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Volume 81 – Number 8
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michiganchronicle.com
November 1-7, 2017
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CHRONICLE ENDORSEMENTS
Janice Winfrey deserves another chance
MAYOR
Mike Duggan Any voters who may have been on the fence about whether or not Sen. Coleman Young II was qualified to replace Mike Duggan as the next mayor of Detroit should no longer be on that fence after watching last week’s mayoral debate. Young began in his opening statement accusing Duggan of covering up the murder of Malice Green, an accusation that bears no resemblance to fact with no supportive evidence related to a tragedy that occurred nearly a quarter century ago. He later said that he wanted to “give the Motherland back to the people,” a perplexing wish that he repeated during his closing statement. It didn’t get much better for Young after that. What should have been Young’s primary objective during the debate was to convince those voters on the fence that he was the better choice who could deliver where Mayor Duggan has failed, that he could better represent this city and stand up for its people than the incumbent. He needed to show that he better understood the needs of Detroiters. Instead, we got the Motherland. Meanwhile, Duggan, as should have been anticipated by Young and his people, went to work on his opponent with a laundry list of what his administration has managed to accomplish during his first term in office. To begin one’s term of office in the midst of the largest municipal bankruptcy in history is slightly more than a minor bump in the road. It’s a mountain. That combined with everything else Detroit has been dealing with since seemingly forever adds up to one massive job description that would have defied the best efforts of anyone brave enough — or crazy enough — to sign up for the task. Now nearing the end of that first term, it’s hard to make a credible argument that Detroit is no better than it was four years ago. That simply isn’t true. And although some of Duggan’s accomplishments may have been built on what was begun by his predecessors, that’s no crime,
See DUGGAN page A-4
WHAT’S INSIDE
The Michigan Chronicle
Janice Winfrey messed up last November, and not in any small way. That much we know. As a matter of fact, everyone knows. Winfrey’s November screw up is the kind of thing that can end a career, and it’s also the kind of thing that emboldened her challenger, Garlin Gilchrist. He saw a major weak spot that he believes just might be enough to shove her aside and make way for new blood. We don’t make light of the debacle of 2016, where equipment failures and other issues resulted in vote counting discrepancies that caused some to [incorrectly] assert that the inefficiency of her office during one of the most critical presidential elections of our lifetime may have been what handed Michigan — and the presidential victory — to Republican candidate Donald Trump. It’s not a small thing that one can tiptoe around. But as serious as that mistake was, was it so serious that it should define Winfrey’s entire career? Is it
possible that Winfrey has learned enough from what happened last November to make her a sufficiently improved public servant? When asked directly about what she has learned, she responded in the following manner: “I learned much from the 2016 Presidential Election. The greatest lesson was that, in order to grow from your experiences, you must accept responsibility for them, gain wisdom from it and move forward. After reading the Michigan Bureau of Election’s Audit report, I have worked tirelessly to procure new voting equipment, retrain the Department of Election’s staff on election law and administration and, finally, work with our existing poll worker population and provide them with rigorous training that requires supervisory staff to four training sessions per year. The training provided to our poll workers deals with opening the polls, processing voters, closing the polls, equipment and technology and problem solving.”
See WINFREY page A-4
Cushingberry faces steep challenge as District 2 write-in candidate The Michigan Chronicle
Incumbent Detroit City Councilman George Cushingberry is facing a very tough uphill battle to retain his seat on the council as a representative for his constituents in District 2. It wasn’t a surprise that Cushingberry was facing a tough battle to defend his seat during the primaries, which explained the relatively long list of challengers. Quite frankly, there have been complaints that George Cushingberry Cushingberry has been slipping for awhile and not consistently performing his tasks to the level of his con-
See CUSHINGBERRY page A-4
Vote YES on both ballot proposals Staff Reports
Shop Detroit, live
Detroit See Page C1
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Those who remain staunchly opposed to the legalization of marijuana and, consequently, to the two pro-legalization ballot proposals Detroit voters will be asked to consider on Nov. 7, have every right to remain as opposed as they would like. Their reasons for opposing legalization are legitimate and understandable. But their reasons are not strong enough to convince us to vote against what is in the best interest of Detroit. Which is why we are asking Detroiters to vote YES on both ballot proposals next week that will take an important step toward not just the legalization of marijuana but toward a much-needed revenue stream that this city sorely needs. Not to mention jobs. We need to realize that this is an industry that is on the way. It’s only a matter of time, and very little time at that. The more we try to position ourselves as standing in the way of marijuana legalization, the more we are likely to cut Detroiters out of
the potential millions of dollars in revenue as well as a measure of control over an industry that the suburbs are only too happy to operate on our behalf if we don’t step up to the plate. The legal U.S. marijuana industry — both medical and recreational — grossed about $7.1 billion in sales in 2016. That’s
billion with a ‘b’. More than 1.2 million Americans use medical marijuana for a wide variety of medical problems, from cancer to epilepsy to depression. Michigan has 178,629 registered medical marijuana patients, a 2015 number. State voters in 2008 overwhelmingly approved a measure
to allow marijuana use for medicinal purposes. That led to a massive increase in the number of dispensaries in Detroit, not all of them operating legally. One of the ballot measures would align the city with state law, effectively decreasing the
See PROPOSALS page A-4