Detroit City Council Formal Session
Detroit City Council
Politics
Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024
10:00 a.m. — 2:00 p.m. EDT
2 Woodward Ave Detroit, MI 48226 (Directions)
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Check the source website for additional information
Reporting
Edited and summarized by the Detroit - MI Documenters Team
Note-taking by
Allise Hurd
Public commenters spoke in favor of honorees for secondary street sign names. Five out of 13 nominees were selected for secondary street signs: Vincent Chin, Earl Cureton, Joseph Anthony “Amp” Fiddler, Horace Sheffield, Jr. and James Dewitt “J Dilla” Yancey.
Live reporting by
Nathaniel Eichenhorn
A vote on an amendment designed to increase access to affordable housing by fast-tracking a property tax relief program, and a vote on updates to rental compliance requirements were postponed for 1 week. And 5 of 13 honorees were chosen for secondary street sign names.
Nachum Eichenhorn
@NachumDetroit
Hello #Detroit ! I will be live tweeting the Detroit City Council session today at 10am for #DetroitDocumenters @DetDocumenters media partners: @BridgeDet313 @chalkbeatDET @freep @media_outlier @metrotimes @MichiganRadio @PlanetDetroit @wdet @wxyzdetroit
08:12 AM Oct 22, 2024 CDT
A copy of this meeting's agenda can be found here: pub-detroitmi.escribemeetings.com/FileStream.ash… It's a chunky file, but there is a handy HTML version: pub-detroitmi.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?I…
pub-detroitmi.escribemeetings.com/FileStream.ash…
pub-detroitmi.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?I…
The session was called to order at 10:07am. The roll was called and the following were present: Benson Johnson Santiago-Romero Sheffield
It seems like some members, being present, did not speak into a microphone.
First off, Councilmenmber Callaway presented a Spirit of Detroit Award to Mumford High School. Alumna Jasmine Stallworth accepted on behalf of the school
The board is now accepting reports from the various subcommittees. Details can be found in the HTML agenda I posted above.
First several commenters talked in favor of a Secondary Street Sign petition for Horace Sheffield, Jr, founder of the Detroit Association of Black Organizations, pastor and labor leader. pub-detroitmi.escribemeetings.com/FileStream.ash… pub-detroitmi.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?I…
pub-detroitmi.escribemeetings.com/FileStream.ash…
pub-detroitmi.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?I…
A commenter spoke in favor of a Secondary Street Sign for basketball legend Earl Cureton, and the next commenter spoke in favor of former Lions cornerback Dick "Night Train" Lane
Next commenter spoke in favor of a sign for the late Greg Mudge, who founded Mudgie's Deli detroitnews.com/story/life/202…
detroitnews.com/story/life/202…
After some more reds for the aforementioned, a commenter spoke in favor of a sign for Amp Fiddler, a legend in the music industry and master of funk, soul, and electronica en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amp_Fiddl…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amp_Fiddl…
A commenter lamented what she described as city investment in genocide in various parts of the world and suggested the city commit to purchasing conflict-free products
The next commenters voiced vociferous criticism of "so-called Israel" and called for divestment from Israel
Some more commenters recommending secondary signs for people already mentioned
A commenter says residents of his building, Sherwood Heights are being evicted in retaliation for starting a tenants' association
The council says that they are having trouble holding landlords accountable to city ordinances, especially landlords from out of state who buy up several properties at a time and basically act as slumlords.
Another commenter criticized Sherwood Heights for putting people on month-to-month leases in order to jack the rent faster. This has become a classic tactic to get poor people to move out
A commenter, representing American Citizens for Justice spoke in favor of a sign for Vincent Chin
From Wikipedia: "In 1982, Vincent Chin was gruesomely murdered. His killers encountered Chin in a bar in Highland Park and mistook his Chinese heritage for the Japanese, whom they blamed for a recent downturn in the automobile industry... "
Despite their conviction and evidence, the killers never saw prison time and were only given light sentences. Vincent Chin's killers Ronald Ebens and his stepson Michael Nitz were fined $3000 and given 3 years probation, as the judge expressed the defendants' good backgrounds."
Several commenters from the Teamsters local 283 complained about safety issues at the Marathon refinery
The strike has now been going on for 6 weeks, and the Teamsters are agitated, and consider putting the plant back online a dangerous risk, and says the scabs the company hired might not even be qualified to work in such a dangerous plant.
A commenter said that the council are ignoring the city residents, and said that the council failed to praise a presenter because they are subservient to "their master" Mayor Duggan
The commenter then suggested that Palestinians and "these so-called Jews" keep "their fight" out of Detroit
A commenter urged the council to look at the PILOT program and improve it. detroitmi.gov/news/mayor-cou…
detroitmi.gov/news/mayor-cou…
A fast tracking ordinance is on the docket for this meeting, and a rep of Detroiters for Tax Justice spoke in opposition the proposal detroitersfortaxjustice.com
detroitersfortaxjustice.com
The present commenter says the PILOT program will effectively cut out the City Council and remove the process of affordable housing from the peoples' control
A woman who is the last homeowner on her block says he's been laying to keep up her property, but it's surrounded by Land Bank property , and she asked for help with upkeep. Council referred her to help for reimbursement
Minister Eric Blount spoke in favor of releasing police body cam footage in a timely manner.
At the moment there are 58 callers waiting to be heard. This is gonna take a while.
A commenter spoke in favor of the PILOT program and called the Detroit People's Platform and Detroiters for Tax Justice "scam organizations" The next commenter spoke in opposition to the measure
A lot of these are going to be advocacy for one of the various Secondary Street Signs, and I'm going to skip them for the rest of this session. I don't think we'll hear any more we haven't already heard about the candidates
A commenter spoke in favor of resolution 18.3 for Detroit Rescue Ministries
Commenter objected to the PILOT proposal. Says it puts to much power in the hands of the Mayor. "We are not red tape to cut" p
Public comment having finally drawn to a close, the council is moving on to item 18.27, which is the secondary street sign process
Four of the names are rollovers. There are a limited number of rollovers a candidate can have.
The five have been decided, including J Dilla and Amp Fiddler
Council member Benson says that the program will fill a gap in workforce housing
Councilmember Santiago-Romero says, in favor of the ordinance, that she regularly greenlights PILOT projects, finding the consistent and correct. She says the ordinance is needed to speed up the process and get more affordable units on the market
Councilmember Johnson noted that there are tax abatements coming to an end and that the PILOT program will help those properties to not pass those increased tax burden onto the residents
Councilmember Waters has introduced a motion to postpone the matter for a week.
Durhal asked Waters to elaborate on her reasons for suggesting the postponement. Waters responded that the copy of the ordinance they are voting on are missing amendments.
Legal department says that some amendments were decided on in the committee and she weren't, but they can include them today. The council drives to postpone for one week.
Going back to the agenda. Item 16.2 to provide long term disability insurance to city employees. Motion is passed unanimously
Now items 16.3-16.5, which are individual PILOT applications. Passed unanimously.
16.6. a new single family house building permit. Passed unanimously
17.3-17.8. various lawsuit settlement requests. Passed unanimously.
18.1-18.3, contracts for renewal including "To Provide Services to Connect Individuals Experiencing Housing Instability with Resources by Direct Assistance Services and/or the Detroit Housing Resource Help Line." Passed unanimously
18.8 "To amends Chapter 50 of the 2019 Detroit City Code, Zoning, to exempt certain solar generation stations developed by or on behalf of the City from zoning regulation, to allow solar generation stations in industrial zoning districts and prohibit ..."
"...new solar generation stations in PR Parks and Recreation zoning districts, and to establish solar station overlay areas, in which solar generation stations may be permitted in non-industrial zoning districts" Passed unanimously
Young moved to move 19.1 back to committee and it was passed unanimously
19.2 This was postponed from last session. It's a emergency demo contract. Calloway objects to using city funds to demolish privately owned businesses when the landlords own other properties in the city. The resolution was approved over unrecorded objections
On to 20.1 It's an ordinance shuffling words and definitions in a city law. These are hard to follow and are often hard to pin down what exactly these change until the changes already happen.
Check it out for yourself: pub-detroitmi.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ash…
pub-detroitmi.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ash…
The legal department says that the City already has the right under Michigan law to place liens on properties that are out of compliance, but this ordinance seeks merely formalize that fact as a City ordinance as a matter of good governance
Item 20.2 "Authorizing the Designation of the Eighth Precinct Annex as the “James E. Tate, Jr., Annex at the 8th Precinct”."
Chair says she got feedback that the Free Press marathon wasn't advertised widely enough and people were upset by the surprise of being unable to move freely about the city.
20.17-20.29 various city contracts. Line item 20.25 is a notice of information and not a contract, so they approved it first.
They postponed 20.23 and 20.26 because the contracts are with a company that a resident had complained about earlier in the session. The rest were approved unanimously
20.37-20.42 various requests for encroachments in easements Approved unanimously
Council approved a couple of walk-ons to be approved for referral to committees
Now the council is quickly filing and referring reports to the various committees
Well folks, this closes my coverage of the Detroit City Council meeting for October 22. Learn more about our coverage of local meetings at documenters.org
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‼️IMPORTANT: If you believe anything in the coverage today is inaccurate, please email us at documenters@outliermedia.org with "Correction Request" in the subject line
Agency Information
Detroit City Council
The Detroit City Council is the legislative body of Detroit, Michigan, United States. The Council is responsible for the creation of local laws—called ordinances. Additionally they pass resolutions, motions, and the proposed city budget. The full-time council is required to meet every business day for at least 10 months of the year, with at least eight of these meetings occurring at a location besides city hall. The council may convene for special meetings at the call of the mayor or at least four members of council. Areas of responsibility for the Budget, Finance and Audit Committee include, Budget, Finance and the Auditor General.
City Council members are elected on the same cycle as the Mayor and will be elected in 2021. Seven members represent the seven council districts, while two members are elected at-large.