don't want to disclose that tomorrow. Tomorrow's the purpose is to allow council members to look at what we put into executive session to make sure it's as accurate as possible. And I know there's some items that council members did not attach dollar figures to, and so as much as you can, you know, test dollar figures to them, so we can better
address that when we start executive session
Wednesday morning.
Okay, thank you. Yes. Member Callaway, I have something else. Go ahead. So Madam Chair, anyone who's interested, the Detroit Women's Commission will be taking their oath of office
today here on the 13th floor at
5:30pm everyone's invited. Thank you, Madam Chair, okay, thank you. Member Calloway, Madam President, yes. Is not too late. It's not too early to send this language
for the closing
closing resolution. Never too early.
Right. We will keep that in mind, Mister Whitaker Thank you. Alright, if there is nothing else to come before us, we will stay un adjourned and we will start our public hearing
at five o'clock. Motion to adjourn. So moved. All right, this meeting is adjourned. Ned.
