The Detroit City Council Committee of the Whole met on September 4, 2025, at 6:15 PM. The meeting addressed the continued discussion on the Detroit Land Bank Authority (DLBA) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), received 13 public comments, and considered numerous unfinished and new business items, including a controversial rezoning request for a garden center. Key votes included sending several contracts to formal session and scheduling further discussions on the MOU for September 11, 2025.
Saw you in the community, saw you everywhere. We actually got a chance to join forces on some things along the way. So this is just a continuation of what we have been doing throughout the year. All right, is there an approval of the minutes? See no objections that action shall be taken. We'll let everyone know we do have no public hearings today. We do have a discussion that actually will be uh moved. As a matter of fact, uh seeing that we do not uh have a public hearing. Is there a motion to discuss line item five, please? So moved. Thank you so much. So just want everyone to know that line item five is the continued uh discussion on the Detroit Land Bank Authority memorandum of understanding before we left off during uh prior to uh recess. Uh it was noted that we were going to bring it back officially on the 11th. We're bringing it back officially on the 11th. Uh so it is on the agenda a bit premature. So um I don't think we have to do anything else because it's already on the agenda, so we're gonna be talking about this next week. I will say that uh we are continuing the discussion. Uh, there's been a lot of conversation about what this committee has and has not done regarding this MOU. Uh, there was a movie back in the day when I was growing up movie that um you had someone who's making some phone calls, and the phone calls were like real troublesome and created a lot of havoc, or at least trying to create havoc. And to spare you all, at the end of the movie, we found out that the calls are coming from inside the house, and that's what it feels like in this situation right here. Calls coming from inside the house. Uh, this committee is being thrown under the bus uh as the entity that is holding up the MOU process. This committee is the same one that put forward a resolution that was rejected by the full body and sent back to the committee. We've been working on it, placing it on the agenda, asking for feedback for amendments, and we have not gotten the cooperation that we have completely needed to advance this item. We can talk about it all day long, but what we do is not just talk, this is legislation that we have to create. And so there's some amendments that we have before us that just don't have any details attached to it. And you can't add a thought into a MOU. This is about legal language that we have to agree upon, it has details. And I give you an example. This is paraphrasing. There's one that says uh they want enhanced community engagement. You can't just throw that into a MOU. What does that mean? Who's to decide what that enhanced engagement looks like? That's where the the sponsor of the the amendments is supposed to provide information. And once we get that, do are you looking for monthly engagements? Are you looking for engagements in districts? How are you what are you looking for that's different than what's currently on the table and what has been done? And that is what's slowing this process down. So for all of those folks who are confused about what we're doing, all of our meetings are on the record. You can go and we can point you to it. But I also say ask the question of uh what's being done from those who are articulating the fact that this committee is slowing it up, slowing it down. Uh what are you doing to actually move the uh the information as opposed to just talking about it? So as we get the calls that are coming in, the call coming from inside the house. I'm just asking to please heed my call. And the call that I'm asking for is that you work with your colleagues. The call that I'm asking for is that we we we put something together that is not divisive, but is something that we all agree upon that we can get to a point where we're having the best MOU possible for the city of Detroit. But right now, what we have are just for some uh documents, thoughts, ideas, and it's being asked for this committee to just approve thoughts and ideas, and we need details. So I'm hopeful that we'll get better cooperation in advance of next week's discussion on the 11th. I say it again, and for the record, been asked to hold this off until next term.