Detroit
Mayor Mike Duggan gives his annual
State of the City Address on
Tuesday, March 6, 2017 at Western
International High School in
Southwest Detroit. (Photo by HB
Meeks/Tell Us Detroit)
Duggan
to reach
out to
community's
'most
forgotten'
as city
rebounds
By
Wendell
Bryant
and
Millie
Wingwright
Tell Us
Detroit
DETROIT
(Tell Us
Det) -
Mayor
Mike
Duggan
held his
5th
State of
the City
address
Tuesday
night at
Western
International
High
School
auditorium
on the
city's
southwest
side.
His main
talking
points
focused
on jobs,
education,
housing
and
public
safety.
Pointing
out that
more
than
32,000
Detroit
children
now
attend
school
outside
the city
he
shared
his
plans
for the
city’s
future
generation
by
proposing
a
unified
school
bus
system
that
would
transport
students
from
charter
schools
and the
Detroit
school
district
within a
loop
around
the
city,
providing
them
with
school
choice,
after-school
programs
and
child
care.
The
mayor
emphasized
the
city’s
children
have
been
among
the most
forgotten
in the
last
decade.
As a
result,
he
announced
a joint
schools
advisory
commission
that
would
include
representation
from the
city,
Detroit
schools
and
charter
schools.
The
commission
would
rate all
schools
and give
parents
information
on
academic
performance,
teacher
turnover,
student
attendance
and
more.
“We
are
going to
start
today by
saying
to the
children,
‘We want
you to
stay,’”
Duggan
said. He
went on
to
mention
the
Detroit
Promise,
a
scholarship
that
covers
college
tuition
and fees
for
graduates
of the
Detroit’s
school
district,
and how
already
1,182
students
are
benefiting
from the
program
this
year at
community
colleges
and
four-year
universities.
“We
are
going to
make
sure
that our
kids not
only go
to
school,
they
succeed
at
school,”
Duggan
said.
Also
in his
plans
for the
upcoming
year,
was
tearing
down
dilapidated
buildings
and
improving
neighborhoods,
announcing
that he
will
recalibrate
his
troubled
demolition
program
that is
under
investigation
by the
FBI and
Office
of the
Special
Inspector
General
for the
Troubled
Asset
Relief
Program,
or
SIGTARP,
as well
as a
grand
jury.
“I
feel
really
bad
about
all the
people
that got
into
trouble
because
I tried
to push
them to
do 8,000
a year,”
he said.
“But the
truth is
with our
contractor
capacity,
we can’t
do it.”
During
the hour
long
speech
the
mayor
highlighted
his
"Project
Green
Light",
a
surveillance
program
at
hundreds
of gas
stations,
fast-food
restaurants
in the
city and
"Operation
Ceasefire",
a
program
in which
police
partnered
with the
U.S.
Attorney’s
Office
and
Wayne
County
prosecutors
to drive
down
crime.
Although
Detroit’s
homicides
dropped
30
percent
between
2012 and
2017,
“it’s
nothing
to be
proud
of,”
Duggan
said
Tuesday
night.
“Every
city in
America
does not
live
with
this
violence.”
Duggan
also
emphasized
the
city’s
success
in
reducing
gun
violence,
increasing
affordable
housing
units,
providing
jobs for
more
Detroiters
and
attracting
major
companies
to the
city.
The
economy
has been
boosted
by
banks,
industrial
companies
and
major
corporations
opening
facilities
in
Detroit.
Hundreds
of jobs
have
been
created
by this
trend,
he said.
And as
the city
revives
itself,
Duggan
said his
goal has
been to
ensure
that
Detroit
residents
are the
first to
be
considered
for new
jobs.
The
mayor
shared
that all
of these
changes
have
lured
more
than 25
major
companies,
each
bringing
up 100
to 500
new jobs
for
Detroiters.
But
he was
quick to
point
out that
more
work
needs to
be done
- from
infrastructure
improvements,
demolishing
all
abandoned
properties
by the
end of
2019 and
job
training
and new
business
opportunities
for
Detroit
residents
who want
to work
where
they
live.
"We
are
chipping
away at
these
barriers,"
he said.
"One
after
another
so that
we can
get
Detroit
residents
to
work."
The
mayor
also
said
that the
city
will be
out of
state
oversight
this
spring -
about 30
years
ahead of
schedule.