The okay. Good morning everyone. We will now call to order our formal session for Tuesday, March the 18th. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Council
member Scott Benson. Scott Benson I Councilman Fred du haul the third
council member Leticia Johnson, present
council member Gabriel sanjaco Romero, present
council member Mary Walters, present
member Angela Whitfield Callaway,
Council Member Coleman Young, the second
council president pro tem, James Tate
and Council President Mary Sheffield, present. You have a quorum. President, Madam. President, all right.
Thank you. There being a quorum present, we are in session, and we will start off as always, with our invocation. And this morning we have us with us, Doctor Roosevelt gray of Saint Phillips Lutheran Church,
and he is joining us virtually.
Do you see me? Do you hear me? We
can hear you. Okay, let's Can I see you? But we can hear you.
Okay, then let us open with prayer, Heavenly Father, we thank you this morning for another opportunity of being your people, your city and the place where you've called each of us to serve. We ask your grace and mercy upon the City Council this morning as they consider the work of the city government for the citizens of the beloved city of Detroit, Lord, we ask that you give them wisdom and courage of conviction as they carry out the work that you've called them to do with the spirit of sacrifice for the common welfare of the citizens and with mercy and justice, with uprightness and kindliness. We pray that Lord, you will guard them from all selfishness, greed or vain desire for honor, abuse of power, but give them the courage and conviction to carry out the work that they must carry out to serve the city. We ask that. We ask that the true purpose of government may prevail, safeguard in peace and prosperity, so that the citizens may live soberly and uprightly in your sight and have an opportunity to serve one another. And we pray these petitions in your name and your name, we pray amen. Amen.
All right. Thank you so much. Dr Roosevelt Gray, feel free to stay on virtually as long as you can if you do have to go, we understand. Thank you. And if the clerk would know we've been joined by pro Tim Tate, that was so no. All right, before we begin our presentation, for those who would like to make a public comment, we will cut off our public comment after our presentation, and so please make sure you raise your hand virtually, or also here in the room if you're interested in making public comment. All right, we will start off with the presentation by council member Calloway. The floor is yours. Thank
you, Madam Chair, and good morning everyone.
I've been on this council. I'm in my fourth year, and I've given out Spirit of Detroit awards and testimonial resolutions throughout that term, but this resolution gives me the most gratifying feeling I have felt in the three and a half years that I have served. I've been trying to give this award to this young lady, to this champion, to this Trailblazer, since I took office in 2022 but because of her position, she could not accept the award. But today she can accept this award, and I'm going to read it for the record, and it gives me great honor to read it in your presence. And if I can just see where my Spellman sisters are, if you can just please stand all my Spellman sisters, and I know Darlene Jackson, she works for Coleman, a young and I know my daughter is standing sitting there. Please stand up my Spelman sisters, and only we know what it means to be a Spelman woman, absolutely,
I say this to you, Dawn Eisen,
my Spellman sister,
founded in 1881
in the city of Atlanta, Georgia, for us black women, the Honorable Dawn Eisen, the first black female United States Attorney for the Eastern, Eastern District of Michigan. Whereas attorney Dawn Eisen made history on December the 21st in 2021 as the first black female attorney for Michigan, appointed by President Joe Biden as a Detroit native, she graduated from Cass Technical High School, earned her bachelor's degree in arts from Spellman College in 1986 and her law degree from Wayne State University in 1989 her career reflects a strong commitment to justice, blending her passion for law with empathy for those affected by crime and whereas attorney Dawn ISIS legal career began in 1989 as a pre hearing attorney for the Michigan Court of Appeals, she then worked As a criminal defense attorney and civil litigator until 2002 when she joined the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan. Over 19 years, she gained recognition for her work in prosecuting high profile public corruption and drug trafficking issue cases, and whereas Attorney Don ice and lead the Drug Task Force unit, the largest in the largest in the nation, from 2010 to 2014 handling complex cases involving public corruption and major drug trafficking organizations. She also served as a district election officer from 2014 and represented the office in federal courts alternative to prison programs. Her leadership and skill earned her national recognition, and she became a key figure in Michigan's federal law enforcement community. And whereas attorney DAWs Dawn ice and led one of the largest US Attorneys Offices covering 34 counties and 6.5 million residents, she implemented reforms to reduce violent crime, improve community relations and rebuild trust between law enforcement and communities impacted by violence and discrimination and whereas attorney Dawn ice and led the development of one Eastern District of Michigan Strategy to Combat violent crime focusing on prevention, outreach and community engagement. The initiative included the one Detroit violence reduction partnership with combined enforcement, prevention and re entry strategies, resulting in a historic decline in homicides and national recognition by the Department of Justice. And whereas attorney Dawn Eisen revitalized the Office of Civil Rights efforts focusing on hate crimes, public corruption and human trafficking, she created the public corruption and Civil Rights unit and launched training programs to help the public identify and report hate crimes. Attorney Dawn ice and leadership has earned widespread recognition, including the 2024 leadership and inclusion Award and the 2022 women who lead award highlighting her dedication to justice and community. And now therefore, be it resolved that council member Angela Whitfield Callaway your Spellman sister the Detroit City Council and Detroiters, celebrate and honor your career of the honorable dawn I said,
not yet. Yep, this is the testimony resolution. And there's more. I'm not going to read this one, but you also will receive a Spirit of Detroit award as well.
And there's more.
I've been waiting to award someone the Councilwoman callaways Crystal Award, and I put it off these years, just waiting to present it to you so you are the first recipient of the Crystal Award. And scribe you it's
real crystal,
and you can read the inscription later. I don't want to belabor it, and there's more.
Absolutely she deserves it.
That's and this gives me the greatest honor, and for all my Spellman sisters, this is from the president of Spelman College, who would want it to be on Zoom, but she's traveling right now, but she wrote a letter and signed it and asked me to read it to you,
dated March the 18th, 2025
dear Detroit City Council and esteemed guests. On behalf of Spelman College, I am delighted to extend our warmest congratulations to us, Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. Dawn Eisen on her remarkable career and dedicated service to the people of Michigan and the nation, as an alumna of Spelman College, us, Attorney Eisen embodies the very essence of our mission, and we know what that is, Spellman sister to educate women to do what to change the world, and that's what we do as Spelman women. That's our pledge to the nation and to the world. Her commitment to justice, integrity and community empowerment is a testament to the transformative power of a Spelman education, we take immense pride in her achievements and the positive impact she has made throughout her distinguished legal career. It is with particular admiration that I, as President of Spelman College, acknowledge US Attorney Eisen journey and listen to this, having shared the experience of attending the same high school cast tech you and my sister, the late Dr Gwendolyn Whitfield, yes, I have witnessed her dedication and unwavering commitment to excellence from an early age, and she also attended Spelman during the same time as you did somewhere along the line their paths crossed her path. From those formative years to her current role as US Attorney General is a testament to her exceptional talent, perseverance and unwavering dedication to public service or advancement to this prestigious position is a significant milestone, not only for Dawn, but for all who aspire to serve their communities with distinction, Her leadership in addressing critical issues facing Michigan, from combating violent crime to fostering community trust has been exemplary. We commend us, Attorney Eisen, for her outstanding contributions and thank her for her unwavering commitment to justice. We are honored to celebrate her achievements and wish her continued success in her vital work, signed by our current president, Roslyn Roz Brewer, President of Spelman College,
and before we allow her to speak, I am also going to ask David attorney Whitaker through LPD to draft a resolution through the chair acknowledging this day forevermore as dawn ice and day here in the city of Detroit. Absolutely,
absolutely so whatever steps we need to take to our attorney, Mr. Whitaker, if you can stand through the Chair,
I'm asking you, sir through the chair, to draft that resolution sir, acknowledging today as dawn ice and day here in the city of Detroit, and thank you through the chair to Mr. Whitaker, and that is for you, Dawn, I said, share,
let's make sure that was a motion to assign LPD that task, to draft a resolution. Are there any objections in doing so?
Hearing no objections that action will be taken,
and that's why you are called Madam President. Amen. Thank you, Madam President, thank you so much. Dawn Eisen, if you can go to the podium, thank you.
Yeah.
You Yeah, yeah,
just press the bottom.
Madam President,
Council Member, Angela Whitfield County Council. Thank you so much for this day. I'm almost speechless. I really am. I am. I could not be more honored and Oh, speak louder. Okay, I can do that. I cannot be more honored to receive this award, so I'm very grateful today, and hopefully I can deliver my remarks. Hope, resilience and the spirit of man is what the bronze sculpture created by Marshall Fredericks represents the Spirit of Detroit. Statute holds a family group in one hand and a sphere with raise in the other, which my research defined as symbolizing God, humanity and family as the noblest relationships. My research told me that Fredericks was inspired or drew information from the Bible verse second, Corinthians, 317, which reads, now the now the Lord is that Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And one version says there is freedom. My pastor actually had, the lay pastor spoke just this past Sunday at my church, Vernon chapel, AME Church and Coney gardens, historically black area in the city of Detroit from which I was raised. She spoke about filling up your tank with the Spirit of the Lord and so hope, progress and the spirit of man standing as a symbol of Detroit's resilience and values. To receive this award is really an honor beyond measure for me, not just because of the work I endeavor to do as the US Attorney throughout Detroit, throughout the district, but particularly Detroit, and I was unapologetic about the effort that I put in to Detroit, I believe that these awards, which I had no idea they were going to be so numerous, is a testament to that work, but also because of the pride I personally feel as a daughter of Detroit who embodies that same resilience and grit and Spirit of Detroit, and who tried to use her responsibility that she had and the power that she had to protect and serve the citizens in this district by reminding them of that spirit, by reminding them of that resilience, by reminding them of that power that they had to take care of themselves, To be a partner, to be able to bring and reclaim their neighborhoods and to affect change in a sustaining way, and that hope that they could themselves help improve their quality of life in a staining way by becoming together as one, one law enforcement, one community, part one, one community and one city, one Detroit, one Detroit. And although I would have appreciated more time to do more work, because there is still plenty more work to do, and I know you guys know that better than I, I am proud of what we accomplished in Detroit. I am proud of the voice that I gave to the community to help and bring them to the table as a stakeholder in their own lives. I'm proud of that work of combining enforcement, prevention and the community in a sustaining way. And I hope that that investment, I hope that that participation by community members will continue. If my legacy is I empower communities through my work and made them feel worthy, valued, seen, heard and inspired them to continue to hope and strive for peace in their communities. And if this award represents that then I am forever grateful, and to receive this award from my Spelman sister Councilwoman Angela Whitfield Calloway, makes it special in other ways. Not only is she my Spellman sister, but she is also the big sister of one of my dear classmates at Cass tech the late Dr Gwen Whitfield, I will proudly display this award with humility and honor to symbolize the crowning point of my career as the US attorney, the Spirit of Detroit. Thank you so much.
My sister passed. Here's my younger sister.
She passed in 2019 four months after my mother passed in 2018 and I quit my job to care for my mother in hospice. So I stayed in hospice with my mom. Little did I know my youngest sister was dying from cancer as well. And then when my mom passed, my sister told me she was dying from cancer. She only had four months to live, so I left after my mom passed, in October of 2018 I went to care for my sister in North Carolina that I moved her. She was a professor. She had written papers and done research in economics. She taught at Pepperdine, amazing. She died way too soon, but I took care of her, and I was there in the room in hospice with her as well.
And that was in April, April 8,
2019, four months after my mom and she often talked about you, and she talked about Kamala Harris, who was her roommate at Howard University.
So thank you. You're like my sister.
You were my sister. So thank you all for allowing me to do this extra we also have flowers for you, if I can have my assistant bring them down here.
I wanted to lay it all on you today. I don't know if this opportunity would ever present itself again, but you want to give people their due when you have an opportunity. So just lay it on them. Lay the love on them. Lay the love on everybody that you love and we care about them, lay it on them. So I thought I laid some crystal on you. I thought I lay some black and white on you and some flowers. So thank you so much for being who you are, and thank you for being your husband is here, if you could stand absolutely
her son. You Oh, friends, best
friend from ninth grade, past tech, yes,
you all can stand if you're here for Dawn, please stand. Yes. Yes.
Yes, Allison
and the chief works closely with the chief, so thank you all and Allison, my lock, my law school classmate, is here. She's also friends of dawns, and this is just an amazing day for me. And you know the chief is here work very closely with Don I know that work will continue in some kind of way, and I'm just looking to see what is next for you, because I know it's not over. This is just the beginning, and I'm not going to say a new chapter, because the chapter continues, right? So thank you so much. Thank you so much.
And so we could have pictures.
Okay? Madam President,
yep, we can all go down anybody wants to. Yeah, I just want to say us. Attorney Don Isom, it truly was inspiring and both empowering to see you in that position. I know one of the initiatives that I saw you out in the forefront and in the community with the one Detroit initiative, and you brought a lot of partnerships and collaborative efforts to reduce gun violence in Detroit. So I just want to thank you for the work that you did in that space, and then also seeing you one day at a I think it was a cease fire community talk, where we had to pour into young men to deter them from violence in our city, and to see you as a US Attorney, a black woman from Detroit who was so accessible and hands on with our young men in the area of gun violence, I thought, spoke volume. So thank you for all that you've done. It was a joy to work with you and to see you like I said, in the community, as a US attorney that was so hands on. And I absolutely wish you the best as you move forward in your career. Yes, so colleagues, if there's no additional comments, we can all go down to do a picture With our US. Attorney, You
all right, thank you again. Member Callaway for that presentation, and we will now continue back to our agenda. We are also going to cut off public comment for this morning, and now we have a presentation from plan Detroit on behalf of the planning and development department.
You all right, good morning. Just make sure you press the bottom. It should turn green. There you go. Wonderful. Good morning. Everyone through the chair. What a beautiful presentation that we had to follow this morning. I'm Director Bucha here from the planning and development department. We are looking forward to sharing with you our quarterly update on the progress of the master plan of policies. Please see the slides in front of you and on the screens behind. And with that, I'm going to hand it over to my colleague, Deputy Director obern, to begin the presentation.
Thank you. And through the chair, we're excited to be here today, if we can go to the next slide, please. So today we have our quarterly update, and we want to review what is planned Detroit, just for folks that might be listening just as a refresher, and then review what work has been completed to date, and then where we're going next, and what to expect in the spring and summer, next slide and next slide. So what is plan Detroit as a reminder for folks, the master plan is really the city's roadmap for future development, and really centered around aligning land use policy with our shared vision that's really informed by our engagement and our aligning land use policy with infrastructure, transportation, Economic Development and our other strategic priorities. So next slide, and as a reminder, the master plan is policy. It's not law. So we often think of the zoning ordinance as law. It is high level and citywide, so different than our neighborhood plans that go deep into neighborhood specific issues we are talking about, citywide policy issues. It is long range. We're thinking 20 years into the future, and it is a high level vision for the future, how we can develop and it guides the foundation for both zoning and other regulations, as well as how we prioritize our investments. Next slide just a high level overview of where we are. In the process. We are. We have wrapped up our first phase of work, which I'll review a little bit in more detail, which is really our analysis and visioning phase, and we're just now launching into the phase of draft policies, where we'll talk about our next round of engagement that will be focused on draft policies. And after that phase of work, We'll then move into a draft plan and finalizing that plan and looking forward to completing the work. Our goal is quarter two of 2026 so now I'm going to go over some of the work that's been completed in that first phase, that analysis and visioning work. So next slide
and next slide,
our work has been really focused in two parts, our technical analysis work, which I'll go over, and our public engagement. And so our work with the consultants is really marrying these two pieces, what we're hearing from the community and then the technical work that we're gathering as we go through the process. So next slide, our technical work is really split into a couple pieces. The first was a thorough prior plan review. And this was really important because we acknowledge and recognize that a lot of planning work has happened over the last five to 10 years, and so we wanted to make sure that we were lifting up all the feedback we received from the community to date in those plans, and all of the policy work that our departments and our community members are using in those plans to date. And then we did some deeper dive on existing conditions analysis, including a community snapshot, and that was really focused on looking at existing conditions and trends related to population, housing and economy, and then a deep dive on a land use analysis, which really takes a deeper look at our land use patterns and how they relate to Our existing policies, our planning priorities and our zoning, so that that work is really wrapping up now, as we as we move into our draft policies, and then finally, a lot of work on our vision and values. And this is where our city voices tour that we'll talk about in a minute, really helped inform and the vision and values set the tone for the master plan by identifying what we want Detroit to be and what we want Detroit to become over the next 20 years, and what values or guiding principles should be at the heart of our policies. Next slide. So just a really high level overview of our outreach and engagement. It's really split into kind of three key categories. The first is centered around getting the word out about the master plan, what it is and what we're doing, and this is through things like our website, social media, our newsletters and our regular updates like this, to City Council, to City Planning Commission and to the Department of neighborhoods, kind of Don meetings, and we do those quarterly, and then a series of kind of, what we're calling quick and easy opportunities for many Detroiters to engage and provide feedback on the plan. So things like our visioning survey, which received over 1800 responses, and our city voices tour, where we went to over 60 events throughout the city in neighborhoods to get feedback from community members. And then we combine that with kind of more in depth conversations with things like our stakeholder interviews, our master plan advisory group, and then things like our policy workshops that are coming up that we'll talk a little bit more about in a minute. So sometimes we get the question, how are we using all of this feedback that we're getting? And so there's a couple key ways that the engagement and the feedback that we've received to date is how it's informing the work. So the feedback that we received through our master plan advisory group and through surveys and things like that, really helped inform the questions we asked in our community, snapshot analysis, it also helped inform our land use analysis. Which questions should we ask to make sure we're really addressing the key concerns of the community, and then our stakeholder interviews and our broader city voices tour helped inform inform our vision and values directly. Next slide, finally, just some of the things that we have heard specifically. We really heard that people care most about housing and neighborhoods, economy and mobility, and there's some specific policy issues that they want to see addressed related to that residents want Detroit to be, inclusive, vibrant, thriving, safe, clean, innovative and world class, and that's really helping inform our vision and values. And then our values that rose to the top are really related to resilience and equity. And then we also are, you know, the communities reminding us of things that we might be missing and making sure we're not missing those things. So with that, I will turn it over to Julie to talk about what's coming next. Thank you,
dharma. And if you're the chair, Julie kaneke from the planning development department and the project manager over this and I'll be talking a little bit about our next phase and how to get involved Next slide. So the technical work and the community engagement so far has really been building on itself to form the foundation of the master plan and set the context for the next phase of the process, which is starting to develop draft policy recommendations. Next slide. So who's going to help us draft these policies? A common criticism we get is that we come out to community too late once we've already started to form some ideas, so we are going to be involving the public very early on in this discussion, starting next month. So we will be working, yes, with internal stakeholders, our city departments and key agencies, because they are the implementing bodies of the master plan. They are our partners in this process, but we want to make sure we're involving the wider community. So anybody who you don't necessarily have to do this kind of work for a living, anybody who is interested or has lived experience in any aspect of the master plan, we are opening up these policy workshops and district engagements to you, and each of these rounds of engagement that we're doing are going to build on each other. This is really an iterative process, so each step along the way, we will bring back out what we learned from the last round of engagement. We'll be able to verify with the public, are we on the right track? What do we need to change? And we'll continue to just sort of revise as we go next slide. So three key ways upcoming to get involved, starting with our policy workshops, and these will be hosted in mid April. This is an opportunity for you, if you want to get in the weeds with us and draft policy recommendations side by side with our project team, we'll have one in person workshop per topic, and we'll also have a virtual option that will cover all of the policy topic areas for those who can't join us in person or just prefer the ease of a virtual policy workshop. We're going to couple that with a fun and interactive version of the policy workshop tailored to our high school students. We're really excited about this youth summit. So if you have high schoolers in your household, please keep an eye out for more communications from us about how they can get involved in planning for the future of their city. And finally, we'll follow up these kind of in depth, deeper dive conversations with district by district, community meetings around all the draft policy recommendations. So if you're looking for something that's quicker and easier to provide feedback, but you still want to see what we're working on, understand what kind of policy recommendations are coming out of this plan, and give us feedback. So really early on in the process, you'll have an opportunity to do so, and in a in a spot that's convenient to you. Next slide. So for the policy workshops, we're going to cover five topic areas, and these were determined based on the feedback that we got from our first couple rounds of community engagement. What were the most important policy workshop areas? And some of the questions will be kind of built on the feedback we've gotten as well. So that'll be arts and culture, jobs and economy, open space and environment, mobility and housing and neighborhoods. You'll notice I didn't say land use in there. Land use is kind of the thing that ties all of these topics together, but we still want an opportunity to take a deeper dive on them, because we know that they're important. So the conversations at this stage, we'll be talking a little bit about how these policy areas relate to and inform land use, but much more to come, much more in depth on the land use front and what it means for your neighborhood in the future, in a future round of engagement. Next slide. So we've been up till this point, kind of getting the word out through the dawn meetings at the City Planning Commission, and now here that these policy workshops and district engagements are coming, the next step is this week, we will be opening up our sign ups for the policy workshops. Those will be on our website, distributed through our newsletter, and we are happy to share out communications with all of you as well. We are asking folks to make sure they sign up an RSVP so we know how many folks we are planning for, but they are open to any member of the public policy workshops, like I said before, will be hosted in April, and a little bit about how these will work will kind of level set for folks. We'll share some more of the technical details that we've gotten from our existing conditions analysis to set the context for the discussion and give folks a lot of like, a big block of time to dive in and smaller group discussions around kind of early policy development, and because we recognize that not everybody is going to be coming in a policy walk expert, we're really being mindful of how we design these exercises so anybody can jump right in and meaningfully contribute to the conversation. And then, as I said, we'll bring these kind of draft policies that come out of the workshops back out to each district in our district engagement following the policy workshops and kind of iterate on the process from there. Next slide, so council members and your staff, you are welcome to attend any of the policy workshops. Should you be interested? Please just contact Ms King and our office so we can coordinate. We also love your help getting the word out about these opportunities. And if you have suggestions as well of folks that should be directly invited, you can submit those to ms king as well. You should have gotten a communication from her. We are happy to provide any kind of promotional materials, though, and next slide, just to wrap it up, just a quick plug for how to learn more and stay informed. Our website plan detroit.com has lots of helpful information. We post meeting presentations, our project timeline, FAQs, all about our advisory group. There's also an opportunity to sign up for our newsletter, or there's a QR code on the screen for folks that want to receive those policy workshop sign ups direct to their inbox. The best way to do that is to sign up for our newsletter, and with that, we are happy to take any questions. I can also share my contact information on the last slide for anyone who has additional follow ups, my email is Detroit master plan at Detroit mi.gov
or you can give me a call at 313-628-0221,
thank you so much.
Okay, thank you. Okay,
that will conclude the presentation. All right. Thank you so much for all the work that you all are doing with this and ensuring that the public has a voice in and feels a part of this process. And so are there any questions from any of my colleagues regarding this presentation? Hearing no questions. We thank you for that update, and we will be looking forward to getting out those forthcoming meetings to our districts, and we'll stay in contact with you guys to the Chair. Thank you so much for the opportunity, and look forward to working with you on this effort. Okay, thank you so much. All right, we will now go back to our agenda, the Journal of the session of Tuesday March the fourth, will be approved. There being no reconsideration or unfinished business, we will proceed to the neighborhood and community services, standing committee for the Neighborhood and Community Services. Standing Committee two
reports from the Office of contracting and procurement. The two
reports will be referred to the neighborhood and community services, standing committee for the Planning and Economic Development, standing committee, four reports from various city departments before reports will be referred to the Planning and Economic Development standing committee for the public health and safety standing committee,
five reports from various city departments. The
five reports will be referred to the public health and safety standing committee, we will now move to the voting action matters. Under other matters, there
are no items, Madam President, under communications
from the mayor and other governmental officials and agencies, there are no items by the President. All right, we will call now for general public comment, and everyone will have two minutes for public comment. And we will start with Miss Betty Lyons.
Under dugans Watch, oh, wait a minute. I gotta wait for that time. Okay, under dugan's watch, black children have died, and instead of admitting his failure, he displays weakness by hiding behind a strong woman who happens to be black, under dugan's watch, a man was shot and killed during an eviction. Dugan is leader of a corrupt land bank, while veterans and Detroit residents receive no help, Dugan brags about the millions he's put in Mexican town, and that he will make them whole, protecting illegal border jumpers under Dugan over $600 million of overpaid property tax belonging to Detroit residents, stolen, coveted, hidden and attorney Conrad Malik lacks integrity, refusing to investigate or bring justice to this dastardly deed and act of thievery under Dugan Dan Gilbert, whose decision making is questionable, still receives 10s of millions in free money. And Miss Sheffield, I have this to say to you, you are above. You are with Father God, high above, and nothing will ever bring you down. Don't let this thing or Dugan ever bring you down. You are above. And I agree
with Trump,
the Palestinians are troublemakers. Send them back to their own country and stop having the US fight their battle.
Yes, you know we always want to encourage as much as we can. I know everyone has opportunity to speak, but to be respectful to everyone. Yeah, so if you could just make sure we're keeping our dialog and commentary as respectful as possible. Oh, geez,
okay, got 13 seconds
left. Okay, well,
I agree with him, because that is only right to have them protected over here while we fight our battles, they need to go to their country and fight their battle.
All right. Thank you so much. Miss Lyons, Mr. Steve Lockhart, if the clerk will know, member duha has joined us as well. Steve Lockhart, he's gone okay. Joanne Manning, Mr. Cunningham, Miss Williams and Jacqueline Miller,
good morning. Council members, happy to be here this morning. My name is Joanne Manny, and I'm a business owner in the city of Detroit, where I have been a business owner for over 35 years, providing affordable housing. Also, I'm a co owner of granny farm, which is a cannabis Growth Facility on the east side of Detroit. My husband and I are owners. We're the founders of the organization, and the two of us and our business partners, we provided a lot of services to the city of Detroit. A couple of things that my husband and I have done. We're lifelong Detroiters. We came up in the city of Detroit. We were educated in the Detroit Public Schools. We worked for the city of Detroit. The both of us and I retired from the Detroit Public Schools. We started several successful business in the city of Detroit on purpose, because we want to be here. A couple of the things that we've done for the city of Detroit children. Is we started a golf program in which we provided golf skills to over 750 children in the city of Detroit. We also started a ski club in the city of Detroit, introducing us the sport of skiing to many hundreds of students in the Detroit Public School System. My husband and I, we also started Manny Farm Group, which was a non profit farming organization in which we farmed on five acres of land, and most of our produce were free. We gave it away. We would give most of our produce to the senior citizens in the city of Detroit. So throughout our lives, we put stock in the city of Detroit because we want to be here. We started a mobile vision clinic, which I'm so proud of, ABC mobile vision in which we started out targeting the Detroit public schools to provide vision services to those students in the school who could not get to the doctor's office. With ABC mobile vision, we would go out. It was a snowball effect. We started providing vision services to the drug rehab, homeless shelter, just underserved areas in the city. We're just asking for
the cannabis. Thank You. Okay. Thank you so much. Applause. 6313444911431344491143134491149,
31344911, folk. That number was made so you can remember it. And on Facebook, two words, not enemy. Again. On Facebook, two words, not enemy. You see my family, me and her mom and blue, and my nephews, nieces and stuff. And I appreciate all the prayers, the prayer requests, positive. Statements. People contact me, and I do appreciate that DDOT is having a meeting this week. I'm asking the council members to put it on their social media page. And y'all have done it before, if y'all could do that again, and everyone under the sound of my voice to take from Facebook, Detroit department transportation, the post about the meeting and put it on your social media. We want to get new voices. They get tired of hearing the same voices, but I won't quit. I'm a little tired today. Yesterday was an early day. We when it was a few of us, we just pick it outside and talking about double DDOT and more benches at the bus stops and and then the day ended about nine o'clock, 910, o'clock. So I am disabled, but it was a little draining, but I think it was well worth it. I really enjoyed myself. We must improve DDOT. We have to do better. And I thank everyone for their support and their prayers. Keep me in prayers, in regards to my mom, in regards to getting another vehicle, the vehicle is just about to die. I almost have 300,000 miles on this outreach vehicle, taxi, cab, and I need bus tickets. Bus tickets, bus tickets, bus tickets, bus tickets, bus tickets.
Thank you all right. Thank you so much. Mr. Cunningham, good to see you, sir.
Miss Williams,
Hello, people, council
members, Madam Chair, that presentation was very, very enlightening. It's very amazing to see a African American woman to achieve all these achievements that she did, and speaking about integrity and integrity in all this corruption in the city of Detroit. I've been talking about this for quite some time, and it's very unfortunate the people that you speak to are the people are behind these corruption in the city of Detroit. It's not acceptable. I've been coming here for quite some time talking about police officers living in these shelters, and I get the same response. None of this can be going on. It's not just the police officers. They organize this. This is unbelievable, the extent of corruption that they are doing. It's the D O T drivers. It's D T, E, A T and T. They are using a personal devices through social media. This could not be going on. No helicopters, no drums. Who have the ability to call helicopters like that when these officers are coming in these facilities, when they are getting off of work, these weapons, they facilitate this. They organize this to a T and I say it's organized crime. You can call a RICO This is how I feel. It's not acceptable when I sit up here and complain about this constantly, and then people record me when I'm in the bathroom speaking to somebody concerning this issue. It's not acceptable being people stalking me, recording me. It's when I'm speaking about two black kids losing their lives because their mother could not get a referral from camp, that's not acceptable. Some needs to be done with the city of the corruption going on in this this city,
period.
Thank you. Miss Williams,
Jacqueline Miller, followed by Ronald Foster, followed by latoria Williams.
Good morning. Good morning. I
came to give the address for I had called in. We got in a shelter. Come to find out it's the actual shelter where the old Saint James nursing home is and the address is 15063,
Gratiot, 4205,
and in that shelter during the Charlie led up program, it shows the mothers and child sleeping on the floor and the child eating something out of a bowl on the floor in the actual lobby. And also I want to just miss Mayberry isn't here, so I see that we have a resolution for a Grand Slam, an Easter fund, a Detroit Greek Festival, and a hotter than July. Can we please, please acknowledge Juneteenth some way or another? Because I see Councilman young put forth that resolution, those resolutions, and I ask that you do the same as Miss Mayberry has been asking, and Mr. Tate, I'm Jacqueline Miller, I will be calling you. I know that you're busy now, so that's why I haven't called you, so that we can have a conversation. Okay, bye, bye. And just
so, you know, Miss Miller, the city often does, and I hope every year we do a Juneteenth Celebration the city does. Usually it's down at the Plaza here by the Coleman Young municipal building. And so every year there is a Juneteenth event that the city does sponsor. And then also this council did pass an ordinance that actually makes Juneteenth now a paid city holiday as well. And so excited about that. That just came into place, I think last year when we approved that. So stay tuned. There will be some events forthcoming, just representing her always, yep, this may be, I love her today. Council member young
Yes, ma'am. And I just also wanted to say thank you for your advocacy, advocacy about Juneteenth, because it's people like you that come out talk about this, that give us the impetus and the leadership to be able to do this. So this is citizenship and action. So we appreciate you and your
leadership. Okay, thank you, Mr. Foster.
Good morning through the president, just a few things, very happy to see the US Attorney in here. And it wasn't always that way. I wasn't always on that side of the field. So I am grateful to be able to acknowledge those things. However, with all the acknowledgements and accomplishments and things that we have given her, I think that we should reinforce the work that she has done. If we say that she was anti corruption, then we should continue on with anti corruption. Don't just honor those and then continue on to behaviors. I have submitted some information here. I think it's very informative for council members. Here is in regards to the last 10 years where there's been over six council members fairly indicted and in prison, six police officers, a deputy chief. And so while I talk about these last three years. I speak about them for a purpose here. I speak about uplifting black community and black people and black authority throughout these last 10 years. And all that information is not being one individual from an administration that has failed, you know. And so those things are important here to understand who and what your assets are moving forward, and what ear where to turn your ear to. There's nothing come down here and say that's not factual in most cases. And so the idea of not including community, I think it's an injustice. Some people fight for themselves, and then others fight for those that can't fight for themselves. Well, I wanted them. I served in the Millers here. I do it down here. I don't get to die for it. My children are straight. So every fight that I fight for is for someone else. I ask council to get on board. You know you got to cut off those
on the same report.
Thank you, Mr. Foster,
Miss Latoya Williams, followed by Ruben Crawley,
good morning, honorable body,
Madam President, city council district two, and everyone else. I'm all over the city, so pay no respective persons. I give all glory and honor to God, because this right here you I would never have done. I would used to be terrified in school to get in front of people and speak hand sweating and all kind of stuff, you know, and so I just give him all the honor, all the glory. I wasn't even coming down here to speak today, but I just wanted to come to speak in regards to root causes. I know we all come down here and we speak about we need to do this, we need to do that, and get planning and all of these different things going on in our city, which is good. We do need things to do and keep our youth and seniors and everyone busy, but at the same time, we have a lot of things going on. I know it's budget season. We have infrastructure, big time infrastructure issues. It's volatile organic compounds that are in our ground right now that are emitting gasses into the environment. We talk about all the businesses that are admitting this, but we got stuff that's been seeping in the ground for hundreds, 100 years, you know, from gas stations and dry cleaners that left these tanks in the ground, and they're seeping into the ground, and that's wasting over from our floods that we got going on, so it's seeping into our dirt. Is we got the highest preterm birth rate right now, thinking maybe cause of that, I'm not sure. We got a high maternal death rate. I mean, we gotta really look at the root causes that are causing things. There is a study going on right now. They will come in. They will test your home. They will test your soil to see what is going on around in your exact environment, in your land. I have the flyer here if anyone wants to get a picture of it as well, but we have to get to the root cause. Not just the root cause, but we have lifestyle things that we have to change as well if we want
to get thank you so much for your comment. Thank you. We appreciate that. All right. Ruben Crawley, and that's the last in Person public comment.
Okay, Nini won't what she won't. Mary setfil, you had no idea that I knew. Marvin Walker. Fred Doha, you had no idea. District seven was my stomping grounds. That's where I grew up. There,
very few like me over there.
Angela Whitfield, Callaway, you had no idea. District Two was my stumping ground, 1905, Balmoral drive 17. I was given that apartment when I was 1517,
years old.
James Tate, you had no idea. District One was my stumping grounds as well. I go all up and down through there any time of day or night, no problems, except for the police over there in district eight, where Kenisha was killed at now I got problems with district eight. I think it's because of you, because your name is on that annex, the annex over there, and I think it's all because of you. That's my own personal opinion. I ain't never trespassed over there. How I get some charges filed against me over there? Detroit Mott did his job. He initiated an aggravated assault complaint on the 16th, 2020, and then it was turned over to homicide. Derek may Marco, prestage investigator on the 18th, the report has been buried. You behind that? Too? Scott Benson, I'm over in district three now, and guess what? I just been blessed, really blessed the whole block. You burn the whole block. You heard that. Now what I need is a council person to represent me over in District Three, because imma clean up that whole neighborhood over there.
Great. Thank you. And that will conclude all of our in person public comments, and we will now go to those who have joined us virtually.
Morning, Madam President, there were 24 hands raised before you put off public comment, and the first caller is meek Williams,
all right. Good morning.
Good morning. Mika Williams, morning, can you hear me? Please? Yes, we can. Yes.
Hi. Damico Williams, private citizen, resident, taxpayer, Legacy Detroiter, I want to give an update to the protest of the Renaissance Center to save it on 313, day, we sang happy birthday to the city of Detroit, of course, but we also came together, a few of us that met up on the corner Jefferson and Bobby and to declare our stake in saving the Renaissance Center. And it goes deeper than what you all believe, you know, the more after that protest, the threats that came to me by certain individuals, you know, I don't, I don't have time for that, but the people that did step up and want to be involved, this city is a bright, shining example of union solidarity, and I know that people will fight back against corporate powers and corrupt, evil powers that are running our government. Uh, since that protest, you know, they are sending out the Calvary of Duggan supporters, those that want to see the rinse and tore down. But given misinformation and disinformation, when I think about people and how they affect Miss Betty Lyons, to sit there and say the most evil is things she could say, it's because they're being programmed through media public relations that we don't have as citizens. We don't have the money. All we have is voice speak, empower to knock on doors and to inform people of what's going on. And I think that's what people want to see, and it's going to go higher than that if we're going to fight Dan Gilbert, General Motors and corporate powers like the economic chamber that meets up on Mackinac, we're going to have to organize as a community as one to fight these powers and to reclaim our city as independents. Since the council members failed us, there's no need of me even addressing them anymore, or talking to them as they are in a lame duck and derelict of their duties.
Okay? Thank you.
Next caller is not that. Karen, Hello, yes,
good morning. Good morning.
Totally agree with Mr. Mic and Big ups to former attorney, Prosecutor, Don ISO councilor, council woman Callaway, I love your new short, sassy hairstyle.
It Becomes You
this policy workshop I'm very interested in that. I have every intention on participating, and I'm anxious for the registration. So I'm going to register today, if it's possible.
The minutes launch,
I'm sorry you caught me just
full of eggs in my mouth. The minutes launch, I think that we should consider repurposing. It could possibly generate hundreds of housing opportunities that could, in itself, possibly solve our issues with lack of housing. So I think, instead of destroying we should try to, you know, rejuvenate and keep the downtown for everyone, even if it's high rise. You know, housing for the less fortunate. I'm going to finish my breakfast. Thanks. Bye, bye.
Thank you.
The next caller is Theo pride,
good morning.
Good morning to you all City Council.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak here Theo pride with Detroit people's platform. I think it's quite clear that Detroiters are frustrated with the lack of equity and development, taxation, economic growth. We've seen billions of tax dollars and tax breaks go into building up, mostly downtown to Midtown, while displacing low income, mostly black residents. We've seen racial disparities in income, home ownership and home value increase. I recognize Council's work to make things more equitable, but I'm sure everyone would agree more is needed. I think a good place to start is the CRCS research on the DDA conducted for the city. And thank you council member Callaway for requesting that research. But in the CRCS report, they wanted to get at if the DDA was a benefit to Detroit. And their conclusion, which I'm sure you all know about, is no, the DDA is not benefiting Detroit like it was designed to do. Specifically, the benefits are uneven, that they accrue mostly downtown and not across the city. So their recommendation was to change that, to adjust the tax revenue they can capture, effectively lowering it, put a moratorium on new debt and allow the additional revenue to flow into its proper public services, essentially to unlock the DDA, to unlock the resources trapped in it, to make the benefits more equitable. You know, as we get into budget season, money is always an issue. Where do we get the resources to address all the needs in the city? The CRC recommendation certainly provides some answers to that question. Unlocking the DDA would immediately allow millions of dollars to flow into our budget and our neighborhoods. Unlocking the DDA is a way for us to take back our power from downtown corporate interests, and it is a necessary step in making a more equitable Detroit. We look forward to seeing how City Council moves on the CRCS recommendation. Thank you and have a good day.
Thank you. You as well.
The next caller is, we see you.
We see you. Good morning, good morning.
And through the Chair, may I be heard. Yes, that young man was very much on the money as Mr. Foster
and many of your callers, 15.1
is to allow the mayor again to spend money that we don't have is estimated, and spend money for more demolition is not what we want. I understand the the Renaissance is up for sale. I'm pretty sure the city can buy it. 1.7 million, you're spending 2 million plus to tear down the mammoth building that we do not own. You are killing the citizens in the city of Detroit. You're wearing down people like Mr. Cunningham, who has a good heart and wants to help people. On the other hand, you tell us we're going to get Juneteenth, but you guys are going to get the day off. Miss Romero doesn't even know what Juneteenth is. She said it was the end of slavery. People don't even know your history, and they're sitting here making decisions for you. The planning department came in and they said the very first thing was vision. You all don't have any vision for the citizens in the city of Detroit, and people who don't look like me don't have me in mind. She says, 20 years out, 20 years out, you know what they want to see a less black city. That's what they want to see. 16.3 is drop to open up the the bankruptcy, to give them the ability to to cushion themselves, to work and and freeze their retirement. Why are we continuing to open up the bankruptcy? I want my letter saying we're out of bankruptcy because I got one saying we were in it. Close the bankruptcy. Stop opening it up for the police department and any other group. We need it closed before you leave office. I need a letter saying we're not in bankruptcy anymore. 17.4 EBS, we we don't have the, you don't have the cars to justify this money. Okay, the only thing on that list that we should be doing is is southwest Detroit. That's the only thing. Thank you. Thank you.
The next caller is William and Davis,
good morning. Can I be heard? Yes, you can look. I'd like to start off by saying I also agree that we need to close up the bankruptcy, which is a acts over our necks for years. Also, secondly, I like to say I was pleased to see that Darren Ison, you know, was a god of flowers. Now, I've been knowing her for a while. Of course, I I worked with the two previous US Attorneys for eastern district, you know, better and longer, but she played a prominent role in their administrations too. Also, separately, moving on looking at the agenda item 8.4 I think strong consideration should be made to go along with Councilwoman Mary waters, a memo, memorandum and that like so we need to be making some major changes to Detroit land bank. We need to reduce the amount of time that is going to be in existence, we need to be transferring some of their functions. And they've, they've been doing too many function that they become much more too expensive, you know. And why would you have an operating, you know, surplus of such a massive amount? Because they, they still in the Robin from the city of Detroit. They stealing our money. That money should be going to the city of Detroit, a general fund. You know what they doing? Because, you know, anybody could be involved in that. And it's, it's like a secret cult. You know, of the land bank, where they could rob, steal, and, you know, destroy our neighborhoods. They don't have to worry about keeping their property up. I had to keep my property up over in aviation, but there was a Thank goodness. It's not but if there was a land bank property down the street from me, they don't have to worry about keeping that property up. They don't have to worry about paying property tax. They don't have to worry about paying drainage fees. I think this is unfair and unequal treatment. Thank you. Thank Thank
you. Mr. Davis, the
next caller is phone number ending in 169,
Hello, can you guys hear me? Yes, we can.
Okay, great, um, I just want to say thank you people for praying for Cunningham. He advocates for the bus drivers and the bus passengers. He does not, I repeat, he does not receive a salary or benefits for his good work, city council persons, clergy, power that be touch, not God's anointing. Need to do his servant, Cunningham, no harm. Don't let karma plague you all again. Help this man. Do not hurt this man. Thank you for my time.
Okay, thank you.
The next caller is already paid for BCA transfers. Good
morning. You.
Good morning. May I be heard? Yes, you can. Yeah. Well,
regarding the Master Plan update, I haven't heard about any stakeholder meetings for residents in the clusters they live in. And I'm wondering if, in all this engagement process with the Smith group or whoever, when will the master plan plan Detroit reach out to neighborhood clusters and talk about the plan for their neighborhoods? For instance, this was lacking in this solar neighborhoods, they didn't get to sit down. And I hope all different neighborhoods get to sit down, because we are the stakeholders. They're the residents, and talk about what will be in their neighborhood. And so hopefully that can be added to the plan. Again, I don't think the Solar Initiative is legal. It's a form of development. The neighbors there are not really getting the choice to sit down in a master plan and talk about other things or what the current plan is. I think most residents don't even know what the master plan is for their area right now. So where, when are we going to have those conversations and that education and real community engagement? I have a feeling we're just going to be like presented with something, and not have a lot of time and again. People in the solar neighborhoods, you should have an opportunity to discuss other possibilities for your neighborhood. I've been looking at material, apparently, these solar farms. Hum. Did you know that? And what's going to happen if that's super annoying? But, oh, maybe you got 15 to 25,000 in home improvements. And I'm being told residents, they can't get the kind of roof they want. There's only certain roofs they can get. So, you know, don't, don't let a plan be made for you. Participate in the plan it's supposed to be about,
right? Thank you. Miss Warrick.
Next caller is Renaud. Ron. Shawn ski,
good morning. You
Renard mashki, good morning. Good
morning, Madam President, can I be heard?
Yes, you can. All right, good morning, President
and members of council. My name is Renard maschsky. I'm an organizer the Detroit peoples platform, founder of the transit justice team, and I want to thank my buddy Cunningham and all the other organizers that came out yesterday, seven to eight o'clock to nine o'clock in the morning in front of city council with the message of double D dot. And apparently this seemed to have resonated with some members of this Council, which I want to thank during the budget hearing, I've noticed that there's going to be some commitments towards the study for in house and hopefully clean energy paratransit. So much appreciation to der Hall for that member. Der Hall for that and then also, there was some considerations with the Rosa Parks transit center being repaired and put together which water sales made concerns about. And then other members of this council, including the President, has made really strong statement and support for fair equity and low income fair and when it comes to students, we want to make sure that this fair policy. It's uniform and broad, and not just for dpsc High School students, but we need students of all levels being able to access a low student fair. There are summer activities that are going to start spring activities after school, and we want to make sure that they're able to use the system safely, and when it comes to the code of conduct, that they're able to do that as well, that was a concern I wasn't able to speak last time. Also, when it comes to those that are struggling in the city, that are homeless, that are, you know, experiencing and having no job, trying to get their feedback up, we need an equitable, fair program to do that. And I think this is time for the city to have a study and make a pilot and a commitment. If you can do that for other populations across the city, the bus riders deserve that consideration as well, especially those that are struggling. And I will speak more about this topic in the coming weeks. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.
The next caller is Betty a Varner.
Miss Varner, good morning.
Good morning, Madam President. And to all within the sound of my voice, I'm Betty a barn, the president of DeSoto Ellsworth black Association. And the day is finally here for our Finkle corridor meeting. It's going to be this evening, at six o'clock, from six to 730 at the new life Family Church. 15329,
liver noise. That's 48238,
and they're calling it the Finco Avenue corridor action plan, community meeting. The agenda. They're going to provide updates on the action plan and the city coordination with city departments and sister agencies. I'm excited to find out who are the sister agencies, but I'm blessed that whoever the sister agencies are, they're taking an interest in our Finkle corridor, and that's from Finkel and liver noise to Finkle and Wyoming. I'm also still humbly asking for help for our diva community park. We have purchased a lot, and we have created a beautiful park, and we've had two incidents where people or someone has come and stolen our fence. We worked hard. We were blessed to get a neighborhood beautification grant to get that fence. So now we're not going to try to replace the fence. We are asking for help to get manscaping boulders. I talked to Mr. Solomon, and he was saying the city, at some time point was having the same problem, people still in the fence, or vehicles running into the fence. So I'm reaching out. We even will accept a used boulders, as long as they're not damaged. But we have a ISO now for a park, and we're trying to make it get it back.
All right, thank you. Miss Varner.
Next caller is Richard.
Uh, hi, may I be heard? Yes, so we can hear you. Hi. This is Richard noto, president of the Western caulk gun Association. I was intrigued in the meeting you guys had with DDOT and the people mover, and nothing was brought up about last mile transportation, but everyone discussed it, the need for moving people around the city. You know, I've been proponent of core towns moving people through that they can't park, and it would benefit the community and the business in the city, Detroit. So I see a lot of money been put for different entities into the budget, and I'm asking that maybe $2 million could be put as an entity for core town shuttle as a role model. This is working throughout the country and in areas of destination, where people would park a mile away and they would run on the shuttles and get where they need to go. It's cheap. Any infrastructure changes like the queue line or the people mover is so expensive it's prohibitive. So we need to really get moving. The present administration does not support it, but they're moving out soon, and we have a 2026, budget where we could put some money in to get it moving forward, a number of the council members have supported our original grant, and I am meeting with Janine robar of the state to try to see We can get funding. I've also partnering with Southwest Business Association, because they also want to have a shuttle in southwest Detroit, and there is already one running in the avenue of fashion. So I'd love you guys to consider adding some money to that. I'd love to meet with you guys and discuss different plans we have. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
The next caller is Sonia Brown,
good morning, mad. Be hurt. Yes, you can Good morning, Madam President, it's nice to see you again after coming together at such a harsh time as we lost Barry Ross the last time we were in the same room together, as well as council person, Mary waters, I like to say thank you for coming out Sunday to the vigilant for Barry as well. I'd like to speak today on behalf of those that's being evicted. I'd like to know what is true right to council. If it means standing there and saying nothing for the clients that are being evicted, then that's what's being done. Too many of our client, our residents, are being evicted, and no one is standing up to say anything. Several have said they've gone to court, and council have not stood up and said a word and representation of them to have them being evicted at such a harsh moment in time as everyone in Detroit are already dealing with such a high number of homelessness, it's unacceptable our seniors. I've got a senior that was 82 she was evicted. No one cared that she had a 55 year old autistic son, if she had not contacted me, whereas I was able to contact others, that 82 year old lady would have been homeless with a 55 year old autistic son, another senior, she reached out to an agency that should have been aiding her, stated they would she got paperwork verifying that, and yet she was evicted. Now I don't know if you know what it's like to have your life thrown into a dumpster, but that's just awful. That's horrible. That's something you cannot rim from the memories, the loved ones, the ashes of your loved ones, Bibles, family heirlooms, these things are taking place. I say we stop this eviction and putting folks out when we've already got enough people on the streets due to over taxation, the COVID era where we put people in the street, this is enough. We need council to get up and do their jobs, but we should stop evictions until we're able to house these that are already on.
Thank you so much. Miss Sonia.
The next caller is Galaxy Tab, a
good morning. Applause.
Good morning, Galaxy, caller,
can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you.
Oh, okay, I was just talking, and it went back and went back to unmute on his own. I mean, mute, but anyway, I was calling about the news conference that Gary Brown gave about the flood in southwest Detroit. Well, I had a flood in 2016 froze on my house for two freaking years without a furnace or hot water tank. I did. They did not. What they offered me was nothing at first, didn't they offer something else. I didn't agree with it. Everything that I lost in my basement, and I still don't have no wash and dry, and they did not do my floors, and none of that I need DWSD to either give me the money to fix what was lost in my basement due to the sewer on the next street that was clogged with debris that when they came out and said that vac tracking truck in, because Bill Davis worked for water department, he told me how they were going to do it, they said, in the back truck, and they chopped up everything that was done in the water went out. But the first thing they offered me was $674 which was for a crack head. I don't do cracking. I don't get high. The next one was $3,600 that does not replace everything you he's paying for. They're paying for people living apart, living hotels. They're paying to clean their stuff out. They're paying to put them washes and dryers and everything back. I don't have a washer and dryer. I had to go to the lunch man and pay to wash and dry my clothes and my basement floor. You know, I got a lot of stuff down there. It still was still not replaced. So Councilwoman president and at large cannot, please, had DWSD since he caught what he did for Southwest Detroit, but woman and I froze in my house. Okay, literally froze. So I need him to do my house like, like they do in southwest Detroit. That's what I would like to have done, because I don't have a wash in the dryer. And like I said, it was due to the flood that caused by a council president at the time was Brenda Jones. She had her staff to call them people, they haven't replaced my stuff,
right? Miss Riley, we will continue to work with you. Thank you for calling in.
Next caller is phone number anything?
Good morning? Yes,
yes, good morning. This is Luke shelter.
There needs to be an emergency housing crisis
declared in the city of Detroit,
and not just declared, but after the point, once it's declared,
the city administration could have issued various kinds of municipal bonds over the years, and they can still issue them under emergency situation and use the proceeds to develop low income housing for Detroit residents, such as revenue bonds, private activity bonds and emergency general obligation bonds. In fact, Duggan use the carrot in that project in utgo bonds, back in 2020 when you when you stated that it would be used to acquire and to build houses and rehabilitate houses for Detroiters in this city. He did that to get it passed, get it on the ballot, get a pass to council, yet no one, including the council, can tell the residents how many houses have been acquired and or rehabbed using the funds proceeds from that proposal in by city could also pressure the all these banks we got within the city limits to follow the community and Reinvestment Act, which they failed to do miserably. Those funds from these banks, the credit could be used to build housing. And last but not least, we've got over a dozen sworn affidavits of people who says that their voting rights were violated in this city and right.
Thank you, Mr. Shelton,
the next callers, Detroiters,
good morning Council.
First of all, I'd like to stand in agreement with everything that Mr. Theo pride said regarding the DDA over the past 10 years, over $27 million in tax captures and $26 million lost in tax abatements have have come from the library, which is why I'm advocating today. First of all, there is no listing of the budget hearing for the library on your website, on the budget hearing, listing of listing of hearings as late as 10 minutes ago, we were down there on February 4, on March 14, thinking that there was going to be a hearing, and we were told it would not be a hearing. Since then, we've been checking the website, and it still does not show when that hearing for the library budget occurs, so we'd like to see that happen. Also the city of Detroit has an administrative fee of almost $700,000
a year that they charge the library for.
We don't know what, because they've never explained what the administrative fee covered. We're asking that that be reduced to $50,000 and we're asking that because at one point that administrative fee was more than a million dollars, and after we insisted it was dropped summarily to 696,000 $100,000 with no explanation. We really like to know what that covers. Also for the library budget. We'd like to see the city of Detroit reimburse the library the 407 $100,000
from the wire fraud of 2021
by two still unnamed city finance department employees. We're reminding Council and the public that the city set up the library bank account the city.
All right. Thank you so much. In the Detroit pub, the Detroit Public Library's budget hearing is on March the 27th at 11am again, that's March the 27th at 11am and the budget schedule is listed on the Budget Office's page, it has all of the budget hearings dates and times, but again, the library's hearing will be on March the 27th at 11am
our next caller please.
The next caller is Frank Hammer.
Frank Hammer, good morning. Good morning.
Honorable city council and President Sheffield, the working class and our allies are under attack. What do we do? Unite and fight back. Unite in a public show of force against the right wing oligarchs and billionaires who have taken over the government to extract more wealth at our expense and attempt to silence us in the process, public workers are under attack. This week, the two unions representing our postal workers will be staging protests at the post office on Fourth Street to protect their jobs. My union, the UAW, is calling for preparations for a general strike on May Day 2028 May Day is the historic day of celebration and struggle by workers the world over in an expression of international solidarity, though May Day has its origins in our country in 1886 over the fight for the eight hour day, we don't celebrate it here. It's time for that to change. Join us as we build the broad fight back movement of the working class. Let's bring together our unions and social justice advocates and all working class residents. Save the date for a Detroit rally in March, Thursday, May 1, 2025
Thank you. Okay.
Thank you.
The next caller is Charlie.
Good morning.
Hello, yes, good morning. We can hear you. The floor is yours for public comment, okay,
yes, I'm calling in in regards to the
Renaissance.
We have concerns on why are you guys tearing down
the city of Detroit Renaissance
to try to change it around when it's so much necessary things to be done right now in the city of Detroit, like grocery stores, businesses like Target, Walmart, real franchise restaurants to Go sit down at. You have no place in the city of Detroit gas stations, real gas stations with slurping machines and all these things that you get in the suburbs. You have none of that in the city of Detroit, you have barely any dealerships, real dealerships, where you can buy a car. You have to go to the suburb for any and everything or oil change, a real oil change place, not these little rinky dink oil change places. And I'm calling to find out, why haven't y'all enforced these gas stations have a restroom where you can go in and use the restroom. You have no all these restaurants, all these, these, these trashy, dirty restaurants. You're not cleaning up, none of these restaurants. You're not enforcing nothing about nothing. In the city of Detroit, grocery stores the food they sell, expired food. You letting them you're allowing this to happen. You got a gas station that was closed because somebody got killed, and you gonna let them open up? They got the gas station still full of that. All that old food is still sitting in there, and they about to reopen and start selling that stuff. And you, I mean, what are you guys doing? It seems like you're not doing anything, and it's a shame, uh, insult, for you to actually be running for mayor, any one of you guys, because you guys are really the part of the problem. I have to, I hate to say it,
thank you.
Next caller is Steven Holling, can I be her?
Yes, you can.
Awesome. So I just want to thank us. Former US Attorney Don Eisen for her service, she was a really great US Attorney. Brought a lot of innovative programs, to say, probably more than any of the previous US attorneys. And I'm definitely going to miss the work she does. And let's just hope whoever the mag, not who's ever going to replace her, at least does something for Detroit. Lastly, I'm going to want to thank Council for the transit for actually asking for a more increased budget. You know. I'm happy to see at least there's work being done, you know. But what I don't agree with, of course, as I said multiple times, is the low income bear program. And why it doesn't work there is because a large majority of the riders are of low income and would qualify, and the losses will be devastating. And Bear revenue, you know, it's a total gibberish proposal, and I just recommend everyone in council to really take a look into it and really take a study hard, because it's not a good proposal. It's typical Detroit people's platform. I mean, not don't agree with that.
And lastly,
the DBA, so the Theo pride, who spoke against the DDA, is a former DPS executive that spent three years in federal prison for embezzling 700,000 of the DDA is needed. It is one of the biggest accomplishments of home and young. I mean, it has done so much and all this misleading gibberish. It's just, you know, it cannot be abolished.
Alright? Thank you.
The next caller is to hear Ahmed.
All right. Good morning.
Good morning. Calling on behalf, partially for the Coalition of Property Tax Justice, we demand City Council address property tax over assessment and implement the property tax reform ordinance by one addressing the systemic over assessment of properties worth less than $50,000 by passing a resolution, passing that the Wayne County, county treasurer Eric Sabri helped the foreclosure of homes worth less than its value. Voting. Number two, to vote to send properties worth less than $50,000 to the Board of Review. And three, releasing a copy of the 2024, assessment ratio study produced by the IAA. Oh, we also want you to if you can. Well, we would you can, and we would like for you, President Sheffield, to announce the foreclosure refund provisions and get people on board. Just give them the information, if you just make an announcement at every council meeting that people are eligible to receive foreclosure refunds and the dynamics surrounding it, with not being advertised anywhere else, no public service announcements. So we want the assessment roles to be the study that Chicago did regarding foreclosures, and we that they found the city continues to illegally inflate the value of the lowest valued homes. Is still happening. We want you to stop it now, please, by enacting the property tax reform ordinance, it can be announced to all of your constituents in every meeting that you have 50% of the market value of the homes are not to be assessed over the value of their
Thank you. Miss Ahmad. Our
next caller is Darren mccowski,
Hey, good morning. Council. Can hear me?
Yes, we can hear you.
Okay, um, just a small matter. Um, it would be really nice for those who call in to just have like a next on deck. I know you guys do that for the people in person. Um, I think it would be helpful for the people who call in. Um, you probably remember me from the last few console sessions calling in about the solar neighborhoods. Kind of pieced together some of the history. The land comes the funding comes from the Mr. Sky demolition, and it's being used to take people's homes. It was really kind of disappointing that last week someone voiced concern about the use restrictions being removed, and it was referenced that someone would come back to speak about that, and that never happened. So I tried to voice a little bit of what, what we've been able to find out, and just last week, so your honorable Council knows which some of you already do know, the land bank was pleading that they needed more funding so they could sell side lots for $100 a piece, because the average sale was $8,000 per lot. So it really is alarming that the good faith offers still stand at $2,500 when another city department when it benefits them is claiming the land is worth more, and especially for the three council members who voted against the solar neighborhoods, I'm just shocked and really alarmed that there's no attention being paid to some of these concerns that are brought up so with all that being said, and because It seems like people being disconnected as to the benefit of the city, I do have a phone number that people can call. We have about a dozen aggrieved neighbors already, and that phone number is 313-230-4742, again, 313-230-4742, if you'd like to talk more about your issues with the solar farm. Thank you.
Thank you so much.
The next caller is crystal rice.
Good morning. How are you everyone? My name is Crystal rice Jenkins. I am a returning Detroit resident. I returned to Detroit after taking care of my parents for the last 13 years, and I'm really disappointed with the city. And I'm going to talk about black business, but this time, I'm going to talk, as a taxpayer and a resident, the situation with the Renaissance Center y'all at y'all asked us to be respectful for everybody of diversity, but have y'all been respectful for the people of the city of
Detroit? The surrounding signs itself is a staple for Mayor Coleman Young's legacy, and it's more history than that. I applaud my I mean Councilwoman Callaway for all her efforts, but the rest of y'all Shame on you, including the one that is named after his father. You need to change your name because you're not worthy of that name. Y'all have forgotten his legacy. Y'all have sought, bought and sold the city of Detroit, and all of y'all running from there. Y'all need to think about it. It's not to run and jump and try to do some work, because you want to run, you need to be a city council person at all times, and you all have failed. You have failed you. I mean, you do this. The young lady's kids died on your watch, and not one of y'all showed up for the funeral, not one. But I see you at a see the city council woman at a party Thursday, but you couldn't show up for the funeral. But you want to say a prayer at the City Council. Where's your integrity? Where is the City Council, where Marilyn MCC Hackney and all the other ones that used to be there, you know, that were on there, that did the work and cared about the people of the city of Detroit, black Detroit, because y'all forgotten that we, we are minority, one of the most number one black Detroit in the city y'all need to get it together. And the second thing I need to add real quickly. I'm disappointed that when I went and bought a house that I can't I have to ask around of what district I am, because the district has changed. I don't have a packet. Who's my who's the City Council, which I do know.
Thank you to the caller. I would ask for you to please call my office so we can have actual conversation. So you outline some of the things that you perceive that we have not done. I know for a fact, madam president, was at the home going for those young children, there's a lot of other in factual information that was provided, and I don't blame you, because you only know what you know, but you can also hear directly from me. I would love to have a conversation with you, whether you believe it or not, that would be up to you, but please give my office a call to 313-224-1027,
this is council president pro tem Tate again, 313-224-1027,
a, again, like to know more about what your concerns are and how we can assist. Not sure what district you live in, but those districts have not changed. We have changed the boundaries, but in terms of the actual effective date, that has not gone into place yet. So again, 313-224-1027,
thank you. Thank you. President potentate,
Okay, our next caller, please.
Last caller getting that door hands raised after you would cut off public comment. The last caller is Karen hammer, all
right? Karen Karney, yes, go right ahead and you hear me? Yes, we can hear you.
So I agree there should be no bankruptcy. Detroit's housing is still recovering from the Great Recession of 2007 to nine and from bank policies on mortgages and the administration's policies focusing on profit instead of residents interests. The median household income for Detroit is less than $30,000 it's good to have infill housing. An example is the Penrose neighborhood near the Greenfield Union School. Sam Thomas, the former developer, had two phases done, but phase three still needs funding completion. The initial success resurrected the neighborhood. Stop demolition, reuse buildings like the Renaissance Center, use participatory budgeting. Involve the community regarding looking for money for the district and decide how to best use that money. Create a community land trust for low and median income buyers, so that those that land stays with the community, invest in energy efficient programs to reduce you deal utility bills, replace inefficient appliances and encourage energy analysis and retrofit homes with insulation and like measures. These create Detroit jobs as well and assist low income Detroiters. Infill housing saves neighborhoods, keep Detroit majority black and keep neighborhood community involvement as a priority. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you so much. And that will conclude all of our general public comment for this afternoon. Yes, Council Member, thank you, Madam President. I should have made this comment earlier, um, shortly after the false statements were made, but I need to put it on the record. I tend to ignore mean or bullish comments, but the record would have comments made by Miss Carolyn Hughes. We see you, and just want to make sure that I did not make any single statements that she shared, and wanted to put that on on the record. Thank you, Madam President, okay, thank you, Council Member. Okay, so we will go to our agenda, and if there are no objections, I would like to go straight to line item, 19 point 21 and 19 point 22 I know that we had a few people or pro Tim had to step away. Are you comfortable? Can you stay for the entire Okay, all right, these are two
okay, these are two resolutions for our community development block grant, neighborhood Opportunity Fund and under resolutions, Madam Clerk.
Council member durha, two resolutions, line items 19, point 21 and 19 point 22
council member durha,
thank you, Madam President, line item 19, point 21 is authorizing the results of the 2520 2520 26 CDBG grant, neighborhood Opportunity Fund appeals review and 19 point 22 is approving the Public Service allocations of the neighborhood Opportunity Fund CDBG block grant budget for fiscal year 2025 through 2056 Move for approval for line items, 19 point 21 and 19 point 22
all right. Are there any objections in approving these two items? Hearing, no objections. The two resolutions will be approved. The request for a waiver.
Request a waiver for both liners,
Hearing no objections, that action will be taken.
All right, we'll go back up to the agenda from the beginning now, starting at the the
budget Finance and Audit standing committee from the Office of Budget
council member durha a resolution line item 17.1, noting that this line item was postponed from last week formal session.
Council member draw Thank you,
Madam President. Line on 15.1 is a resolution of authorization for the fiscal year 2024, through 2025, supplemental appropriations and transfer requests Move for approval for line item 15.1 All
right, any discussion, any questions on line item 15.1
hearing, none. Are there any objections?
Hearing, no objections. Line item 15.1 will be approved
question waiver for line item 15.1
any objections to a waiver for 15.1
hearing none the motion is approved.
From the law department council
member Johnson to resolutions, line item 16.1, and 16.2
council member Johnson, thank
you, Madam President, Move for approval on line item 16.1 and 16.2 these are two laws, settlement, requests.
Any objections.
Hearing, no objections. The two resolutions will be approved
from the Human Resources, Labor Relations Division council member Johnson, a resolution line item 16.3, noting that this line item was postponed from last week formal session
council member Johnson, thank you, Madam President, Move for approval this is to implement the extension of the drop program for members of the Detroit Police Department, command Officers Association.
Any objections to the motion for line item 16.3 Hearing none the one resolution will be approved.
Under resolutions. Council member Johnson, a resolution, line item 16.4
council member Johnson, thank
you, Madam President, Move for approval. This is to establish the climate disaster recovery Task Force.
Motion has been made for the approval of the resolution. Are there any objections? Carrying no objections, the one resolution will be approved.
Madam President, yes. I'd also like to make a motion, if I may, to remove line item 22.5 which is the climate disaster recovery Task Force resolution that was also attached here.
Okay, 22.5 Yes.
All right, Madam Clerk, if you can note, and there's a motion to remove 22.5 from the agenda, as we just passed the resolution already. So No Madam President, okay, Hearing no objections. That item will be removed for the Planning and Economic Development standing committee from the Office of contracting and procurement
council president pro tem James Tate. Two resolutions, line item, 17.1 and 17.2 contract number 6004378, dash, a, two, 100% g, h, i, b, p, funding amendment two to provide an extension of time only for trash outs and board of services for residential properties in preparation for rehab services. Contractor, G, T, J, consulting, LLC, total contract amount 200,000 that's for housing and revitalization. Next contract is contract number 6006958, 100% city funding to provide to operate a tool bank to support the serve Detroit volunteer program, contractor, Motor City grounds crew. Total contract amount 160,000 that's for housing and revitalization Council. President Pro Temp Tate, two resolutions.
President Pro Temp Tate. President,
I move approval of line items, 17.1 and 17.2 please.
All right, a motion has been made. Are there any objections to the two resolutions? Hearing no objections, the two resolutions will be approved.
President, yes. Pro Temp request for a waiver online item, 17.2 please,
Hearing no objection, a waiver will be attached to 17.2 thank you from the planning excuse me from the City Planning Commission Council.
President Pro Tem James Tate, an introduction of an ordinance. Line item, 17.3
President Pro Tem Tate, Madam President,
I move that the ordinance be read twice by title, title, ordered printed and laid on the table,
Hearing no objections that action will be taken from the City Planning Commission council
president pro tem James Tate, a resolution set in the public hearing line item 17.4
Pro Temp Tate president, move approval of line item 17.4 for day to Be determined.
Hearing no objections. The resolution will be approved for the scheduling of a public hearing
from the housing and revitalization department
Council. President Pro Tem James Tate, two resolutions, line item, 17.5 and 17.6
President Pro Temp Tate, madam.
President, I move approval line items, 17.5 and 17.6
motion has been made. Any objections to these items? Hearing, no objections. The two resolutions will be approved
from the planning and development department.
Council. President Pro Tem James Tate, four resolutions, line item 17.7 through 17 point 10.
President Pro Temp Tate,
madam president, if we can take line item 17.7 separately, please move to discuss 17.7 All right, discussion. Thank you, colleagues. I'm asking for please, one week postponement on this particular item. We had a meeting set with the administration regarding this particular item and calendars. Got you say we got full with budget and other things, but I do have a meeting scheduled today, and it is on the books, so I fully expect to be prepared next week for this particular vote, but asking for a one week postponement motion for one week postponement online, item 17.7, please. Discussion
member Benson, I
the request by the pro tem. This is a very necessary and needed initiative and something that we funded as a council last year, so I'm looking forward to those conversations happening
through you, Madam President, that's exactly why I wanted to have the conversation and not just vote on it, because we did as a body decide this was the direction we want to go in, but felt uneasy about responses that was received and needed a more global response, and looking forward to it today. Thank
you. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Pro Tim, Hearing no objections, we will postpone 17.7 for one week, moving along to the remaining item, 17 point 17.8 17 point 10. Protein tape,
yes, ma'am, thank you. Move approval of line items, 17.8 through 17 point 10. All right,
these are various property sales. Are there any objections? Hearing? None. The three resolutions will be approved.
Request away from a lineup, 17 point 10,
a waiver on 17.8
17 point 10,
Hearing no objections, a waiver will be attached to 17 point 10. Motion
waving 17.8
Hearing no objections, a waiver will also be attached to 17.8
under resolutions
council member durha on behalf of council member Whitfield Callaway, a resolution, line item 17 point 11.
Council member,
Vincent president. Member Hall, sorry about that. Council member,
thank you. Line item 17 point 11 is a resolution urging anti speculation. Legislation, legislation Move for approval for line item 17, point 11,
Hearing no objections. The one resolution will be approved for the public health and safety standing committee from the Office of contracting and procurement
council member, Santiago Romero, two resolutions, line items, 18.1 and 18.2
contract number 6006994,
100% ut geo bond funding to provide demolition and remediation of the maintenance and refrigeration buildings at the Rogue golf course. Contractor, solid being trucking and excavating. Incorporated total contract amount, $121,148.50 cent that's for construction and demolition. Next contract is contract number 3080738, 100% city funding to provide single lane evolve, weapons detectors, contractor, groundwork, zero LLC, total contract amount 43,000 that's for police. Council Member Santiago Romero, two resolutions.
Council Member Santiago Romero, thank you, Madam President, motion to approve
any objections,
Hearing no objections, the two resolutions will be approved.
President, yes, proton request for waiver in line item 18.1 please.
Hearing no objections, a waiver will be attached to 18.1 thank you from the Department of Public Works city engineering division. Council
Member Santiago Romero, two resolutions, nine items, 18.3 and 18.4
Council Member Santiago Romero, thank you, Madam President. Motion to approve. These are both petitions for encroachments. Hearing no objections. The two resolutions will be approved, moving to the new business portion of our agenda from the mayor's office.
Council member young six resolutions, line items, 19.1 through 19.6
council member Young.
Motion has been made. These are all events that have received departmental approvals. Are there any objections to any of the events? Hearing, no objections. These six resolutions will be approved. Hearing, no objections. A waiver will be added to line item 19.2
from the Office of contracting and procurement
Council Member Santiago Romero for resolutions line items 19.7 through 19 point 10. First up is contract number 3081560, 100% G, H, I, B, funding to provide B and P plan residential demolition for properties acquired through the home swap program. 102824, contractor, inner city contracting, LLC, total contract amount, $222,350 that's for construction and demolition. Next contract is contract number 6006976, 100% black funding to provide abatement and alteration of 15401, Grand River mammoth building contractor, comb rich, wrecking Incorporated, doing business as home, rich total contract amount, $2,599,740 that's for construction and demolition. Next contract is contract number 6005172, dash a one, 100% grant funding. Amendment One, to provide an extension of time only for recycling, education and technical assistance services. Contractor, Green Living science total contract amount 218,000 that's for public works. Last contract is contract number 6006526, 100% city funding to provide medical supplies and equipment through source will agreement number 022422, dash, MML contractor McKesson, medical surgical, Government Solutions, LLC, total contract amount 500,000 that's for health. Council Member Santiago Romero, for resolutions.
Thank you. Madam Clerk Member Santiago Romero, thank you, Madam President, motion to approve 19.7 and 19.8
right. Any discussion,
all right, any objections on these two items?
Hearing no objections 19.7 and 19.8 will be approved.
President, yes, pro tem, press for
waiver in line at a 19.8 please.
Any objection to a waiver for 19.8
hearing, none that action will be taken. Member, Santiago Romero, thank you, Madam President, motion to approve 19.9 and 19 point 10.
Any any objections on 19.9 and 19 point 10? Hearing no objections. These two resolutions will be approved request a waiver for 19 point 10. Madam President, Hearing no objections, a waiver will be attached to 19 point 10
from the Office of contracting and procurement. Council
member young two resolutions, line items, 19 point 11 and 19 point 12. Contract Number 6006980, 100% city funding to provide Animal Care supplies for the city of Detroit. Animal Care Shelter contractor Raymond Enterprises Incorporated doing business as premier pet supply. Total contract amount $123,603.55 cent. That's for general services. Next contract is contract number 6006887, 100% city funding to provide maintenance and repair services, mobile command unit and specialty vehicles. Contractor, McQueen equipment, LLC, total contract amount, 300,000 that's for general services. Council member young, two resolutions.
Council member Young,
thank you, Madam President, I move to approve line items 19 point 11 and 19 point 12.
All right, any objections,
Hearing no objections, the two resolutions will be approved. Yes. Member young by the request of
waiver for line item 19 point 11
and Hearing no objections, a waiver will be attached to 19 point 11. What's
a waiver in line of 19 point 12 and line of 19.9
any objections to a waiver on 19.9 and 19 point 11? Well, well, excuse me,
Hearing no objections that action will be taken
from the Office of Development and grants.
Council Member Santiago Romero for resolutions, line items, 19, point 13 through 19 point 16.
Member, Santiago Romero, thank you, Madam President. Motion to approve these are all various grants, Hearing no objections before resolutions will be approved. Request a waiver, Madam President, for 19 point 13 through 19 point 16 and Hearing no objections, a waiver will be attached to all four items. Thank you from the
Office of Development and grants.
Council member young, three resolutions, line items 19, point 17 through 19, point 19.
Council member Young,
thank you, Madam President, I move to approve line items 19, point 17 through 19, point 19.
All right, these are applications and acceptance of various grants. Any objections? Hearing, no objections. The three resolutions will be approved.
Request a waiver on 19, point 19,
hearing, no objections, a waiver will be attached to 19 point 19.
I like to request a waiver on line item 19 point 17.
Hearing no objections, a waiver will be attached to 19 point 17 from the Department of Public Works city engineering division.
Council Member Santiago Romero, a resolution. Line item 19, Point 20.
Council Member Santiago Romero, thank you, Madam President. Motion to approve this is a request for encroachments, Hearing no objections. The one resolution will be approved. We have already taken up 19 point 21 and 19 point 22 and so before we move to referrals, I think we have one walk, one resolution
referred to what committee
there's a resolution to schedule a public hearing for the Business Business Improvement Zone to be referred to the planning and development department. Is there a motion to do so? Hearing no objections. This resolution will be sent to Planning and Development discussion. Yes. Council member Benson,
why the need for the walk on versus the typical process on this one. Pro Temp, thank you, Madam President, through you to member Benson, I would like to invite someone from the law department or even DDP to walk through this. We were initially told that we had to have a hearing by a certain day. Since learned that is one is not possible for us to have it in committee during that time frame, but to let them fill in the rest, there's a lot of park
morning.
Thank Thank you, Madam Chair.
Yeah, we have DDP here. It's a different ball department to come on up 30 grand
Gina Cavalier, downtown Detroit partnership, okay,
the chair, Graham Anderson law department, Joshua lane, Jefferson, East Incorporated.
We submitted the petition in on February 20, and the statute states that the public hearing shall be scheduled within 28 days with the budget process and budget hearings with the city. It has been tricky to fit that in, and so it was agreed that the public hearing will be scheduled for April 10, and this is to establish a new Business Improvement Zone. The last time anyone in the city did this was a decade ago, so there was some discussion as to what the process is to get it to this point and to schedule the public hearing. So we've been working closely with your staffs, and we appreciate all the support, no
problem. Yeah, we kept, Madam President, kept reminding folks that we could not have this hearing during budget. There was this big push, and law was hanging over our head that all says you must do this. And we kept asking for clarity. Little frustrating, I gotta be honest with you, because when I'm saying we cannot have it in committee. It was then the law says that you have to have it. And our question was, is it that we have to have the hearing by that day? Do we have to have the approval by that day, or do we have to have the hearing set by that day? We kept being told it has to be, it has to happen on that day. And you know, again, it was, I'm glad we're at this point. But if someone can answer, what was the breakthrough that got us to this response, that makes a whole lot of sense.
I believe that the law department issued an opinion that the public hearing needed to be scheduled within that 28 day period. We also had some debate about potentially holding that public hearing within that those 28 days, but collectively decided, in the interest of transparency and respecting the rights of the property owners to come forward and be heard, we opted for the the interpretation that allowed for a longer notice period to the property owners. And
then my other and final question is, did it have to be filed on that day, or could have been filed another day to allow for this not to happen in terms of time, and that way we can kind of leads to us having a better line of communication.
Yes, through the chair. You're part time, and we thank you for your flexibility that we were able to have it determined in that timeline. So we appreciate that. We obviously do not want to mess with budget, and we understand, you know, budgets a very tight timeline, and just realistically, it's not able to get it done that time. So we were able to determine that just scheduling in that was acceptable for law. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Member young,
yeah, I don't mean to be a slow kid in the class, but is this a chip road river town? Is that we talk about it.
It is council member young. We had been working Jefferson east, along with local stakeholders, our friends, the Downtown Partnership, really, since 2018 looking at the feasibility of establishing a Business Improvement Zone within the river town neighborhood, working closely with Chip roadie. He is on, been on our advisory committee all throughout this process, along with the major stakeholders and residents from that area. So we basically got to the point there were a lot of legislative changes with the biz law through through previous administrations, COVID slowed it down. It was only in the last legislative session they made some fixes to the biz law to allow us to move forward with the river town biz and so that that point, the river town is steering committee of which Mr. Rhode is a member, authorized us to go forward with the formal petition process. We got the signatures of the requisite number of property owners to move this process forward, and then went and submitted them in the time frame that was outlined is a long time,
right? It was very, a very long time, yes, so I made sure. Thank you all done. Thank
you all right. Thanks for the discussion. Members. Thank
you. Just what are the boundaries of the proposed biz?
The the boundaries of the Rivertown biz? On the western boundary, it's Rivard. Then it jogs up to 375 learned is the northern border. It zigzags a little bit around both a because it has to be contiguous with parcels that exist, runs over to about Sheridan and then back down to the Detroit River. So that is the the boundaries of the river town biz, and all of that is outlined in the petition and the information that will go to to property owners. And we've been updating stakeholders throughout the way, on those those boundaries as well, too. All
right, thank you. Thank you. Any further colleagues, seeing none, there's a motion on the floor, motion to approve the walk on any objections, seeing none, that action shall be taken. Thank you for the president's report on standing committee referrals and other matters for the budget Finance and Audit. Standing Committee,
three reports from various city departments. The
three reports will be referred to the budget Finance and Audit. Standing Committee for the internal operations. Standing Committee,
five reports from various city departments, clerk. The
five reports will be referred to the internal operations Standing Committee, Mr.
President, yes, that would be four reports. Line I know 22.5 was removed earlier in the session,
apologies. I stepped out. The four reports will be better to the internal operations, standing committee for the Neighborhood and Community Services. Standing Committee, three reports from various city departments. The three reports shall be referred to the Neighborhood and Community Services standing committee for the Planning and Economic Development. Standing
Committee two reports, one, including the walk on Mr. President and a report from housing and revitalization department the you said
two, ma'am, yeah, it will be to a total two. Okay, the two refer reports will be referred to the neighborhood, and that's for planning, Mr. Sorry, Planning and Economic Development standing committee, as well as the report from the housing and revitalization department, the report shall be referred to the planning. Oh, that's what it says here.
Yes, Mr. President,
there's two items in total. Mr. President, where it was previously one, but we're adding so there will be two new referrals for PED for this week. Okay, for the
Planning and Economic Development standing committee. Madam Clerk,
two reports from various city departments. The two reports
shall be referred.
I thought I had four on it, but it's two
under the consent agenda,
Mr. President, we are going to public health and safety standing committee. There will be four reports from various city departments.
Thank you, Madam Clerk, for four reports shall be referred to the public health and safety Standing Committee under consent agenda, there are no items. Mr. President, should now go to member reports. Member Benson,
no report. All right.
Member durhall,
thank you, Mr. President, just inviting everyone to join us for our 22nd policy session, taking place Monday March the 24th from 6pm to 7:30pm located at the Edison library at 18400 Joy row, again, this one, we will be discussing the Bill of Rights. Last month we discussed the US Constitution. So again, this is our 22nd policy session taking place Monday, March the 24th from 6pm to 7:30pm at the Edison library located at 18400, Joy Road, please come out and join us. Great opportunity to learn alongside your fellow residents. Also, please join us for our third annual Community Leadership Conference on Saturday, March the 29th from 9am to 3pm at the Union carpenters and mill Wright Skilled Trade Training Center located at 11687, American street. This conference will deal with information for block clubs. Community organizations will have access to grant writers as well as other resources that will help your community organization and or block club thrive. So again, please join us. Saturday March the 29th from 9am to 3pm at the Union carpenters and mill rights skilled training center for our third annual Community Leadership Conference. Other than that, that concludes my report. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you member Johnson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And would just like to remind district four residents that we are hosting our monthly community meeting on Monday, March 24 it is a hybrid meeting. The in person location is at Southeastern High School. The address 3030 Fairview. The meeting will take place beginning at 530 and we've been running long these days, so we'll go until we conclude all of our questions. The focus is on our you. So we have three speakers that are lined up to share information that's pertinent and beneficial to our you throughout the community, we will have DPC, DPS, CDs, health hubs for someone to share information about who can access the services at the Health hubs. We do have a couple of them in the district at high schools, but they provide services to residents 21 and under. We also will have the owner and new at the new facility at the pediatric urgent care doctor Pope. Doctor Pope opened up on East Jefferson in the Riverbend Plaza recently, and just want to make sure that residents in the district know the services that they provide for our youth as well, and then we will have someone there providing information about Detroit promise, the scholarship program and Detroit reconnect for 25 year old individuals and older to get reconnected to educational opportunities. So again, that is Monday, March, 24 at 5:30pm at Southeastern High School. Thank you Mr. Chair. Thank you member waters,
thank you Mr. Chairman, this Wednesday from four to 6pm skilled trade task force will be meeting at IBEW Local 58 which is at 1358, Abbott Street, from four to 6pm that's this Wednesday, from four to six at 1358,
Abbott Street,
IBEW Local, 58 I
just want to congratulate all of the women entrepreneurs Who came out on, who were here on, on Friday in this auditorium where we honor them.
The event was electric fire
and
so congratulations to all of the women who shared their stories about how they all got started at age 13 and so forth. It was absolutely wonderful. So congratulations again. Thank you Mister Chairman. Thank you
member Young.
Thank you Mister President. I want to invite everybody to come out to coffee with COVID. A Friday, 11, 2024 that's 11am to 1pm good cakes and bakes. 19363, liver noise Avenue again, come on down to good cakes and bakes, Friday, April, 11, 11am, to 1pm
at on, 19363,
liver noise Avenue again, come on down. Friday, April 11, 11am to 1pm to good cakes and bakes on 19363, liver noise Avenue, and you can RSVP and register at 313-574-5449. That's 313-574-5449, so again, coffee with Coleman. Friday, April 11, 11am to 1pm good cakes and bakes. 19363, liver noise Avenue, RSVP to register. 313, at 313-574-5449,
all right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. President.
Thank you. Member Santiago Romero,
thank you, Mr. President. For District Six residents, want to let you know that our monthly office hours this month we'll be in partnership with the Office of Digital equity and inclusion. We will be at Kemeny rec center on Monday, March 24 from four to 6pm please come over to ask us any questions or share any concerns that you might have. March is reading month. I will be having our second reading at the 27th letter this Saturday at 11am please bring your babies. It's a lot of fun. It's also a great time for adults. Thank you. Mr. President, thank
you. And I have no member reports. So Madam Clerk,
under adoption without committee reference, there are no items. Mr. President, under communications from the clerk, a report on approval of proceedings by the mayor. The
report will be received and placed on file under testimonial resolutions and special privilege.
Council member Benson, on behalf of council member Mary waters, a resolution line item, 30.1
motion to approve.
There's a motion on the floor colleagues, motion
any objection
Seeing none, that action shall be taken. I would like to join you on that member Benson
as well. Any objection to the name of the council,
any objection Seeing none, line item 30.1, will be in the name of Council. Thank you very much. Son. There being no further business to come before this body. Are there any objections to a journey. Motion vote to adjourn. There's a motion to adjourn Hearing no objections that action shall be taken meeting is adjourned.