Is Detroit getting better? Some key findings Detroit Rising: One year after exiting bankruptcy, are city services in Detroit improving? How is Detroit doing one year after leaving bankruptcy? Any realistic estimation of the city's progress has to take more than finances into account. As Detroit approaches the anniversary of its exit from emergency control and bankruptcy, we look at a range of city services to see whether daily life has actually changed for the majority of Detroit's residents. Streetlights Entity: Public Lighting Authority of Detroit This new entity, using bond money, is a $185-million project to modernize Detroit’s streetlight system. Result: Residents are generally happy, but some have complained the new lights do not cover as much area as the old ones, including leaving sidewalks in the dark. Blight Entity: The Detroit Land Bank Authority Since May 2014: More than 7,000 blighted homes torn down The city now routinely demolishes 100-150 houses a week. Tax collection Entity: City of Detroit Buses Trash pickup Technology
Fewest cops are patrolling Detroit streets since 1920s Detroit — There are fewer police officers patrolling the city than at any time since the 1920s, a manpower shortage that sometimes leaves precincts with only one squad car, posing what some say is a danger to cops and residents. Detroit has lost nearly half its patrol officers since 2000; ranks have shrunk by 37 percent in the past three years, as officers retired or bolted for other police departments amid the city's bankruptcy and cuts to pay and benefits. Left behind are 1,590 officers — the lowest since Detroit beefed up its police force to battle Prohibition bootleggers. "This is a crisis, and the dam is going to break," said Mark Diaz, president of the Detroit Police Officers Association. Police Chief James Craig acknowledges he doesn't have as many officers as he'd like. "These officers do the most difficult job in the country, and they need to get paid more," he said. Starting pay for Detroit officers is about $14 per hour, Diaz said. Staffing challenges Deployment shuffle Autoplay
'A Crime': Groups Say Detroit Bankruptcy Plan Benefits Rich, Attacks Working People A group of Detroit residents is condemning the city's newly-approved restructuring plan to exit bankruptcy as a deal that will further benefit the wealthy and corporate class while hurting working people. As Democracy Now! reported Monday: A Detroit judge has approved the city’s effort to restructure finances and shed around $7 billion in debt under its bankruptcy filing last year. In his approval on Friday, U.S. A group called Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management, however, says the pension-cutting Plan of Adjustment is anything but fair. In a statement released Monday, the group writes: "Federal Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes’ approval of the Plan of Adjustment is not in the best interests of Detroiters. Orr, Snyder and Duggan "refuse to acknowledge that the wealth of the surrounding region has been won on the backs of the working people of Detroit. "No other creditors sacrificed like Detroit workers and residents.
A city in flames: inside Detroit's war on arson For eight long years, the firefighters of Highland Park, Michigan, worked out of a warehouse. There was no red-bricked facade, no lanky Dalmatian. No freshly washed engines gleaming in the sun. No second-floor fire pole to descend in the dead of night to wailing sirens. Whatever idealized vision you have of firefighting, Highland Park is not it. Instead, picture a hulking, boxy building on the edge of an industrial park about six miles north of downtown Detroit. The Highland Park fire department opened nearly a century ago, in 1917, to serve the booming city. "We do stuff kind of old-schoolish, because that’s what we have: old-school, crap equipment," says Scott Ziegler, a first-generation fireman who’s worked in Highland Park for four years. Highland Park is three square miles surrounded by the city of Detroit, and shares the litany of woes affecting the area. "We’ve pulled up to stuff we just couldn’t control." But the population peaked in the 1940s at over 50,000 people.
As Detroit breaks down, scourge of arson burns out of control Data shows Detroit is arson capital Detroit — Nationwide fire data support Detroit's reputation among firehouses as the arson capital of the United States. "It's been that way for years. Every time you'd go to a seminar, you meet up with investigators nationwide and all they want to talk about is Detroit," said Jon Bozich, who retired in 2001 as the chief of the city's Arson Squad. Detroit has averaged 3,800 to 6,000 suspicious building fires annually for years. Nationwide, no city with a population of at least 300,000 has as many suspicious fires or arsons per capita, according to FBI Uniform Crime Reports and the National Fire Incident Reporting System of the U.S. And Detroit is near the top of both lists in total suspicious fires and arsons, despite its smaller population. For ranking purposes, The News defined "suspicious fires" by combining two categories of NFIRS data — fires of undetermined origin and those intentionally set. Both databases have their problems. "The numbers are wacky," he said.
Detroit pays high price for arson onslaught Detroit — Arson is a raging epidemic in Detroit, destroying neighborhoods and lives as the city tries to emerge from bankruptcy. Even amid a historic demolition blitz, buildings burn faster than Detroit can raze them. Last year, the city had 3,839 suspicious fires and demolished 3,500 buildings, according to city records analyzed by The Detroit News. Burned homes scar neighborhoods for years: Two-thirds of those that caught fire from 2010-13 are still standing, records show. "Nothing burns like Detroit," said Lt. The Detroit News researched arson for more than three months and found that it remains a huge obstacle to renewal efforts following bankruptcy. Few neighborhoods were untouched by arson and the entire city bears its costs. "People don't realize arson is a felony. Aides to Mayor Mike Duggan, who has made fighting blight the cornerstone of his administration, declined comment on The News' findings or his strategy for reducing arson. 'Arson is like a cancer' The News found:
Detroit firefighters speak out on bankruptcy By Tim Rivers and Jerry White 29 July 2013 In fire stations across the city of Detroit, discussions are being held about the impact of the city’s bankruptcy filing and initial efforts by rank-and-file firefighters to mobilize opposition to the emergency manager’s attack on pensions and essential services. Last week, scores of red T-shirted firefighters, organized in the ad hoc Public Safety Workers Action Group (PSWAG), fanned out across the city holding informational pickets and protests outside of fire stations and the Federal Bankruptcy Court. They have explained the connection between decades of layoffs, fire station closings and other budget reductions, and the increased dangers facing residents in the sprawling city of 139 square miles. “Why stay on the job and risk your life with no guarantee of a future?” Robert pointing to death notices at Engine 55 Ladder 27 “One firefighter, Dwayne Garland, passed away after being exposed to some chemicals. “It’s all about money.
Bottom line after Detroit bankruptcy: 200 more police officers, 100 new firefighters Chief U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen, lead Detroit bankruptcy mediator on adjustment plan Chief U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen, the lead bankruptcy mediator, thanks a large group of people who worked on Detroit's bankruptcy deal and sacrificed for the greater good during a press conference after U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhode's confirmation of Detroit's plan of adjustment at Theodore Levin United States Courthouse in Detroit, Nov. 7, 2014 (Tanya Moutzalias | MLive Detroit) DETROIT, MI -- The city can now afford to hire more police and firefighters. That's the bottom line after a 16-month court process that came to a triumphant climax Friday with Detroit being authorized to shed $7 billion of debt. "There are going to be more than 200 additional police officers on the street as a result of the plan," said Mayor Mike Duggan. Implementation of an elaborate, 10-year plan to restore long-broken city services is now possible after U.S. Others complied for fear of deeper cuts.
Before Detroit Can Move On, It Needs To Upgrade From Windows XP One week into her new job as Detroit’s chief information officer, Beth Niblock had to deal with a pressing issue she probably hadn’t anticipated. A hacker froze a city database containing the personal information of 1,700 current and former employees of Detroit’s fire and EMS department, and demanded a ransom for its return. The hacker, Detroit’s mayor would later disclose, wanted 2,000 bitcoins for the effort — roughly $800,000. Lucky for city officials, there was a backup database, so no data was lost. It was a notable gesture for a city facing quite an odd predicament. Not only was the city’s IT bad, it was exposed. “Those databases have been there a long time, so the standards have changed,” Niblock told the newspaper. Detroit’s bankruptcy filing in July 2013 drew attention to an eye-popping list of problems: a nearly hourlong police response time, an eviscerated tax base and about 73,000 blighted structures. No, really. By all accounts, it didn’t. It’s limited, to say the least.
NC4, Inc. | Revolutionizing Safety & Security Detroit PD planning massive technology upgrades The Detroit Police Department is making major strides to move away from outdated technology and invest in new improvements for officers in the field. According to the Detroit Free Press, the city has plans to spend $38 million on developing police technology, which will involve a fully integrated public safety computer system. The city's new proposal will help in the recovery process from bankruptcy, and Detroit is planning to spend $150 million through the next decade to make up for the years without investing in new police technology, the source cited. The new police equipment will range from more precise tax collection methods to real-time data for crime trends, reported Police Magazine. Several officers still fill out police reports on paper and some tax information is filed on index cards in the station, the source reported. Investing in high-tech equipment will reduce costs and errors in the long run and should prove to be a successful return on investment.
Lessons for Detroit in Pontiac’s Years of Emergency Oversight “An emergency manager is like a man coming into your house,” said Donald Watkins, a city councilman. “He takes your checkbook, he takes your credit cards, he lives in your house and he sleeps in your bed with your wife.” Mr. Watkins added, “He tells you it’s still your house, but he doesn’t clean up, sells off everything and then he packs his bag and leaves.” Pontiac, just 30 minutes north of Detroit, was once a healthy blue-collar city, thriving in the glory days of the American automotive industry as home to manufacturing plants of General Motors and the name of one of its brands. People used to wait to get a seat at restaurants downtown and, for nearly three decades, football fans came from miles around to watch the Lions play in the Silverdome until the team moved into Detroit in 2002. Photo Instantly, there was resistance. Without question, Pontiac is different from Detroit and the experience here may not be easily replicated in a larger city. It remains to be seen how Louis H. Mr.
Detroit’s Emergency Manager Offers Dire Report on City DETROIT — An emergency manager assigned to lead this city back from the brink of financial ruin has taken his first detailed look at Detroit’s woes, and the picture of debt and disarray he paints may be bleaker even than earlier grim portrayals. In a report to be presented to Michigan’s treasurer on Monday, Kevyn D. Orr, the emergency manager appointed in March to take over operations here, described long-term obligations of at least $15 billion, unsustainable cash flow shortages and miserably low credit ratings that make it difficult to borrow. And in the face of those fiscal troubles, Mr. Orr, a longtime bankruptcy lawyer, portrayed city operations in Detroit as in need of significant repair, including overhauls of the city’s Police Department and Fire Department, among others. “No one should underestimate the severity of the financial crisis,” Mr. The account from Mr. “It’s not as bad as what they’re trying to make it out to be,” Edward L. Photo In his filing for the state, Mr. Mr.