Detroit takes right step with council

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Last week, voters in Detroit elected a new City Council and passed an initiative to change the way the members of the City Council are elected.

Although voters here have long elected City Council members every four years, this year’s election was quite different from those of past years and hopefully will help shape a more effective system of city governance.

With occasional outbursts of song, finger-pointing accusations of racism and sometimes perplexing agendas, the Detroit City Council is no stranger to drama. But during this term, between trying to remove former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for obstruction of justice and seeing former City Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers plead guilty for conspiring to commit bribery, the council has seen more than its share of controversy.

Politically, the past few years have seen Detroit facing the greatest political turmoil of its 300-plus years. But even without considering the distractions of Kilpatrick and Conyers, the council at times has seemed to be quite misguided in its priorities.

Consider Motown singer and Councilmember Martha Reeves, who views her elected position that pays more than $80,000 annually to be a “second job” to her singing career. Or consider the council members who regularly take time to complain that the eyes on a casino’s billboard are those of the devil, or that a beer advertisement with Billy Dee Williams is racist because there isn’t a similar billboard in Plymouth, Mich.

Finally, last Tuesday, 20 percent of registered voters in Detroit decided they had had enough with the shenanigans and lack of progress and voted in five new council members. The new council members are a promising group of individuals.

The City Council President-elect, Charles Pugh, is a former television and radio news anchor and host who also happens to be the first openly gay person elected to the council. Gary Brown, the former deputy police chief who Kilpatrick conspired to fire for fear Brown had discovered his affair with his chief of staff, received the second highest vote tally, making him council president pro tem-elect. The other new faces are the Rev. Andre Spivey, Saunteel Jenkins and James Tate.

The tasks that lay ahead for both these new members and the four council members who maintained their seats are enormous. As the city of Detroit tries to avoid bankruptcy while battling 30 percent unemployment, some very difficult decisions will need to be made for the city to survive, let alone to thrive again. For any meaningful progress to be made, the new council must be comprised of leaders who can collaborate and innovate while ensuring the public that they are acting in its best interests. This means addressing the foreclosure crisis, delivering city services to residents despite the enormous budget challenges, and rooting out the corruption that has plagued Detroit politics in recent years.

Although 20 percent of registered voters exercised this right and duty last Tuesday, that number still is disappointingly low. Without greater civic participation, the council and all of city government are more likely to return to the corrupt systems of bribery and coercion that thrived under previous administrations while robbing the city blind when it could least afford it.

Voters took a step in the right direction by approving an initiative that will require the City Council to be elected by districts beginning in 2013, with two members elected at-large, unlike the current system where all seats are at-large. By making council members accountable to a geographically defined area of the city, citizens should feel more empowered to have their voices heard and their concerns addressed by their elected officials.

Detroit has a long way to go, but cleaning up the political system is an important step. Just as the Detroit Public Schools have Robert Bobb, an emergency financial manager who is rooting out waste and fraud, Detroit voters have elected a City Council that has as close as one can get to a “clean slate.”

Now it is up to the council to prove to voters that they made the right choices and that Detroit can get back on its feet in a clean, transparent and honest way.

Ryan Dinkgrave is a State News guest columnist and public relations graduate student. Reach him at dinkgrave@gmail.com.

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