Residents suffer as ills mount
Photos by David Coates / The Detroit News
While debris piled up in front of homes like this one at 4716 Courville St., the City Council last month debated a ladybug invasion. On Sept. 5, the council’s first month back after summer recess, Detroit was facing several real crises, none of which were discussed.
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By Cameron McWhirter/The Detroit News
DETROIT
n Sept. 5, the first day back after a month-long summer recess, the Detroit City Council sat down in its chambers to tackle the city’s problems.
One of the issues was ladybugs.
Councilwoman Alberta Tinsley-Talabi declared that the harmless insects were invading the city. “I would like someone to tell us what has occurred,” she demanded.
President Pro Tem Maryann Mahaffey urged the council to contact the Wayne County Extension Service for “information on what could be done.” Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel suggested that the health department be contacted.
Councilwoman Brenda Scott, who urged caution, said: “I’ve always been told that they represent good luck. And the more luck we have in this city, the better.”
Councilman Clyde Cleveland, wandering in more than an hour late, sang a few bars of an old Nat King Cole song about ladybugs.
In fact, Detroit wasn’t suffering a ladybug crisis. Entomologists said there were just more of them around to eat a big crop of aphids, resulting from heavy rains.
However, on Sept. 5, Detroit was facing several real crises. The future of the city’s riverfront development was in jeopardy and with it, part of Detroit’s downtown revitalization plan. Federal officials were investigating the city’s police department.
What’s more, the city was still plagued by vacant lots and abandon buildings. Contracts with the city’s unions had expired this summer, just as Detroit was facing its worst fiscal crisis in a decade.
But the City Council didn’t discuss any of those concerns.
The council, along with the city’s dysfunctional bureaucracy and bleak financial prospects, combine to create a sorry picture of government adrift, disconnected from its citizens and their most pressing issues, and unable to meet the most basic needs of residents. The council and the bureaucracy have become barriers to progress — keeping Detroit a broken city.
That Sept. 5 session illustrates how the council regularly conducts business and how it fails to play a vital role in halting the decline of America’s 10th largest city.
The council has failed its citizens in manifold ways:
• In allowing the continued deterioration of once-vibrant blocks such as the 1900 block of Elmhurst on the city’s west side. In the 1950s, the block had 17 houses, nine apartment buildings and two storefront buildings. All of them were fully occupied. Today the block has 11 houses, one occupied apartment building, one vacant apartment building, one vacant storefront building and 14 vacant lots. This pattern has been repeated on thousands of blocks across Detroit, increasing the number of absentee owners, the amount of abandoned property, and the levels of crime and poverty. Today there are 10,000 to 12,000 vacant buildings, many of them in need of demolition, and 40,000 city-owned vacant lots.
• In not taking steps to stem a five-decade exodus of middle-class families to the suburbs. White flight continued throughout the last decade and, according to the 2000 census, blacks more than ever before joined them. This population decline means lost tax base and increased abandonment, further straining city resources and making Detroit a less attractive place to live.
• In not supporting neighborhood businesses in desperate need of city services. The U.S. Census Bureau’s economic survey in 1992 found 8,659 businesses in Detroit. The most recent survey in 1997 — in the midst of the largest economic expansion in U.S. history — found Detroit had only 8,297 businesses — a loss of more than 4 percent in five years. Loss of businesses means fewer jobs, lost sales taxes and less property tax revenue.
• In not scrutinizing in detail the budgets of city departments that provide essential services such as lights, public transportation and roads. In June 2000, the city’s Public Lighting Department, long underfunded for capital improvements, experienced the worst power outage in its history, closing down all Detroit government offices, Detroit public schools and Wayne State University for days, as well as knocking out traffic lights citywide.
• In not ensuring adequate public safety through budget control and oversight. For decades, the council allowed the fire and the police departments to be underfunded and understaffed. An investigation by The Detroit News found that fire department mismanagement and equipment failures had contributed to at least 21 deaths from 1996 to 2000.
Detroit police have killed at least 47 people since 1995, a rate much higher than that of most large U.S. cities. The department has paid more than $130 million since 1987 to settle legal cases brought against officers. The department is now under federal investigation for possible civil rights violations. Over the years the council held highly publicized hearings on these issues, the most recent being this year, but it took no substantial action.
The council’s structure and the council members have combined to make Detroit’s legislative arm at best obstructionist and at worst feckless.
Residents of other major cities, such as Chicago and New York, have legislative bodies that are, by necessity, more engaged in delivering constituent services. If they don’t, they face tougher re-election in their neighborhood districts. The result: councils in those cities actively debate the city’s business, build alliances and pass meaningful legislation.
In Detroit, no such political energy exists, according to council members and political observers.
The Detroit City Council has no authority over city bureaucrats, who are responsible only to the mayor. The nine council members are elected at-large from a nonpartisan ballot. As a result, no member of the council is answerable to a specific constituency. Neither can they be held accountable to a political party structure, and there is no natural framework for forging coalitions or alliances within the council as a way of furthering a political agenda.
In other legislative bodies, much of the policy debate and discussion is carried out in committees which then bring legislation to the council for review and approval. This kind of deliberation does not take place in Detroit.
Mahaffey, who is seeking her eighth term in office, said the legislative body’s effectiveness is “spotty.”
“The council has all the power and authority it needs if it is prepared to use it,” she said. “(But) it requires the council to get itself together.”
George Ward, a former assistant Wayne County prosecutor who sat on the committee that revised Detroit’s City Charter in 1974, said the changes were intended to strike a delicate balance between the executive branch, run by the mayor, and the legislative branch, the council.
“In general, it’s been a disappointment,” he said recently with a sigh. “The difference between theory and day-to-day practice is often a disappointment. ... Many of the council members are dumber than hay, unfamiliar and uninterested in the issues.”
