DABO and ‘Get Out’ star host suicide prevention forum for Detroit youth
Ms. Goal Digger is a CEO’s guide to goal setting, dressing the part and having it all Page C1
Page B1 POWERED BY REAL TIMES MEDIA
Volume 80 – Number 31
michiganchronicle.com
April 12-18, 2017
Mayor Coleman A. Young’s former employees strongly resist endorsing his son By Keith A. Owens Senior Editor
On Tuesday morning, when 25 former cabinet members and appointees of the late Mayor Coleman A. Young came together for a press conference to announce that they were all supporting the re-election of Mayor Mike Duggan, the elephant in the room was called out near the end when a reporter asked the obvious question, namely what did they think Young would say about their decision to not endorse his son in favor of his son’s opponent? There were several answers given, all of them more or less the same: Sen. Coleman Young II is not ready to be the next mayor of Detroit. And although all but one respondent made sure to say that he/she believed Young’s son had a bright future when speaking into the mic, at least one indicated during an earlier conversation that Young’s qualifications for leadership were nowhere near those of his famous father. A fairly large number of groups and individuals have already stepped forward to announce their support of Duggan, which isn’t much of a surprise. Duggan is an extremely skilled politician who knows how to put together a strong team and, more importantly, how to establish and maintain a strong base of support. But what made Tuesday’s announcement a bit more significant than the others was that it was the first endorsement that appeared to be taking direct aim at the man whom Duggan and his team apparently consider to be the biggest threat. Which means that although most of the safe money remains on Duggan’s re-election — and not by a small margin — there is obviously enough of a concern about Young’s potential to catch fire that they felt the need to stomp on that match like sasquatch. In other words, that was a considerable amount of firepower to launch against a candidate who wouldn’t seem to stand much of a chance except for the remaining power inherent in his gold-plated name. Concern was also expressed about the importance of moving forward with Duggan’s agenda, and it was obvious that the issue of neighborhood revitalization — as opposed to Midtown and downtown — has been identified as possibly the key issue in this campaign. Because
See ENDORSEMENT page A-4
WHAT’S INSIDE
A revitalized Detroit requires
revitalized Detroiters Too many barely surviving Detroiters presents a problem for the Detroit Comeback City narrative
By Keith A. Owens Senior Editor
With so many Detroiters still living below the poverty line, or barely treading water above it, perhaps it’s time to rethink this persistent view that homeownership is the answer that will bring the city roaring back to life. Because, truth be told, nearly half of all Detroiters aren’t making enough money to comfortably own and maintain a home without putting themselves at financial risk. Then stir in the factor of credit worthiness, because most banks today won’t consider financing a home mortgage in Detroit — even to a person with stellar credit — because so many homes are still underwater with the home resale appraisal value tumbling far below the property’s original appraisal value. And if a home is underwater, it can’t be properly appraised, which means the potential buyer usually can’t get a loan to buy a house in Detroit for anywhere near what the seller wants. Hardly anyone in Detroit today can afford to sell their home if they have any hope of recouping their investment. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that most Detroiters do not have stellar credit.
Then there’s that other fact, reported by Crain’s Detroit Business not long ago, that the overwhelming number of home sale transactions in Detroit these days are cash transactions, not mortgages — because hardly anyone can qualify for a mortgage in Detroit. And since the average cash transaction value for a home sale is around $30,000, while the average bank financed mortgage is around $150,000, then that means property values in far too many neighborhoods are being kept underwater because the cheaper transactions far outweigh the mortgages, which of course negatively affects property taxes, which negatively affects revenue for the city, which… On and on and on it goes, that downward spiral. So last week, when Mayor Mike Duggan announced the $4 million investment planned for the Fitzgerald neighborhood, that chosen square quarter-mile located on the city’s northwest side, there was reason to feel at least some measure of hope that maybe now the neighborhoods were finally beginning to receive the same amount of attention as downtown and Midtown. The promise of a revitalized neighborhood, assisting the current homeowners with the potential of attracting even more stable homeowners with the construction of new homes and the rehabbing of others, should be a good thing worth celebrating. There are definitely some strong positives here, even if the critics have a point that more could have potentially been done sooner to focus on neighborhoods.
But when you look at the overall collective set of crippling circumstances that many of this city’s neighborhoods are facing, there is a lot more to be concerned about than whether or not Duggan’s announcement was too politically timed. More specifically, one has to wonder whether Detroit’s entrenched poverty presents too steep a hurdle to conquer between where we are today and the goal of a fully revitalized Detroit. Or is the problem that we’re just not willing to openly acknowledge the severity of the problem? Because even with the plans proposed by Planning and Development Director Maurice Cox to better anchor the city’s more stable neighborhoods, there still doesn’t seem to be as comprehensive a plan for those that didn’t quite make the cut. And as much as everyone talks about the need for better job training and job preparedness for a workforce that is still in many ways unprepared to face the challenges of the modern workplace, there still doesn’t seem to be an agreed-upon answer or plan/approach as to how to prepare this large number of Detroiters to qualify for the sorts of jobs that will actually pay them enough to afford a decent home. In a Facebook post written by Bishop Edgar Vann on Sunday, he clearly spelled out the challenges: “Recent U.S. Census data proves what many legacy Detroiters already know, poverty is still Detroit's primary issue no matter how bustling the greater downtown
So Dan Gilbert says soccer will save Detroit - really? By Keith A. Owens Senior Editor
Could the president’s deplorable antics lead to
new activism? See page D-1
$1.00
See DETROIT page A-4
Last week, Rock Ventures made another ill-advised power move trumpeting all the supposed financial benefits that Rock CEO Dan Gilbert’s dream of a new soccer stadium complex would bring to Detroit. Then the Ventures release contrasted the Glories of Soccer with the relatively wimpy economic impact — by comparison — of moving forward with the stalled Wayne County Jail. Gilbert, who keeps signaling that he, Gilbert, The King of All Downtown, shall not be denied, is essentially trying to embarrass Evans into folding by flexing his massive dollar signs. But nobody elected Gilbert. What Gilbert still doesn’t seem to grasp is who it is he’s up against, perhaps because he’s so used to being the one that everyone else is up against. Not to say that Gilbert has no chance of prevailing, because he may yet have his way, if only because of the way money always seems to
Dan Gilbert step on the throat of everything else in its path. But if he thinks he’s going to make Wayne County Executive Warren Evans jump, heel, and roll over then he should stay tuned to whatever channel it is he’s watching, because I guarantee that show will not end the way he thinks it will. First, here is what Gilbert said, and I am including the PR
in its lengthy entirety rather than picking and choosing what was said. But if you get tired, please don’t skip out before scrolling down to Evans’ response, which politely but forcefully equates to something that cannot be reproduced in a family newspaper. But just picture a middle finger in your mind. Why? Simple. Because it
seems no matter how many times and how many ways Evans tries to explain to Gilbert what will be required for him to sign off on an agreement allowing Gilbert to dance away happy with his soccer stadium, Gilbert keeps playing deaf. As if he doesn’t have to listen to Evans because, well, he’s Gilbert. King of All Downtown and all that. The best example of that hubris was when Gilbert and team made their well-publicized bid for the soccer stadium to the Soccer Authorities That Be, stating that the Gratiot site was the only site under consideration. Even though neither Evans nor the Wayne County Commission had entered into any sort of agreement — or even the hint of an agreement — with Gilbert. So then how could he so brazenly state that the stadium will be built on the Gratiot site no matter what when he doesn’t have any agreement and Evans still had so many questions that needed to be answered?
See GILBERT page A-4