The Detroit City Council Internal Operations Standing Committee met on Wednesday, January 21, 2026, at 10:15 AM (ET) under the chairmanship of Councilmember Phil Callaway (apparently filling in for an absent chair). Councilmember Renetta Miller was present; Councilmember Scott Benson was absent. The meeting included public comment, a discussion on the extension of interim suspensions by the Inspector General, interviews for appointments to the Human Rights Commission, and action on multiple task force resolutions and contract amendments.
Six callers participated via phone. Key comments included:
Phil Callaway present. Councilmember Scott Benson. Councilmember Renetta Miller. We did receive a notification from Scott Benson that he would be absent today. Clerk was on note. Madam Chair, you have a quorum present. Thank you, madam. Um Madam Clerk. We will call the session to order. And we have how many people in the audience for public comment if you could raise your hand. Okay, we don't have anyone in the audience for public comment. How many do we have on the call for public comment on the phone? Good morning. Good morning, madam chair. There are six hands raised for public comment. Okay, there are six hands raised. We're going to cut off public comment in one minute. Okay. Okay. All right. We will take the first caller for public comment. If you can just state your rec your name for the record. The first caller is Betty A. Varner. Good morning, Miss Varner. You have two minutes for public comment. Good morning, honorable uh councilmember Callaway and all that's uh within the sound of my voice. I want to start off by uh thanking our honorable council member Callaway for uh the projects she has done in the past to improve our neighborhood uh cleaning up projects, removing uh abandoned, having uh abandoned buildings, removed uh vacant properties, uh boarded up, and helping us to have a better community. I'm asking in the future, I'm hoping that administration will work with our council person to uh improve our think of corridor. We are uh in need of monies for redevelopment and for developers and new businesses to come to our corridor so that we can be blessed as other corridors have been and other areas to have a life in our corridor so that what we need, we can go to our immediate area and get what we need. Uh there are a lot of people in this area who do not have transportation. We are in need of a supermarket. I want to thank honorable council member Waters and her staff, Miss Streeter, for reaching out to me to give me information to help my organization. Uh possibly get a um supermarket in our immediate area. Uh they offered information for a gentleman who might be able to help us resolve our problems. We thank you for all the help that y'all are providing, and please continue to assist us. Thank you. Thank you so much so much, Ms. Varner. Before we move to the next um caller, I did skip over the agenda. So we're going to um have an invocation, and Peter Rose shared uh another word. Um, and this is from um the Royal Oak First United Methodist Church, and his wife is a member of that church, so we're gonna move back to the agenda and then we'll move back to public comment. But every week we're going to have every Wednesday an invocation or inspirational word or word of motivation. So today we're gonna thank Peter Rhodes again. So moving to um line item two, which is the invocation. I'm gonna read this from again the Royal Oak First United Methodist Church, and it says, Lord, we will all experience times of adversity, and when that happens, please give us the strength to always follow your path. So thank you, Amy Rhodes, and thank you, Peter Rhodes, for that word. Now we'll move back to our agenda. Um is there a motion for the approval of the minutes? Thank you.