Madam Clerk, will you please call the role?

Councilmember Scott Benson.

Scott Benson.

Councilmember Letitia Johnson.

Councilman McGindsil McCampbell.

Present.

Councilman Renetta Miller.

Councilman Gabriela Santiago Mero.

Present.

Councilmember Mary Walters, President.

Councilmember Angela Woodfield Callaway.

Council President Coleman.

Here.

And Council President James Tate.

You have a quorum, President President.

Thank you so much.

We have a quorum, which means we're now in session, colleagues.

Uh today and to the public.

These are the confirmation hearings that we have for the seven individuals who are being appointed by Mayor Sheffield that require uh city council approval.

Uh we're going to uh have a number of discussions uh with these individuals, interviews if you want to call them that.

Um but before we do that, we're gonna start off with public comment.

If there's anyone from the public who would like to speak, please raise your hand now.

If you're either in the committee of the whole or at home, please raise your hand now.

If you want to provide public comment, raise your hand now.

Going once, going twice, going three times.

The collection of public comments have now concluded.

Uh, we're also going to have a brief discussion about the EOP that has been presented to us as well.

Noting again, when I say brief, it is going to be brief because the major discussion is going to take place in uh IOS in the committee.

Okay.

All right.

We'll now go into public comment.

How many callers do we have online?

Five.

Okay, we got five, and we have how many in public?

Just in person?

One.

All right, so the text is a six.

So we're gonna give uh everyone two minutes for general public comment.

We'll start off with Mr.

Barrett.

The floor is yours, sir.

Yeah, Adam Barrett, Southwest Detroit.

Um I oppose the reappointment of Duganera artifact con Conrad Mallet.

Um we have a record high amount of settlements costing taxpayers.

Uh we've spent millions on solar farm lawsuits, countless indemnifications for cops, and other wasted lawsuits.

Um it was instrument, he's instrumental in the nuisance abatement program, which has been a weapon for land theft from black detroiters.

Meanwhile, he's dropped city uh lawsuits against slumlord speculators.

Uh he stood in the way of important grassroots reforms and served as the legal hitman who dug and called out to kill anything that threatened the corporate gravy train in the in Detroit.

Um he refused to hand over documents to the investigator general in the Antoine Bryan ethics investigation.

Uh he recently said that he would not investigate uh DPD cooperation with ICE.

Um still not sure how he's able to serve as legal counselor for both the BOPC and the city simultaneously.

That's absolutely a conflict of interest.

Um let's not forget that he resigned in scandal from the police commission in 2018 when the towing investigation got a little too close.

Um he blocked police disciplinary rec disciplinary records FOIA by the press, uh has frequently ignored or failed to respond to other FOIA requests to the city and the unlouded time.

Um he was the director of the DMC when the bodies were piled up in the lounges and bathrooms and closets and stuff there in 2020, if you remember that.

Um that scandal hit the news, the media went real easy on him, and Dogan hired him to be deputy mayor, even though we already had deputy mayor at that time.

That was weird.

Um finally he caused uh quite a bit of personnel drama inside the law department, according to some uh that was kind of spilling into the news a few months back when he was first appointed to this post.

Uh, if I remember right, council had trouble confirming him back then, too.

Um, I think we can find a fresh person for this role.

Um by the way, I fully support the board of ethics request to retain the council.

Thanks.

Thank you so much.

We should now go to our online callers.

Who's our first caller, Mr.

Whitfield, Council President?

Our first caller is Dr.

Smith.

Uh caller, the floor is yours.

You have two minutes.

General public comment.

Good afternoon.

Uh I like to say, so I got a nice nice hot scolding last night from Julie Hurlis about indemnification.

Demnifications are not bad.

We deserve to pay people who have been victims of police brutality and other issues.

Um, I would like to say that the fact that Conrad Mallet sits on the board of he says sends the lawyers to the board of ethics, sits on the board of police commissioners himself, and also runs the law department and is offering jobs to people like he did myself to get them from doing work to help the residents is a conflict of interest in and of itself and it's bribery, and I'm coming for his law license if you do reappoint him.

He's not gonna have a law license if I can help it.

He's also sending emails threatening people who have land bank matters to not do work on their properties, which is also evil.

Julie Snyder also does not deserve her reappointment.

She has done a terrible job.

We have a homelessness crisis that she has done nothing to cope with.

Um, the rest of those folks, I'm not sure, I'm not sure about Alexa Bush.

I think the planning department needs a little bit of work too, but Julie Snyder for sure, and Conrad Mallet both need to not be reappointed.

And I promise you, I don't make many many promises that are idle.

If the residents call in and they request that Conrad Mallet not be reappointed, he is reappointed.

You are are all going to have media contacts.

I'm gonna specifically name you all too on the news when I do my story about Conrad Mallet very very soon about the fact that you went against the rights of the citizens to have representation that we asked for.

We need a new corporation counsel who is unbiased, who is not using the law department to weaponize against the citizens of the city of Detroit, and that is not usurping power of other independent boards, especially one like the Board of Police Commissioner.

We have elected officials to be able to do their jobs that they were elected by the citizens to do by an appointee of the mayor.

And if the mayor vetoes this, she's also in hot order.

She's gonna get the same level of scrutiny.

And also, I have a press pass to Detroit IPTV, and I have not been able to get any press press pass releases to come to any of the press conferences.

It seems like this is a very targeted measure against myself, and I want to talk about that as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next caller, please.

William M.

Davis, you have two minutes, general public comment.

Uh, good afternoon.

Could I be heard?

Yes.

Was that a yes?

Yes, sir.

Oh, okay.

I also speak in opposition of Conrad Mallet Jr.

Um, he has not and continues not to be a very effective corporation counsel.

Um when I was running for uh police commission today.

I went to all the board of police commission meetings a year before I got elected, the four years I was on there and the four years since I've been off.

I haven't missed the meeting.

And I could tell you that Conrad Mallet is not the person to be there for that, uh, for the number of lawsuits and the demifications.

He is not the best for that job.

Uh in fact, um, when I was running, uh, you know, he asked for a meeting.

I met him before a board of the police commission meeting uh and asked me not to do a protest because uh we had a the uh Detroit chapter National Action Network, we had a uh a protest about what was going on in the Detroit Medical Center at that time.

They were using codes that they started up under Dugan, but it was using a three to identify white people and a four to identify black people, which was like racial profiling and the job application process.

Also at the same time, they were having problems with you know not sterilizing medical instruments, you know.

So he has a bad history, and don't get me wrong.

I like him personally, I knew his dad.

His dad was very helpful to me.

You know, I was active in the young Democrats way back when he was in college, you know, in California.

You know, I like him as a person, but he's not effective, he's not good, and he has make the board of police commissioners less effective.

They need their own separate attorney.

They need that they need for him to not be there.

You know, we want we want everything to be effective and everything to be above board.

It's not with him sitting there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next caller, please.

Next caller, please.

Caller is number ending in 039.

Caller ending in 039.

The floor is yours.

Two minutes.

General public comment.

Hey, Jr.

Can you hear me clearly?

I'm over at police headquarters.

Get made attended.

And I'm going to turn it up to 2026 and a half now.

The reason being y'all all TDD.

Dennis Winfrey been cheating in the election for at least 15 years.

At least 15.

I can prove that 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2024.

Now we got a great chief of police here in the city of Detroit.

Honorable man, stand up guy.

Vote him in.

Detroit election commission meeting.

April 25th, 2024.

It's on Zoom.

Sitting right next to Janice Winfrey, which he lied about sending all the council members, the mayor's office in the law department, the findings on allegations of voter claw by anonymous citizen report.

And I don't lie about sugar honey ice tea.

It's the true check it out.

Postpone this hearing because that man sat next to the liar.

No report.

April 2020 25th, 2024.

I know because I called May the 20th, and ain't none of y'all have it.

So I brought it down and gave it to the consular Fred Duhawk committee on the 22nd of May 2024.

And I missed the rule.

Mimi won't what you vote.

Y'all didn't want to give it to us.

I'm gonna take everything from all y'all.

My word.

Next caller, please.

Next caller is Molly.

All right, Molly, the floor is yours.

You have two minutes.

General public comment.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name's Molly Menning.

I'm the American Bar Association Legal Education Police Practices Fellow at Wayne Law.

Um Corporation Council for the City should not stand in the way of the Board of Police Commissioners from having its own independent attorney.

I city council should only appoint someone to the position of corporation counsel who will allow and encourage the board to have an independent attorney so that the board may perform its charter mandated duties, including the investigation of citizen complaints against police officers with legal advice from a different attorney than the one who defends those same officers in court.

So I would just urge counsel to consider that as they consider the appointments today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next caller, please.

Next caller is Tyson Gersh.

Tyson Gersh, the floor is yours.

You have two minutes.

General public comment.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

Thanks.

Um yeah, I guess I'm also calling in to oppose the reappointment of Conrad Mallet.

Um I think our law department is just really out of control, and it's out of control under his leadership.

Um, I can't necessarily speak to the culture of the law department before he took office because they never interacted with it back then.

But I mean, there's we need like a fresh start.

Um there's so many issues with how do I word this?

You would think that for a former Michigan Supreme Court justice that we would have like a crystal clear just grip on ethics as a city government, and yet uh almost every interaction I've ever had with the law department.

I just I wonder if I'm in the twilight zone.

You know, like it's so obviously wrong, and I think that is just how Mr.

Mallet does business, and I think a lot of these issues are starting to catch up.

You know, we've got a new mayor, it's time for a fresh start.

Let's not drag all of our problems from the past into the new administration.

Um, you know, the solar stuff is wild.

I I I just I I'm like ashamed to live in the city of Detroit and tell people it when I'm when I know we're doing these things to citizens.

Um, you know, the the way I haven't been able to get a FOIA in five years.

You know, I I've got like 10 denied FOIAs.

I know tons of people, nobody can get a FOIA request filled in the city to save their life.

Um, and that's just like not how taxpayer funded government should work.

The purpose of local government is to serve the people.

I don't think Mr.

Mallet serves the people.

I think he serves the interests of a very select number of people, and that's not that's not me.

The tax caller, please.

Uh Council President, that is the end of the queue.

All right, it takes us to the end of our public comments.

Uh colleagues, I know we have a 230 discussion regarding the uh executive organization plan, but I'm gonna ask if we because of a request from colleagues who indicate they have uh extreme uh challenges with appointments afterwards.

I'm gonna ask if we could through you, madam uh to you, madam clerk, uh move to line item 3.2 Councilman Withfield Calloway of resolution item number 3.2 member with Calloway.

You read the point point two point two?

Is there a motion for line number 3.2?

There's a motion.

Motion.

Sorry.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

There's a motion to approve line item 3.2.

Uh so we're now in discussion, colleagues.

Discussion.

Thank you so much.

If we can have uh Mr.

Mallet join us at the council table here.

Thank you so much.

And let's go to uh to let everyone know that uh confirmation authority.

This is pursuant to uh section for just this entire uh confirmation process, uh section four-one one one confirmation authority, mayoral appointments to the position of chief of police, fire commissioner, uh director of planning department, uh director of human resources and corporation council are subject to city council approval.

If city council does not disapprove an appointment within 30 days of its submission by the mayor, the appointment is deemed confirmed.

In addition, the director of human resources, the chief financial officer, and the housing and revitalization uh director are subject to city council confirmation pursuant to the city's code of ordinances under the existing executive organizational plan.

I want to drop down and give a little bit about your reappointment of uh Mr.

Mallet to serve as corporation counsel for the law department upon confirmation of the city council.

Section 7.5-201 of the city charter establishes that the law department is led by the corporation council who serves as the official legal counsel for the city of Detroit and its branches, units, and agencies.

The mayor may remove corporation council without cause with a two-thirds majority vote from membership of city council.

City council may remove corporation council without cause by a two-thirds vote and concurrence from the mayor.

A mayor occupying the office of mayor through succession under section 5-109 of the city charter, that is the secession of office, may only remove corporation counsel with cause and approval of one less than the entire membership serving on city council.

They need that broken down at legal language there.

Uh the agents and representatives of the city of Detroit for the purposes of receiving and directing legal services in a matter consistent with corporations count corporation council's professional obligations to the city of Detroit as uh herein provided uh within the charter allowed by law, uh, shall be the mayor, city council, and the city clerk.

Uh, thank you for joining us today, uh, Mr.

Corporation Council uh Mallet.

I'm gonna give you an opportunity to uh provide uh remarks on your appointment, uh, and then we'll open up the floor for colleagues to ask at least the first round, two questions, uh, and then we'll go uh from there.

The floor is yours, sir.

Mr.

President, thank you very much.

I'm Conrad Mallet, Corporation Council for the City of Detroit.

I've been a public servant all of my life.

Uh I recognize that with the uh the kind of work that I'm often called upon to do, the decisions that we required to make, there are going to be people who agree, and they're going to be people who disagree.

What I can promise this honorable body that I approach each one of these decisions really really carefully and use an ethical construct to reach all of the conclusions associated with the questions presented.

I believe that I have demonstrated throughout my career propensity to be both balanced, clear, and open.

And I also think that doing the job currently the Corporation Council, if you look at how it has been reshaped, we are now, in fact, with the ordinance enforcement activities that my office that the department is involved in.

When I came to the department, there was one lawyer, one lawyer prosecuting Blight.

Now they're eight.

In addition to that, we have, because of the work of other members of this legislative body, we have been working diligently on a new issue confronted Detroit is called quit claim deed fraud.

This actually is a very silent underminer of everyone's desire to actually transfer to their family members generational wealth in the form of the house that they owned.

This is actually, if you talk to Bernard Youngblood, a very serious problem.

And because of the work that we have done, at this point, working with the Register of Deeds, working with the Detroit Police Department, working with the Wayne County prosecutor, I believe that more soon than later, we're going to be able to produce a series of indictments that will in fact go a long way toward confronting the persons who are committing these kinds of transactions.

Overall, I think that the general ordinance enforcement through the work of our frontline agency partner like BSEED is more vigorous than it has ever been.

I recognize that in the position that I'm in, there's going to be a lot of focus.

No matter what the consequences are associated with the comments that have been made, none of the comments, Mr.

President, go to having to have behaved unethically, done anything to embarrass the citizens of the City of Detroit, done anything other than do the job in the way that it's required to be accomplished.

I think that that is really an important uh framework for the discussions that you all are about to engage in.

Uh, and with that, Mr.

President, uh, I welcome any questions that people may have.

Thank you.

Colleagues, I'll go uh first if you would like with a show of hands, or I'll just go in in order if you like.

I just have a quick one.

Hands.

We'll go with hands.

Uh Member Waters.

Um, just a quick uh question.

Yesterday at one of the our town halls was someone from the State Legislature who says that they are going to pass some laws to deal with quit claim with uh deed fraud.

Um I just wonder if you have any thoughts about the direction they should take, what type of laws you think they should put in place if you if you know off the top of your head.

We've had this discussion before, uh, member water is not correctly related directly related to deed fraud, but with these LLCs and and and I think that if the legislature in fact would say that you simply have to identify all of the members of the LLC, and when you transfer property from one LLC to another, that the record be clear as to who the parties are that are a part of the entity that's receiving the property, and that it be a matter of general uh uh state law that, particularly as it relates to tax foreclosure, that you cannot simply escape the loss of the property by transferring it, and I'm talking about commercial properties now, transferring it to a family member in order to avoid paying taxes.

Uh McComb County, for instance, does not allow you to transfer commercial property to a family uh member when there are outstanding taxes.

You can sell it, you can lose it in the regular process, but you can't avoid your responsibilities to pay taxes by transferring it to a uh uh a family member.

The more open and transparent the LLC, a corporate development process is, the better we all will be.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any additional questions for Mr.

Mellet?

Uh Member Johnson, followed by Member McKemball.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and good afternoon, Corporation Council.

Um I will say that I think it's extremely important for the city to address uh nuisance properties.

Um of the greatest challenges I think we have is figuring that out and how we hold people accountable, how we hold speculators accountable so that we don't continue to demolish properties.

Many of us have articulated issues with demolishing properties and it providing additional resources to continue doing it, and then we slow down when we talk about filing a lawsuit against the speculators who hold on to property, they don't have certificates of compliance, um, the properties are decayed, they're blighted, they're not actively working on improving the property.

So I appreciate the work that you have been doing relative to that.

I know it's touching District Ford tremendously.

Real token, Dennis Cavalano's properties, the travel in.

Um I know we've been talking about the travel in and how to address that, how to deal with it.

Um, and I know there was some information that was recently shared about the travel in.

Can you talk about just in general?

What meets that threshold for you to say, okay, it's time for us to pursue them, whether for a consent agreement, for to seize the properties, or just to address the blight that they continue to allow to exist and permeate throughout the City of Detroit.

Uh Member Johnson, thank you for the question.

We we are our one of our most important clients is BC.

BC is responsible for uh the issuing of tickets and for the management uh of the entire uh property investigatory process.

When we get complaints, basically in the form of tickets from BC that remain uh unaddressed, uh, then we take action if in fact the property owner has not been willing to bring the property into compliance.

So the action, Madam Uh Member Johnson, as you are well aware, does not begin with the law department, it begins with the enforcement entities.

Uh when they give us notice that there is non-compliance, uh then the lawyers in the law department uh take action.

As it relates to the travel in, one of the great difficulties that we have encountered, uh, particularly as you have been uh watching this process unfold, uh there have been regular attempts on the part of that owner to bring the property into compliance.

And so there are minimum standards, and when they get met, when we bring in action when they are in fact in compliance, then it turns into a constitutional taking.

As you are aware, right now there are opportunities that we're not present, and we won't go any further with the discussion today.

But the bottom line is that again, I used the word earlier balancing.

What we want is the same thing that all city residents want, and you as a representative want as well.

We want these properties brought into up to code.

That's the goal.

The goal is not demolition.

The goal is uh code enforcement and code compliance.

Uh and and so that's what we're we're working toward.

Uh, and I think that um uh what and and in many instances it in, and I think as we come back to this body and explain what's going on with real token, you will see that there has been a number of things occurring, but some of them have been of the 600 properties that we brought into the lawsuit when we first file, at this point, 50 of them uh I think at last count have received certificates of compliance.

That is a tremendous achievement brought about by the fact that we were able to get the tenants into an ESCO program and use the money that was in the ESCO program to effectuate the re uh the repairs to the property that had to be made.

So it's been an arduous process, but I think we've demonstrating pro uh progress and we will continue working at it.

Thank you for that.

I did um attend a recent court proceeding as the judge was addressing the issue and will continue to follow it because it impacts District 4 probably the most than any other district.

Um we have a significant number of houses in the district that are part of this lawsuit.

Um my other question is relative to the Internal Operations Committee.

Somewhat indicated that we have too many lawsuits, request for representation and indemnification.

Recognizing that they come from various departments.

Talk about your role and what you can do, if anything, to reduce the number of lawsuits that go before the Internal Operations Committee, noting that I will say majority of them, more than 85% of them are either from the police department or from the Department of Transportation.

So particularly as it relates to Member Johnson to the Department of Transportation, uh I've had many conversations with Director Kramer.

Uh Director Kramer was one of the persons who worked diligently with their previous administration to cause there to be an increase in the pay uh of the bus drivers.

Uh Member Johnson, I think that you recognize from the position that you occupied previously.

As we increase the pay, we increase the quality of the person that was doing the work, as we increase the quality of the person that was doing the work, the number of bus accidents uh went down.

That is not to say, however, that there is a one-to-one, because I do believe absolutely that across the board we are victims as a city of fraud.

I do believe that there are organized groups of persons getting on our buses, falling out of their seats, bringing spurious lawsuits.

What we have not been able to do because of the processes that exist in uh uh in in the courts is find the necessary proof to make the allegation I'm making uh uh sustainable.

Uh but I I I believe uh on us on a stack of Bibles that that is happening almost every day, uh particularly as it relates to personal injuries that occur actually physically on the bus.

I do think that we are reducing the number of accidents caused by bus drivers as we have increased the quality of person responsible for driving the coaches.

Uh and and I do know that the uh focused in position uh uh imposition of the policies in the police department as they currently exist under the leadership of Todd Bettison, we have seen a small reduction in police-related cases as related to accidents caused by speeding.

Uh I do think that uh uh Chief Bettison's continued focus on the day-to-day behavior of his police officers is going to result in a reduction uh of the number of cases that come.

Um but in and so it's a long-term process, but I do believe that we've got a highly functioning uh partnership uh with DOT and with uh DPD.

All right, thank you.

Um while you noted some reductions, we have to keep at it.

Yes, ma'am.

Because every day we look up on the news and we see something, hear something that I cringe when I see it because I know it'll cost the city.

It'll cost the city money.

So I would just encourage you to keep having those conversations and the departments have to make sure they're doing everything they can to improve the service that's being delivered to residents, um, but to also make sure that we keep in mind how our behavior impacts the city as a whole.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Member Johnson.

Member McCampbell.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Good afternoon, Corporation Council.

Good afternoon.

I just a few questions.

One, just overall, you know, municipalities like Detroit continue to be challenged with maintaining local control of the decisions that impact the most important aspects of our lives.

How would you interpret and defend the law and policies in a progressive manner that empowers and protect the will of Detroiters, especially as we're facing, you know, a very reckless federal administration?

So Member McCampbell, I what what the part of what uh my responsibility is is to follow the direction given uh by the mayor's office and by this body.

Uh and so what I am is a facilitator of of the uh mayor and the la and the executive, excuse me, and the uh legislative bodies uh view as to how we ought to manage within the confines of the law, however.

Uh it is my responsibility to be sure that as far as both this body and the mayor's office wants to go, you can uh with that with but at the same time being sure that you are operating firmly within the legal framework so that you don't place yourself place the city uh in legal jeopardy.

Thank you for that.

And just wanted to touch on this has been brought up, but um the of course when they talk about independent civilian oversight of DPD, um that's something that Detroit has been a pioneer in, and also something I believe increases public safety in the city and increases trust with our police department.

Um there's and I there's a lot of residents in talking to former and current commissioners.

Um they feel that it's important to have access to independent legal counsel, um, free from any conflicts of interest for oversight, accountability, and transparency.

Um would you support the BLPC selecting the staff and their own independent attorney?

So uh McCampbell, the the um first of all, let me let me let me say this.

I am at the Board of Police Commissioners meetings every Thursday because it has it over time, it had turned into such a difficult assignment that it was important that the Board of Police Commissioners know that the law department was taking the work they did seriously.

So I went.

It has been a constant of my public service to lead from the front, not to ask my people to do things that I won't do myself.

So it's not a picnic, if I may say, going every Thursday to the Board of Police Commissioners meetings.

I do believe, though, however, that my presence has been additive.

Having said all of that, uh based on the conversations uh that you were a part of previously, uh I believe that there is a pathway in front of us to provide uh uh uh independent counsel uh to the Board of Police Commissioners.

Um I think, however, um, I let me say it this way.

I know that I have been providing the Board of Police Commissioners and the law department has been providing the Board of Police Commissioners very high quality service.

Uh the the desire, however, because sometimes perception, as you know, is reality, uh if it it and and presumably it makes a difference.

Uh we received a direction from this body to work with uh LPD to come up with the plan that we could present to this body around the enhancement of independent uh legal opportunities throughout the government, uh and I'm committed uh to doing that.

So I we are not opposed uh uh to the Board of Police Commissioners having access to their own legal counsel, the structure of the way that is accomplished, I think requires conversation.

Uh but I'm not opposed to it.

At the same time, I do know that despite what what what is the uh all all the always interesting comments uh made publicly.

Uh the Board of Police Commissioners has been high functioning in a very, very high manner now for almost two years.

That has a lot to do with the men and women who provide that service.

Uh and and but I also think that the law department's uh contribution uh has been important.

Thank you for that.

I appreciate that.

Thank you, Corporation Council.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any additional?

All right.

Uh Corporation Council, got a question.

You do you you sit on the risk management council?

As a corporation counsel.

Actually, there's a risk management meeting.

I don't I I I I I'm not on the council.

Okay.

All right.

So that kind of takes me out of the former question I was going to ask it.

Look really looking at similar to what Member Johnson asked about recommendations that you have just overall uh in the city to uh reduce the risk that we have.

We get litigation, and sometimes it's not uh it doesn't translate into litigation lawsuits.

Sometimes it's just policy that needs to be changed to to head off potential uh situations um that we would have to confront.

Talk to us a bit about your uh advisement of departments, uh and if there's any uh any types of uh opinions, advice, uh recommendations that you've made to departments to uh improve the way that they function that would uh eliminate or severely uh reduce the risk that we have.

So I can give you an example, Mr.

President.

Uh again, uh I'm not the president of the Todd Bettison fan club, but I'm uh certainly on the executive board.

Um the the but the insistence that the chief has, the policy of DPD is this.

When you when you are about to go on a chase, you inform your supervisor of what you are about to do.

The reason that that is important is it's the supervisor might say it ain't worth it, slow down, stop.

It's very clear that you're not supposed to enter a chase in the absence of a felony or some other series of very important series of events.

What the chief has done has been insistent that the process be followed.

So that you you you you in in some testosterone-driven moment of wanting to drive this very, very high specialty uh piece of equipment as fast as they can go, you enter in a chase that might end up uh causing somebody to be hurt.

So there's a stop, there's uh uh consultation, and when you vigorously impose following the policy, and then issue discipline when the policy is not followed, Mr.

President, you change behavior.

But it takes a lot to make that stick.

Uh and and that that's why, you know, uh uh Bettison's longevity is going to pay dividends for us in ways that we don't quite are not able today to calculate, but I guarantee you the number of cases that come before this body for the request for representation and demnification uh over the next two or three years are going to go down.

I'm looking more for your input.

Um I I'm a fan of of of you know the chief as well.

He's gonna come before us as well, he's gonna have questions that he's got to answer.

But in in terms of your input.

So my my we we m Mr.

President, as you know, we've got the policies.

The the my input has been please enforce them.

So the the when we say that we are going to send someone back for retraining, it can't just be perfunctory.

It's really got to be a serious effort designed to enhance the behavior uh that uh we want to have occur as opposed to what was demonstrated.

So I don't pretend to be an expert policeman.

What I what I do know is is that, and this comes back to haunt us, Mr.

President, when we have policies that we are not following, that becomes an unforgivable moment, particularly if we are in front of a jury when the the plaintiff's attorney is able to say they're not even following their own rules.

Uh so my contribution largely to my clients is what do our rules say and what we need to do is follow them.

Okay.

So in terms of uh legal opinions, uh sometimes it it it it feels, at least from my side of things, and I don't know what all you are working on, I assume, because when we get the legal opinions, they're very thorough.

I will say that.

Um but it seems like it takes a bit longer than we would like for it to take uh to receive it.

Are there any moves that you have made or are anticipating in making?

I know we're coming close to the budget time, and we can make some uh adjustments there for in terms of funding, but in terms of just the organizational uh aspect, uh are there any moves that you have made or will be making to help expedite uh the receipt of those opinions?

And if you have a time frame that uh you are aware of uh an average um turnaround for uh a legal opinion, uh that would be helpful to add as well.

So uh we've had the we've had part of the discussion most primarily uh with member Callaway.

Uh I do believe that artificial intelligence is gonna help the law department tremendously.

I do know that the availability of AI has reduced the length of time that it takes members of uh uh my team to answer for themselves legal questions that they have.

Uh we are moving faster, uh, and I think our timeliness will increase.

I'm not prepared today, Mr.

President, to give you the window, but I do promise that if you'll give me a week, I'll come back and give you a time frame within which you can expect on average opinions to come from the municipal section uh after I consult with our section leader, uh Tanya Long.

But I think that the request for a window of time uh from the department is quite reasonable, and I think we're close to being able to do that.

Okay.

I will say I I have one in particular that has been in the queue for for some time now, and it's well beyond the expiration date, if you will.

Um so I'm speaking from experience.

So I'm looking forward to hearing a little bit more about how that process will work.

Which one is that, Mr.

President?

Don't want to say just yet.

Okay.

Um but we can talk offline.

I did talk to uh your your chief of staff today about it.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Colleagues, any additional questions?

Seeing none, there is a motion on the floor for approval of line item 3.2, that is the reappointment of Conrad Mallet to serve as corporation counsel of the law department upon confirmation by city council.

Any objections?

Objection, Member Santiago Romero.

Objection, Member McCampbell.

Okay.

Say your name.

Renata Miller.

I was told by the by uh Madam Parliamentarian to ask everyone to say their names if they object at this point.

Turn your mic on one more time.

So Miller.

Thank you.

All right.

Objection.

Um councilmember McCampbell, Councilmember Miller, and Councilmember Senator Millo.

The objections is um pass.

All right.

Uh colleagues, that motion shall be approved.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, sir.

Okay.

And as excuse me, you're going to hear uh these are not all grouped in together, they're individual resolutions that are coming before us, so we are going to be voting on them independently, uh, just so the public understands the process.

Okay.

So now we would like to uh go forward with the executive uh organizational plan, organization plan.

If we can have um Mr.

Bowser, Chief of Staff, as well as Tanya Long, I believe, who is set to be here as well, Tanya Stodemyer with the office of the chief financial officer and office.

And we are having a very again brief conversation on this particular item uh as the full discussion will take place in IOS as we have still numerous days left uh for this to be finalized.

Um but it was noticed that we want to make sure we have this discussion as indicated.

Please introduce yourself for the record.

Kristen Booth with the law department.

I'm here for Tanya Long.

Good afternoon.

David Bowser, Chief of Staff.

Yes, not a myor, CFO.

Who's that one?

Pending All right.

Uh, you may proceed.

Um did want to give a brief overview of the executive organization plan or the proposed amendments to it.

And so what I will say is that this um organizational chart does reflect the core values of Mayor Sheffield.

Uh we received a mandate throughout uh the campaign for election to prioritize residents and to create a you know community-centered sort of way to do uh business and to do government here in in Detroit.

Uh and so what you'll see is the establishment of a Department of Human Homeless and Family Services, uh, which establishes a singular focus on homelessness and other housing issues across the city, which has been something that uh folks have been calling on for quite some time.

Um what it will do is co-locate a variety of quality of life services under one roof, make those services easier to navigate uh and create a continuum from homelessness all the way to home ownership and every service in between.

Um in order to do that, uh the proposal is to transfer some of the administrative and major functional areas from uh the housing revitalization department to this particular department.

So, what this represents is just the movement of programs from one umbrella HRD to a new umbrella, which is HHFS.

Um this is just uh reorganization, not the establishment of net new programming.

It's moving it under a certain a different umbrella to make it more accessible and to have singular strategies associated with those quality of life interventions.

Uh transferring the Office of Immigrant Affairs from HRD to the mayor's office again, locating uh this this department, this office under a quality of life umbrella uh that's newly established under the mayor's office.

Establishing the neighborhood affairs in the mayor's office, which was again a new umbrella created to really collect the thoughts and the needs of residents so that we can uh have actionable items towards those needs uh throughout the administration.

Transferring homeland security represents more of a you know can content continuity of public health or public safety services, uh and then transferring the jet team from the mayor's office to the to HRD.

Just mostly sort of operational house cleaning.

This happened quite some time ago, and we are just codifying it in this proposed amendment.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any uh questions uh high level.

Uh we will start off with Member Santiago Romero.

Thank you.

Mr.

President, yes, I will be brief, just want to ask this since we have the opportunity.

Um, regarding the Office of Immigrant Affairs and the hire for this, um, this feels incredibly urgent.

Um, and the time that we're in right now, and unfortunately, my office has become the immigration office.

We are not we're not prepared.

We serve everyone, and we are beginning to get calls forwarded to my office from other council offices, which feels incredibly inappropriate.

We need help.

This needs to be happening soon.

So we have any idea when we're gonna hire someone for the OIA.

Absolutely.

This position is budgeted, it's just a matter of bringing folks in to be interviewed, and so we can actually prioritize that over the next couple of weeks.

We want to make sure that we are receiving um you know applications and referrals from you as well and from community members to make sure that we are identifying the folks who are gonna represent those needs uh in the best way possible.

And so we'll be reaching out to you to receive those resumes uh and then we'll interview them over the next couple of weeks.

But it is budgeted, and we're looking forward to continuing and uh pushing that forward.

Through the chair, thank you.

Um, just to make it easy for you, we have already sent those over, but Hollowell already knows the recommendations that we have.

People have applied, they just need to be interviewed.

If they haven't already, they need to be appointed and hired.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any additional member Johnson, followed by Pro Tim Young.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um can you all help me to understand better the JET team being part of HRD?

You indicated that it had already happened.

I don't fully understand the the I mean, of course we know the correlation between the two in some instances, but it's not always the case.

So help me to understand the jabs and economy team being part of the housing and revitalization department.

So uh through the chair to member Johnson.

So we're really trying to get um HRD back to its core function, which is to improve the quality of life of Detroit neighborhoods through community and economic development programs.

So that's one of their core missions as as well as affordable housing.

So we're really just trying to get them back to kind of where we started.

So that's why uh this is really just housekeeping because the staff, the support staff is already there.

Okay, can you repeat that core mission again?

Yep.

So the core mission, which is to improve the quality of life of Detroit neighborhoods through community and economic development programs and affordable housing.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Um thank you, Ms.

President.

Hello, all it's good to see you guys.

Um I'm supportive with the play.

I just want to ask a quick question about an immigration affairs.

Uh are you um told or they relay to you when ICE actually is in the city or in the facilities?

Because it's my understanding, I have just been updated that ICE is in Wayne State right now.

And so I just want to know do you get notified for that?

And the reason why I'm saying that is when you get notified, can you sh you share that?

Or is that are you prohibited to doing so?

You know, and and I'm not saying that the ice here are going to be like around the country, but we all see the people who've been killed and shot and things that nature.

And so are you updated when they're in town?

And then do you have a responsibility to be able to relate that information to the people where they are at, or is that something that you're prohibited from doing?

Or is that something that law enforcement should be doing?

DBD.

Thank you.

Uh that that may be a question for Chief Bettison.

So here in the mayor's office, we are we're not receiving those notifications.

Uh, Chief Bettison does work closely with the federal agencies, and so he should be able to answer that question.

Because I think I don't know what immigration affairs, that you partner up, or did you have a coordinate council or something in nature?

Okay, thank you.

I'm done.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yep.

Uh, through the chair to member young, I just wanted to add that we are adding uh homeland security to DPD's budget, so that is a conversation you can have with him.

But you know, it really is for reasons like this, because I believe he's probably gonna be the first contact.

So it makes sense for that uh division to be within DPD.

Yeah, excuse me.

And I know Homeland Security was in DPD for quite some time, and I'm gonna say that uh publicly I would like for the name of Homeland Security to change because they do something completely different than what the federal Homeland Security Department does.

Uh so I am uh going to be requesting that change as it moves forward uh personally myself because it does send the wrong message to our public, especially when we're asking them to sign up for these alerts uh that will certainly uh help their uh quality of life, and especially in the case of an emergency, uh if they are fearful of the title, the name, Homeland Security, and we don't get the participation that uh we need them to have as as well as them and their family.

So that will be forthcoming.

Uh member McCampbell.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Good afternoon.

Uh couple of questions, just very short question for a few.

Um can we can city council anticipate any budget amendments um prior to the our budget session for next year or the next budget um to address these changes in the ELP?

So um through council president to member McCampbell, uh, yes.

So I do want to start off though by saying that the proposed EOP will have no net impact on the budget, but any changes that we need to make as far as transfers between appropriations and various departments will have to come back to this body for approval.

Uh, but do keep in mind that um this does not become effective.

This EOP does not become effective until April 7th, which coincidentally is the same day that you all will be voting on the budget.

So any changes that we would make um, for instance, to a new department or anything associated with this EOP would have to be after it's been approved.

But what we would like to do is provide you all with a crosswalk so you can kind of see what those changes are gonna look like.

So you'll know uh probably in the next couple of weeks, we'll send it to um Mr.

Whitaker and LPD so that they can kind of understand what it is we're trying to do.

And when you vote on April 7th, you would also have an opportunity to vote on those budget changes that are gonna be necessary in order for us to be able to do this.

Thank you for that, and definitely looking forward to that crosswalk.

Um, just the uh just one more question.

If you can just provide a little bit more about the vision behind the neighborhood affairs division, and also how would this different, how would this be different what folks expect from the department of neighborhoods?

Uh through council president, to member McAlster.

Uh so what we're looking to do is create an umbrella for all neighborhood-related um initiatives across the city, including the Department of Neighborhoods.

But what we're adding to that is a new, what we're looking to add to that is a new Office of Senior Citizen Affairs.

We're looking to codify the community violence intervention uh program into an office as well.

Uh we're looking to have uh an individual who is in charge of coalitions and advocacy again, creating tables around the city to make sure that residents can speak directly to the administration.

Uh and we're looking to um add even more offices to basically collect feedback from residents and then on a district by district basis move resources into and all across the city.

And so what the office of or excuse me, what that capacity of neighborhood affairs represents is an umbrella under which all neighborhood related initiatives um can sit under.

Um and so having an individual who's in charge of that is just a statement by this administration to say that neighborhoods did support um this mayor and neighborhoods will continue to have a voice at the table.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

And definitely looking forward to um the Office of Senior Affairs as well.

I know those are big need for folks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any additional.

See none.

We thank you for the presentation.

And we're going to try to get back, we're going to get right back on the agenda format that we have here in our next confirmation hearing that we're going to have is with a CFO Tanya Stademai.

You're already at the table might as well.

I appreciate that.

All right.

So the uh is there a motion for line item 3.1.

Member Whitfield Calloway.

Motion to approve, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you so much.

There's a motion to approve line item 3.1 with discussion.

Discussion.

With discussion.

All right.

So we're gonna go to the reappointment of uh Tanya Sodermine to serve as the chief financial officer upon confirmation and by the city council section uh six-three zero one of the Detroit City Charter uh dealing with the Finance Department establishes that the Finance Department is headed by the Finance Director, uh Section 6-302 department divisions, departmental divisions establish that the finance director shall direct and coordinate financial activities of accounts uh division, the assessment division, the treasury, and the purchasing division.

The finance director shall uh also secure and maintain compliance with all laws pertaining to uh financial controls for the protection of public funds.

Uh CFO uh Stodemeyer, thank you for being here.

And uh would like to now provide you an opportunity for remark opening remarks.

Thank you.

And for the record, my name is Tanya Stodemeyer.

I'm seeking reappointment to the position of CFO.

I have been a city worker for over 30 years.

I have been in the office of the CFO since it was created following bankruptcy.

From 2015 to 2021, I was the budget director, so I had to navigate the challenges of an active financial review commission, which we do not want to go back to.

Uh in 2021, I was appointed the chief deputy and ran the day-to-day operations of the office of the CFO.

Last April, the former mayor appointed me to the position of CFO, and last month I was honored to be reappointed by Mayor Sheffield.

My goal is simple uh is to maintain fiscal discipline to ensure that we are making strategic investments that enhance the quality of life of every Detroiter.

Um I look forward to working with this honorable body to ensure um transparent and responsible financial leadership.

If there are any questions, I am prepared to address those.

Okay.

Uh Pro Tim Young.

I just want to say on top of your stellar uh record, you are also the first African American female CFO for Detroit.

So it's nice to reappoint you on Black History Month.

Just full FYI there for everybody.

And uh thank you very much.

Uh Female, I'm sorry, female African American.

I'm sorry, thank you.

You you you knew what I meant.

You knew what I was trying to say.

All right, whatever.

Uh thank you very much, uh, Pro Tim Young, and I want to kind of explain how that works.

Um the office of the CFO includes the budget department, which used to be a separate department, and the finance department.

So there were females who were over the budget department before, there were females who were over the finance department before.

But I am the first female who's over both departments.

So that's the difference.

I'll just say personally, um, I have had an opportunity to work with you for quite some time in uh your various capacities and been very impressed with the way that you approach uh your your duties, the function of the duties that you've had.

Uh never had a question about the validity of the information that you provide.

Um you're one of the individuals I can say really called balls and strikes.

Um there's been times where I didn't necessarily like the answer I received from you, um, but you were very thorough in your explanation, and uh when you provided the information, it was very very clear as to why you came to that conclusion.

So uh I thank you for your years of service with the city of Detroit and look forward to um you know the your confirmation if that is what the will of the body is.

Thank you.

Any additional questions, colleagues?

Uh member Johnson.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and good afternoon.

Thank you for the over three decades of service to the residents in the city of Detroit.

Definitely appreciate it.

Um I'd like to say I love to see the growth.

And I'm really interested in knowing whether or not you've been involved or leading any discussions about how we grow our revenue for the city.

Through the chair.

Yes, actually, Member Johnson, we have been talking about opportunities to maybe do things a little bit differently.

As you know, a lot of the things that we would really like to do will take the state's approval and changes to laws, but we are trying to see if there's some incremental things we can do differently that will enhance our revenues.

Excellent.

I'm glad you're talking about it.

Um because I think it takes leadership for us to have the difficult conversations that we need to have in order for us to be able to provide the services that Detroit is so rightfully deserve.

So thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Um good afternoon, Mel CFO.

I just have a question.

Um LPD has repeatedly flagged major questions around police overtime levels and drivers.

Um could you go into any specific management controls you all recover to prevent overtime from becoming a structure budget feature?

Uh through the chair, um to member McCampbell.

I think that's probably a better question for DPD, but I can assure you that their numbers are coming down considerably.

So the chief is definitely taking actions to make sure that the overtime that we've seen in the past doesn't look like it's going to continue into our future.

As you probably are aware, a lot of the positions have been filled, so they don't have the same number of vacancies that they've had in the past.

So there was always that expectation that overtime would go down as a result.

And we are over the last few months, we are starting to see that happen.

So I'm very pleased about that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any further seeing none.

A motion has been made for line item 3.1, colleagues.

Any objections?

Seeing none, that action shall be taken.

Okay.

Moving along.

Line item 3.3, Madam Clerk.

Councilman movement called a resolution.

Item 3.3.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Callaway.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Motion to approve.

There's a motion to approve line item 3.3.

Ms.

Alexa Bush, thank you for joining us at the table.

Let me see here.

What we got here for the discussion.

With discussion.

Thank you so much, ma'am.

Reappointment of Alexa Bush to serve as the Director of Planning and Development Department upon confirmation by the City Council.

Section 6-201 of the City Charter establishes that the planning department is headed by the planning and development director.

In addition to the duties and functions in the particular chapter, the department shall establish a strategic plan that pursues, advocates, and supports community development within the city consistent with the master plan, including the creation and support of stable planned communities.

Also to develop and implement a strategic plan to pursue and initiate programs, opportunities, and create conditions supportive of global trade.

And finally, oh I'm sorry, as well as develop and implement a strategic plan to actively recruit businesses to the city of Detroit and provide the support, assistance, and conditions necessary to retain businesses for develop and implement a strategic plan and program focused on recruiting and supporting emerging industries.

So can you sit in the middle there for us?

That way we can all be all aligned.

And good afternoon, if you can please introduce yourself for the record.

And uh the floor is yours to uh provide opening remarks.

Good afternoon.

Uh through the chair, my name is Alexa Bush, and I'm here for my reappointment as the director of planning and development.

Um I have served in this role since last January.

I was first appointed by the previous mayor in December of 2024.

Um that was a return to the department.

I spent six years from 2015 to 2026 in planning and development, doing a lot of work in our neighborhoods, leading um numerous studies through strategic neighborhood fund, and it's really been quite a pleasure to have the opportunity to be reappointed and to continue to do that work to strengthen our neighborhoods and really expand economic recovery throughout the city.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any questions, comments, concerns.

I'll start off with Member Callaway.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

And good afternoon, ma'am.

We've had this discussion before, and I'm always curious as to why the city of Detroit doesn't have like a Burlington Coke factory or a Target or a Walmart or a Kroger's or Costco's.

And you can go to any other major city, and those stores are in the urban area.

And I'll continue to ask why we cannot lure appeal to, reach out to, engage these businesses to come to the city.

And sometimes when I go to some of the stores, i.e.

Target, they always ask you what's your zip code is.

So they know where their customer base is.

And I'm kind of taken aback that we don't have any of the stores.

We are forced as Detroiters to go across Ape Mile to shop for basic things, essential things, right?

Because you can't find them over here.

And so what I see in my own community in District 2 is that our gasoline stations are turning into mini markets, you know.

They're selling paper towel, tissue, clothes, hats, gloves, you name it, and other uh and other items.

Um how do we change that?

What is your plan to change that?

And I've been asking that um since I've been sitting on this council because I don't believe we should have to continue to go outside of our city for essentials, you know, and uh for shopping.

And we're all forced to do that.

If you live in Detroit, you might find a few little places, but you're not going to find any of the places that I've listed here, not to my knowledge.

So what's your plan?

Yeah.

Yes, uh, through the chair and to member Callaway, yes.

I'm I'm so glad you asked this question because I feel like it's it's a really important one for our city and something that I know we've had some opportunity to speak about previously.

But yes, I mean, I think there is there's multiple parts to your question that really relate to how we think about the economic development strategy for the whole city, but also I think a really particular question about how do we really expand the retail amenities and services across our neighborhoods.

Um I think a lot of the retailers that you mentioned are some of these national brands.

Um we do through through us in the city, through our partners at the DEGC, um, pretty constantly try to work with some of those brands and retailers to bring them to the city.

I think the challenge we see is one, they have their own metrics that they use in deciding how and where to locate a store.

Sometimes that has to do with you know, number of households, occupied households, and I would just say across the real estate world, um, appraisers, other folks don't know what to do when you have a neighborhood that might be very strong, but has vacant homes in the middle of it.

It just doesn't show up the same way in their data, where I think we are always trying to make the case that we are much better than what shows up in the spreadsheet.

Um, but that's really an ongoing conversation.

I think about managing folks who are looking kind of nationwide at spreadsheets and not really thinking about community and what we have to offer, I think in the same way that we truly believe we do.

Um the other piece of this is a lot of the work that we've been doing, particularly in neighborhoods, is to try and build the places that support that kind of retail.

How do we create corridors where it's not just a single business but businesses on both sides of the street, a restaurant, a place you can walk, a place you could buy books, a place you could grab coffee, that you start to create the foot traffic necessary to support those businesses and also drive those numbers and that head count that I think those bigger brands are looking for.

Um, you know, I think we've had some success with the more regional brands.

We've now have a few Myers that are located within the city, but it's something we continue to try and work toward.

Um I think the other piece of this is we also want to really think about and blend the opportunity for some of those small businesses and local businesses as well.

Um so we are really working on both fronts to think both, you know, how do we how do we invest in our places and make the case to these national retailers who don't know our story, frankly.

And I think if you've read the headlines over the past several decades of Detroit, like we know that's stale, we know it's old, and we continue to do work to tell our story.

Um, but in parallel, also see this opportunity to meet some of those really pressing neighborhood needs you lift up also by supporting our local entrepreneurs.

Um so our partnerships with DGC, Motor City Match, and some of those opportunities as well, we think are actually symbiotic and kind of getting that density of of households of people of retail to make the case and make that successful.

Thank you.

Through the chair to you, Miss Bush.

Um they don't have to be exclusive.

We don't have to necessarily just have small businesses and none of the large box stores.

I I can give Atlanta.

That's that's my example in Chicago.

They coexist.

You have um lots of um communities with small businesses surrounding a box store.

They complement and feed off of each other.

And so we have a Home Depot in my district at Seven Mile and Myers, and from what I understand when I'm in touch with the regional manager or regional director, it's the most profitable one in the state of Michigan.

I also am in touch with the regional director of Myers that was in my district, which is now in District 3 at Woodward and 8.

It's the most profitable Myers in the state of Michigan.

So we have the resources and we want to support these businesses, but I feel like we're just being closed in, and it's kind of intentional in my in my estimation, because I've been here my entire life.

Because what happens is they they're on the outskirts, right there at on the outskorts on the edge of Detroit.

So we're not thinking um it's gonna take a drive to get to Myers.

It's gonna take a long time to get to these other Burlington factory.

We don't even have a TJ Maxx, and we shop at TJ Maxx.

We have one Marshall's, one, and that's at 8 Mile and to my knowledge, 8 Mile and Woodworth.

So all I'm saying is we have to do a better job of um selling our city to these businesses and um inviting them to come in.

Um I don't even I think we have one new car dealership, I think, and I was just in Port Huron, up and down Garage, up and down Van Dyke, hundreds of new car dealerships.

What happens is it forces us just to support, and I'll wrap it up, is it's um forces we Detroiters to either patronize, support that one dealership that we have.

I think we got one new dealership, might have two, but then if we don't support those two, it forces us to go across eight mile, and I want us to have what we need right here in our own community.

We want if we don't want to leave it, we shouldn't have to.

But right now we're forced to leave it almost every single day in search of the things that we need.

Thank you so much.

I hope to work with you.

But we we want these businesses in our city.

Chicago is no different than Detroit, and neither is um Atlanta, but they have what we don't have, and there's no reason why we shouldn't have those things.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and thank you, Miss Bush.

Thank you.

Um Member McCampbell.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, good good afternoon.

Um, definitely echo what my colleagues said around attracting those businesses and and that does Detroit that's deserving.

And I want to touch on which you touched on a little bit about the focus in neighborhoods of those um smaller businesses, but one to zoom in on, as you said, uh places for folks to walk, places for folks to go.

And if you could touch on how do you all think about the needs of those neighborhoods and what's missing in those corridors and such, and um what type of data do you use on the neighborhood conditions and the quality of life needs there?

Uh thank you through the chair and to member McCampbell.

Um, wonderful question, absolutely builds on the previous.

We have typically worked in a lot of the places where we've done neighborhood studies and planning in pretty close collaboration with our colleagues at the DGC.

Um, for the the kind of 10 areas where we did strategic neighborhood fund projects, we did a retail study at the basis of our planning work that really did capture what you're talking about.

Um the term they used was the retail leakage, right?

So Detroiters spending power that is going outside city limits.

Um, I believe back in 2015 when we had our first estimate, it was something like close to two billion dollars of spending that left the city limits every day.

Um, so when we look at those numbers, we look at yes, there's absolutely a potential here, and how do we make that case to retailers?

That data is a piece of it.

We also looked at the mix of um what those missing services were.

Were they things more like grocer?

Were they food and beverage?

Were they other types of services?

Um, and so we definitely work from that data as a basis when we think about the planning work that we're going to do.

Um, and I think really our strategy there to get to that piece of your question has been to really think about um kind of co-locating and uh adding investment.

So the the streetscape program that we've worked on with our colleagues in the public works department, we really thought carefully about you know, where are these small business corridors?

We might have stores, some might be absolutely active, some might be a few vacant businesses.

How could we use our own real estate of the street to create a better and more welcoming environment that supports those businesses, create the places where people want to go shop and linger, um, and to really target the the public infrastructure investment with the economic development tools.

Those could be, you know, working with a developer in a tax abatement.

It could be a facade program, it could be our murals program with the General Services Department.

It could be trying to match motor city match entrepreneurs into those corridors.

Um, that we really see it as a multi-layered strategy to best support business success and attract those businesses into our corridors.

Um but we do really base it in that in that data and have had conversations that at this point as we think about where we go next.

Um it's at a great point to revisit some of those studies, and so that's absolutely a conversation we're having about moving forward.

Um I would note too that the pandemic has been quite a challenge to our retail environment.

I think where people work, where they get lunch has really changed over that time frame, and it would be really helpful to us, I think, to be able to drill in and understand you know, hybrid working, um online shopping, like there's a lot of dynamics that I think we could refresh that data to help us better understand and target how we can be most successful for retail in this environment.

Thank you for that, and and definitely have seen some of that when you talk about streetscapes and some of that work in district seven.

So appreciate that.

Definitely want to see more and also um considering a partner in that and thinking about other ways that we can think about b uh setup in these places such as cooperatives and such as well.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you so much.

Uh Director Bush, thank you for being here.

Appreciate you all those times those years we've uh interacted during uh PED.

Um definitely a breath of fresh air from your predecessor.

I'll say that myself personally.

Um and I'll leave it there.

Uh I do see in the uh city charter, it indicates in section six-201 that the department shall provide, meaning the planning department shall provide an annual report to the city council on or before February 1st that incorporates the community and economic development strategies called for in this section uh and which should and which details the department's actions, achievements, and future plans in pursuit of these strategies and the duties and functions set forth here within.

Uh the report shall be, excuse me, the report shall also identify the levels of funding necessary to pursue those strategies and achieve those objectives.

And I realize that we are in the fifth day of February in a new term as well.

But I don't recall seeing that particular uh report being provided to council.

Uh maybe I missed it, maybe it's on its way, but if you can provide some insight, I'd appreciate it.

Uh through the chair, absolutely, yes.

Um, familiar with that section of the charter and this report, I think um the way that we've typically approached pulling together and kind of bringing some of that information has been in the last several years, at least in my experience, um, aligned with the budget process.

Um I my understanding is the February 1st date tied into maybe before restructuring when that process landed a little sooner, but we would be expecting to bring that sort of information into the budget hearing process itself.

Um this is where we also are really collaborating with our sister agencies, um, the DGC, especially around those pieces about the business attraction, um, ensuring that we're aligned with also functions like the jet team, which we spoke about earlier in the EOP, to really ensure that all those levers are pulling in the same direction.

Um, but that is how we kind of have been operationalizing that piece.

I think the other thing that it rests on that has been a real priority of mine to get back into good order is that this is all rooted in our master plan of policies.

Um we are in the midst of updating that master plan.

We are about halfway through it.

I think we've brought that to this body a number of times.

Um we haven't done a deeply comprehensive master plan update since probably 2009.

Um so we have gotten ourselves quite out of step with where we would like to be.

Um, and so our hope is that really to kind of get our own house in good order, that we are grounding that vision with the neighborhoods and kind of as we bring that back into the update it needs to be, that we will get all these steps really reinforced with that community vision that we think is really critical to informing where our economy grows.

I would just flag too that one of our key goals of the master plan is really how to use land use, how to use investment, how to use all these tools to strengthen Detroit's economy, and that it's been important for us to understand what does that look like alongside residents of the city for how they can best participate in that growth and what direction would be most supportive to them.

Thank you for that.

And I I will say that while I do understand past practices, I I think it is critical for us to ensure that we execute what's actually in the charter.

Um so I would be looking forward to seeing uh how we get back on track uh and not allow for charter violation to be in place because it does say very clearly here February 1st.

And I know that may have been you know again past practice and and changed in some capacity uh in the past, but just looking at the language and uh this is partially what benefits me as well, just going back through this charter again and reviewing it because if things you don't see all the time or recall.

So thank you for that, and we'll be having additional conversation with you on it.

Mr.

Chairman Member Johnson, followed by Member Callaway.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um Director Bush, can you just share what the planning department's role is in implementation of planning studies once they're they're done?

Uh yes, through the chair and to member Johnson.

Um, you know, we are not at our core in implementing department.

Our role really is in creating that strategic vision, the alignment, and the coordination across departments.

Um so where we do develop plans in partnership with our sister departments, we are working closely with them to do a handoff around the project implementation.

Um the streetscapes is probably a great example uh that I mentioned in the conversation with member McCampbell.

Um, you know, we work closely with residents, with neighborhoods, with uh public works, with DGC and figure out you know, where are these key nodes where we want infrastructure investment?

We're working to put together with the community essentially the concept for you know, this is the right place, this is a concept of how the street looks, um, and as we complete plans, we will then hand off that project to the implementing department.

So we would then work with public works who would take our concept that we did with the community, kind of through engineering and design through construction documents, but public works would ultimately implement the um the project that comes out of the plan that we do together.

So is there any collaboration with the department just to ensure that what's in the plan is actually implemented?

And the reason I ask that is because your predecessor actually would talk about not being involved in water infrastructure work that was happening in the Jefferson Chalmers community, not only not being involved, not being a part of the conversation, not uh being aware of what the plans are, or to even perhaps redirect thoughts if needed.

Uh through the chair, um no, in my experience, we've tried to work quite closely with those departments when we are in the planning process um, you know, depending on the plan and the frequency of meetings internally.

We are typically, you know, hosting internal coordination and planning meetings as you know, we go out to the public, we get feedback, we come back, we do our analysis.

Um we're typically vetting that work with HRD to understand, you know, where might there be housing needs, where might we be pursuing a public-private partnership.

Uh, we work quite closely with public works around coordinating, you know, it might be something as full as a streetscape, but there are times too where um through their safe streets program, we might be able to say, you know what, when you looked citywide, it looked like this might have been the place for that traffic calming intervention, but now that we've done this plan and had a chance to talk deeper with community, you know, what flexibility do we have in adapting that plan or implementation based on the feedback?

Um, similar with GSD and our parks, but we we try to coordinate quite a lot with our sister departments to ensure that um you know we can best be clear with the community about what the timeline and cost and pathway for those projects would be.

Um, but also you know, to best use our city resources to figure out if there's other investment already planned in the future, how can we best work together to make sure that it is as aligned and catalytic as possible?

Okay.

I uh thank you for that.

I think it's important to make sure you all are involved in the implementation process just to make sure that the department is fully aware of what has come from the community since you all were the ones doing outreach and engagement with the residents in the community.

I think it's important just to maintain um that collaboration, that spirit of collaboration.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Member Callaway.

Um, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I don't know if this question is really for um Miss Bush, but it's probably for LPD.

On your point, um To your point, um, Mr.

Chair, regarding compliance with the charter, um, through the chair to Mr.

Um Whitaker, when a director of a department is not in compliance with the charter as today, um, what happens?

What are the repercussions or the consequences?

And what is the responsibility of the city council?

Since the directors don't directly report to us, they report to the mayor.

What is our role in making sure that these department heads are in compliance with the charter Mr.

Whitaker?

I'm sorry.

Pursuant to 4-109, you have investigative powers.

And part of your investigative powers is to have the director to come before you in the appropriate committee and ask them questions regarding that.

You cannot direct the director directly because the charter gives that power to the executive branch.

But you can investigate.

And you can investigate with the cameras on.

And that has in the past had a lot of power in getting action on the part of a recalcitrant director.

Not to say this director is one, but that's in the past has been the method by which movement has has uh has seen the light.

You've got powers to get them before you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Mr.

Whitaker.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any additional questions for Director Bush?

Seeing none, there is a motion on the floor uh for approval of line item 3.3.

Are there any objections?

Seeing none, that action shall be taken.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

Through the chair, thank you very much.

Look forward to working with you.

Thank you.

All right, colleagues, we now have line item 3.4.

Madam Clerk.

Call from the Whipfield Calwill resolution, number 3.4.

Motion to approve with discussion.

There's a motion to approve line item 3.4 with discussion.

Um we have director Julie Schneider.

Thank you for joining us this afternoon.

Um we have here a reappointment for Julie Snyder to serve as the housing and revitalization department direct, excuse me, housing and revitalization department director upon confirmation by City Council.

Uh this is pursuant to the city codes uh of ordinances under the existing executive organizational plan.

The mayor appoints the director of housing and revitalization department with approval of city council.

The director is the chief executive officer of the department.

The director appoints the deputy director of housing and revitalization with the mayor's consent.

It also further in indicates that the mission of the City of House Detroit's housing and revitalization department is to finance, underwrite, and manage housing and community investments that improve quality of life for Detroiters.

Working with partners, including the Detroit Housing Commission, HRD advances access to safe, decent and affordable housing.

The department uh leads the city's housing strategy and HUD funding to support long-term stability and growth across Detroit.

Director Snyder, uh, thank you for being here.

Uh please introduce yourself for the record, and you may begin with your opening remarks.

Good afternoon, and it's an honor to be here in front of this honorable body seeking reappointment to the position of director of the city of Detroit's housing and revitalization department.

I have been with the City of Detroit's housing revitalization department, or HRD, for 10 years, starting in 2015, which coincides when the department first started.

During that time, I've served as the the policy director for the department, establishing the city's first affordable housing strategy at that time, and leading implementation of that work over the course of the last 10 years.

I've held additional positions within the department, including deputy director of the department, and for the last five years, the director of the housing and revitalization department.

During my time as the director of HRD, the department has changed quite significantly.

It went from about 120 people when I took over as director of the department to about 330 today.

And our duties expanded greatly.

I look forward to working with uh the this honorable body as well as new departments and the employees of HRD who have um performed so well in the last few years and getting back to really our our core function and mission of the department.

forward to working with uh the this honorable body as well as new departments and the the employees of hrd who have um performed so well in the last few years and getting back to really our our core function and mission of the department um i firmly believe in the importance of housing affordability and stability is such a foundation for for people's lives um and having access and housing stability being able to maintain housing across the income spectrum uh across owners um for for renters housing of of all types is certainly something that is uh true to the mission of HRD and something I look forward to implementing um should I be uh have the honor of being confirmed thank you thank you colleagues any questions for director Schneider we're gonna start with member Santiago Romero thank you Mr.

Chair through you good afternoon good to see you uh briefly just want to share um you have an incredibly hard job and I am very grateful for the work that you've done and that you will continue to do for us um and really wondering in your discussions around what we can do to create housing that is affordable and accessible have we had any discussions around cooperatives um I do believe we have properties that could be turned into cooperatives um that could be tenant owned uh these structures are not new I'm sure you've known of them wondering are these being discussed at all as solutions or housing opportunities here in the city I ask because I'm trying to think of more creative ways to try to get um housing opportunities or properties into the hands of of tenants just wondering have we done this in the city before are there any discussions around this because other cities seem to do it pretty well through the chair to council member Santiago Romero.

So the City of Detroit has probably not had a new cooperative come online in in quite quite some time you'll see them most commonly in the the Lafayette Park Elmwood Park area within the city of Detroit as well as is on the riverfront.

I agree with you that more options new innovative or financing tools of the past that work successful then should come forward today and we should consider them we're currently working to facilitate in pre pre-development and planning work with six community land trusts different than a cooperative but but also a a shared act a shared ownership model and so I certain I do not believe there are cooperatives of the kind you're talking about currently in the the known pipeline but it's certainly something I'd be um willing to uh work with you to explore how that could be an option in Detroit and also working with lenders which is which is a key aspect and one of the one of the the reasons I believe that we haven't seen a whole uh lot of them new is challenges with um communicating that that opportunity and that stability to lenders through the chair agreed um thank you for being willing to have that conversation and yes land trusts um more public housing I I want to talk about it all and see what we can do my final question is the Office of Immigrant Affairs used to be under HRD will that no longer be the case moving forward I do not recall would you happen to know where that office would uh would be under would it be the under the Office of Human Human Services that's now being created would you happen to remember through the Council President's chair to Councilmember Santiago Romero under the EOP as proposed I believe it would move on as chief of staff Bowser mentioned earlier I believe it would move on to the the mayor's office.

Oh right okay thank you thank you Mr.

Chair thank you uh member mcampbell followed by member calloway followed by members jazz thank you mr chair and good afternoon director I just have two questions um how is HRD actively addressing barriers faced by residents who are uh traditionally excluded from housing opportunities because of credit history eviction history or prior legal system involvement and how is that success being measured through the the chair to council member mccampel currently that that work in supporting residents is housed within the Detroit housing housing services office and we are we when a resident calls in who is uh facing eviction we are working to make sure they are getting connected through the the housing services helpline to get them the services that that they need through right to counsel or that we can provide in doing any sort of engagement with landlords to help prevent evictions um you know an eviction on your on your record can really cause housing stability housing instability for an extended period of time and it's it's something that we want to uh want to help of help residents avoid as much as possible and that includes trying to prioritize making sure that residents who are receiving rental assistance have our are prioritized to make sure that they are uh if they are facing eviction that they don't go through an eviction because it can lead to multiple years of not being um able to access rental assistance again we've also provided money through the uh through the DHC and look forward to

to get them the services that that they need through right to council or that we can provide in doing any sort of engagement with landlords to help prevent evictions um you know an eviction on your on your record can really cause housing stability housing instability for an extended period of time and it's it's something that we want to uh want to help of help residents avoid as much as possible and that includes trying to prioritize making sure that residents who are receiving rental assistance have our are prioritized to make sure that they are uh if they are facing eviction that they don't go through an eviction because it can lead to multiple years of not being um able to access rental assistance again we've also provided money through the uh through the DHC and look forward to doing so again to help get residents who are behind on rent to help provide case management services to get them current with with their rent to avoid evictions with the DHC going forward as the those services go outside of the housing and revitalization department those relationships that that we currently have with those employees who are currently in HRD will undoubtedly be incredibly important as we work together to make sure that those services are are increased for residents so that they are able to prevent eviction and find safe stable and affordable housing thank you for that director and and um as much as we can to help uh those folks who may be facing those issues get the housing system stability that would be great and also want to echo on the sentiments of my uh colleague member Santiago Romero really I know housing is a big thing um and it takes all levels of government but as much as we can be creative and looking at other um functions and forms that would be great thank you so much thank you Mr.

Chair thank you uh member callaway thank you Mr.

Chair good afternoon um schneider just a couple questions I know you kind of I think you mentioned it but what is the um mission of HRD and is that published anywhere can I see it is it on your website because I've not seen it yes um through the chair to council member uh whitfield callaway the mission is is on our website it's just below the the picture of the mother with her her two children is right at the top of the the web page is to soundly and transparently invest funds and deliver services to ensure that Detroit's housing and neighborhoods are high quality accessible and attainable to and for all Detroiters we re-established that mission when the department expanded to provide more direct services so that mission is reflective of what the department has been providing for the last few years.

Thank you for that and I'll look again um what is your role in making sure that the houses that are being rented out are habitable I know BC plays a huge role in that does your department play a role in that um through the chair for to council member whitfield callway can you clarify what what houses are you just housing in general okay whatever housing you have um I don't want to say governance or any input in are you also responsible for making sure they are in a condition where people can live in them safely the housing that you're responsible for.

Okay thank you through the through the chair to councilmember Whitfield Callaway thank you for the clarification.

So as a part of investing fund once once the development is complete once it gets its certificate of of occupancy once it completes its its first lease up it moves into the asset management division within the housing and revitalization department and the asset management's department division's job is to make sure that we're meeting the requirements of our development and loan agreements that we have with developers so that is inclusive of the conditions that is also inclusive of making sure that you know we we want to see a development performing well financially and the reason we do is because when it doesn't conditions can become an issue so it's really looking at the whole picture of how we're we're making sure that our investments are providing safe stable affordable housing for people when we expanded the pilot ordinance late last late in 2024 one of the the requirements of being able to seek that seek that abatement seek that tax incentive and also maintain that incentive is obtaining and maintaining a CFC.

But it's critical that that that housing that's being created is providing safe and quality housing for residents.

So we're building that into our our policies for developments that are not necessarily within our our portfolio of investments, but are things that we touch.

And then lastly, I you had advocated for a funding to go to HRD to help improve single family rental housing.

And so that program is is operating now, and we by the end of this month we'll have 250 landlords that have gone through that program.

We've had 46 applications for the incentive portion of it, and we've already approved, we've approved 16 applications that'll affect 21.

That program has just started.

That program is similar to one we did in ARPA to try to improve rental housing by providing a resource for Detroiters who own a small portfolio of rental housing.

And when we make those investments, we also want to see some term of affordability.

So yes, it's it's a part, it's a core part of our work.

We have inspectors on staff, and we're also looking to bring on some additional assistance so we can get to those inspections more quickly.

And of course, we we work with BCE closely as well.

Yeah.

Thank you for that.

Through the chair.

Um are you talking about the lead program, the remediation or removal of lead and the that's what you're talking about?

$3.00 okay.

Okay, through and through the thank you for that.

Um, and I know that program has been been very successful.

Um my last question is you mentioned the co-ops downtown.

Are you aware that there are co-ops in District 2?

Um, 8 Mile and Schaefer is Blackstone Co-op, and then there's a co-op on Myers between six and seven mile roll.

At least it says co-op in front of the building on its property.

Are you aware of those?

Through the chair, now that yes, I I do know which ones you're talking about.

Okay, I have a question.

There's also there's also a couple others that I I can think of now.

Okay, and those are magnificent properties.

Um the tenants are very much involved in what happens in their building.

They also have a say so in terms of who moves in those buildings, um, and they can't sublease, so they have a really they have strict bylaws off.

We're at their bylaws, and they're really strict.

But my question is, um, those are working over there, they're very successful, those properties have been well maintained over the years.

Have we ever thought about um having a role in establishing co-ops in the future?

Because we have 14 buildings in the park in the historic Palmer Park district that I've mentioned to you before, and I was on a um call today with the receiver, so a lot of those buildings are in receivership now.

Um they were bought, they were um purchased by someone in Arizona, sight on scene in 2021, um, and that they have been falling apart ever since.

So now they're in receivership.

What can the city do to maybe um work?

I don't know, I I don't know what the city can do, but I'm just gonna ask you to help some of those buildings out and put people in those buildings.

Those buildings are historic, they're beautiful structures.

There were originally 54, uh 54 built, um, and a lot of them are just in total disrepair and just need a little TLC.

What can the city do to help that area over there that is uh historically through the chair to council member Whitfield Calloway?

One of the things that I'm really looking forward to being able to do is focus more on on housing with the expansion of the department.

You can imagine that my focus is you know has to be on on other things, especially at at this time of the year when we have cold weather emergencies.

So one of the things that I'm really looking forward to doing is being able to focus more on housing.

And we have within HRD a division called the public private partnerships team.

And what the uh known as P3, what they do is really provide kind of pre-development concierge services, you could call them to help to help interested developers get through our various processes, making sure they're connecting with the right people within City Hall to get through the processes that we have.

Uh with our expanded focus and more clear focus on housing.

I believe that we can support a greater number of developments coming in that that are looking to do work in the city of Detroit, whereas traditionally our focus has only been on providing assistance, that type of assistance to people doing affordable housing development on on city-owned land.

So a narrow uh significant but a more narrow subset.

So I have seen what's going on in in Palmer Park with those apartment buildings.

It is a huge challenge, but it's also a huge opportunity to see that those buildings get renovated and occupied.

So I what director Bush and I have talked about is working really closely together because they are historic, and it will need both of us and both of our departments coordinating on that.

But we have had success in major major development projects that are over multiple buildings in multiple years.

And I am absolutely committed to to being involved in working through a plan for that.

It will take time.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Member Johnson.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Good afternoon.

So I too believe the responsibility of the director of the housing and revitalization department is huge.

I think it is a significant role in this city.

We've seen the housing challenges that we have throughout the city of Detroit.

I have always been a person who's advocated to make sure that the tools that we have as a city are being utilized for the housing that we need, not necessarily what any developer is interested in developing when they come before us.

Can you talk about how what you see as the greatest need for this department, considering that the human homeless and family services department has been created to shift some of HRD's responsibilities through the chair to council member Johnson?

It's it's a great question because we're thinking about things going forward.

We have to think about things going forward differently for a whole number of reasons.

The opportunity to be able to be more focused on housing, but of course, with housing is as your colleagues have mentioned here today, that we have to be thinking about innovative practices.

I think we all know that the housing challenges are not just in Detroit, but they're they're everywhere, and that requires us to think differently.

So one of the things that I I believe the housing and revitalization department needs to play a role in that's different than where it has played before is in the development of of less dense housing that can be single family, it can be multi-unit, single family, it could be missing middle housing.

But what we've seen in the last 10 years or so is we've seen uh about 13,000 new housing units that have come online within the city of Detroit.

About um 80, 87, 89 percent of them are in multifamily structures.

Meanwhile, while that's been taking place, 16,000 land bank homes have either been purchased and renovated or are in the process.

That inventory doesn't exist in the way it has existed before.

But while rent pressures have increased in the city of Detroit and housing pressures have increased in the city of Detroit without that supply of that those nearly um 20, 28, 29,000 units that weren't there before, those pressures would have been more substantial.

So where HRD needs to play a role and can play a role is in developing the pipeline for for infill housing.

Um that infill housing can look again like it can be single family, it can be smaller, multifamily that's more suit, more suited to our neighborhoods and helping to revitalize our commercial corridors as well.

Um but I think that is really an important role to play, and we we we do that by helping to restart the engine of infill housing in Detroit.

It's been decades since we've really seen that type of work happen, happen at scale.

So that means we are working with our colleagues in PDD, we're working with our colleagues in BC, we're working with our colleagues in the DLBA.

We're also reaching out to people we know want to do this type of work in the city of Detroit and identifying how we can uh adapt to that this expanding group of work.

So that means developers, that means residents, because we want to make sure that we're developing things that is accepted and wanted within community as well.

So that's where I really see us being able to expand in the work that we're doing.

I'm I'm just curious um to know if that is new direction coming from the new mayor, because I know in PED uh last term there was always a question about what we were developing, how many bedrooms, the sizes of the units to be able to accommodate families.

Is this new?

Are the thoughts new because of the change in the administration?

The the challenge has not changed just that quickly.

So the um Madam Mayor Sheffield has certainly stated within her her campaign in the the first days of her administration a desire to to see that work uh become a focus of of the department.

In last year, though, um we did begin uh we we received a uh grant from HUD that was focused on starting this work.

So it's called the Pro Housing Grant, it's a grant that we worked on with CPC, it included a number of a number of uh suggested uses and some of them are around creating trying to reduce barriers to infill housing.

So if you look back at the last few decades in the city of Detroit, you don't see you haven't seen this type of housing really being built at scale.

So with the decrease in the availability of land bank homes, the it we we are going to have to build those types of homes that you're talking about.

So while it is certainly a focus of this administration, the work did we were we were working collaboratively together starting last year as well.

So I'm really interested in this line of thinking now because I know previously it's been indicated that it costs about 400,000 dollars to develop a single family house.

Of course, that is much greater than Detroit families can afford.

Um so I'm we'll be interested to you know lean into the conversation.

I have another question for you.

Um what I've observed over the last four years is the city's view of nonprofit developers and for-profit developers be completely different, and I think we've supported some and not others because of our view of the two entities.

Um I think the only difference is where they get they their funding from, but I've not seen a lot of support for nonprofit developers in the city.

Can you and and let me put a caveat there because I know I see nonprofit housing development organizations get access to dollars to disseminate into the community to do different programs.

I mean dollars to develop housing.

Um can you just share your thoughts on just that in general?

Most projects that came before us were for-profit developers, that we were providing ARBIT funds, CDBG, what have you.

I very rarely saw a nonprofit developer uh receive equal support to be able to develop housing, noting that in order for the housing to be attainable to Detroit families, they have to fundraise and get support to bring the cost down or to have that cost be subsidized.

So can you just talk about that in your position, your thoughts around how we can support both, recognizing that there is just a vast variety of need in relation to housing through the council president's chair to council member Johnson?

Uh I think well said that there is a broad range of of need for for us to support all of this work.

So I think that my strategy is or my approach is that we need housing for households of all incomes, we need housing that is for potential homeowners, we need housing for for renters, we need it in every corner throughout the city of Detroit and for it to be structured or sized based on what's appropriate for that neighborhood.

I know that the events that I've gone to where they are community-led efforts are just a different environment.

They're they're they're different.

You can feel the the pride that people have in their community, and that's something we certainly want to support.

The capacity of of nonprofit developers of CDOs, it it varies from people who have are have done a couple hundred units to people who have done three and are looking to do more.

And how we think about supporting those different types of developers compared to a for-profit entity matters.

Like for example, we invested in uh a project in Osborne that was three units, three units, six units and and three buildings, three duplexes.

Our investment per unit on that was higher than it might normally be.

Why was it higher?

It was higher because we needed to look at that project from a different perspective.

We needed to look at that project as a neighborhood investment strategy and approach that had the benefit of producing affordable housing for for those for that that community.

It's on that on the park there that was created off of some DLBA vacant home land vacant lands, and now we want to support that that CDO and doing more work in that area.

But I use that as an example of we need to continue to think about how we support community community-driven development, especially that by CDOs, in a way that is providing whatever technical assistance is needed, making sure that they're able to success successfully compete in our pipeline.

We did put a reservation or kind of set aside in the disaster recovery grant for more community scale development as well.

I don't um it's not like I said, that when I when I go to events, when we're working with developers that are in the community, the the investment in the the pride is different, and we certainly want to support that and and we'll continue to do so.

We recently launched the the community land trust work that you supported.

We're expecting to bring over uh about a million dollars worth of the first awards with six organizations who are doing that community-based work, supporting them in free development services.

So it's certainly my commitment to to expand our work in that in that area.

I'm happy to work with you on what some of those barriers that you see are in order to make sure that that the resources are being distributed in an equitable way.

What we've seen is about uh quarter of the 200 million dollars have gone to C that we've invested in the last 10 years have gone to CDOs.

Um about uh 61 percent have gone to nonprofits, but but some of the entities are nonprofit housing development agencies, they're not the smaller agencies.

The CDOs are more of the um the the smaller entities that and so about quarter of the 200 million has gone to them.

But I certainly like I said, I am happy to work with you and your office on identifying more of those barriers so that they are more able to participate in our programs, especially as we're expanding our focus.

Thank you for that.

Um and duly noted that there are barriers.

I think the support of the city can help them overcome those barriers.

I think the philanthropic community has been raising their hand, wanting to work with more nonprofit community development organizations, whether to form a CLT or just to be a Cho CDO, whatever it is.

Um, but I I just want to make sure that as a city we recognize them for the work that they do and their intentionality around reducing the cost of housing for our residents that need it the most.

So thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any additional questions for Director Schneider?

Seeing none, there's been a motion for approval for line item 3.4.

Any objections?

Objection.

Uh member Callaway.

Objection, Member Johnson.

All right.

That passes.

Um six to um two.

All right, thank you so much.

Uh that motion for approval for line item 3.4 is approved.

All right.

We shall now go into line item 3.5.

Madam Clerk.

Councilman, as with the as we feel called, it was lotion number 3.5.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Motion to approve with discussion.

As a motion to approve line item 3.5 with discussion.

Uh Chief Edison, if you please join us at the table.

This is a reappointment of Chief, excuse me, Todd Bettison to serve as chief of police upon confirmation by city council.

Section 7.

Excuse me, 7-805 of the city charter establishes that the chief of police serves as the pleasure of the mayor.

The chief of police shall be skilled and experienced in police administration or law enforcement.

And as the head of excuse me, as the head official in charge of the department, the chief of police shall be responsible for its day-to-day operation.

The chief of police again serves as the uh chief executive officer of the police department and administers department, the department in accordance with policies and rules established by the board of police commissioners.

The chief organizes the department with board approval, uh, recommends rules and procedures, proceed prepares the annual budget and oversees personnel uh actions, including hiring, promotion, evaluation, discipline, and discharge as authorized by law.

The chief maintains control of the departmental property and records, submits an annual uh operations report, and represents a yearly operations improvement plan as a public record.

The chief attends the board um board of police commissioners meetings, uh participates in discussions without voting rights, and may appoint deputy chiefs with board uh consent.

Uh for the record, the city's uh Detroit Board of Police Commissioners unanimously uh passed the motion to support the reappointment of Chief of Police Todd A.

Bettison at its meeting on Thursday, January 15th, 2026.

Want to thank you again, Chief, for joining us today.

Uh, if you can please introduce yourself for the record, and the floor is yours for opening remarks.

Um thank you, Council President Tate and to the board, thank you for um considering my reappointment.

My name is Todd Bettison, Chief of Police, and definitely seeking reappointment and approval of the board.

I am a 31-year member.

Um, I should say of City of Detroit employee.

Um my first round I did 27 years with the Detroit Police Department, and then I was asked to be the deputy mayor and appointed to deputy mayor by um former mayor Mike Duggan, had an opportunity to do approximately two and a half years as the deputy mayor.

Um while deputy mayor, um it was a great experience.

Also, um Homeland Security, the fire department, D Dot, um, health department, planning department, and various other departments of um community violence intervention reported to me.

Um were direct reports of mine.

Learned a whole lot.

One of my proudest moments of being deputy mayor was having the opportunity to be the architect of community violence intervention, working with you all as well to actually get that up and going.

And it's been very, very fruitful as far as um contributing to overall crime reductions in the city of Detroit and being able to learn some new skill sets by um working, going to Lansing, et cetera, um, advocating for a public safety trust and didn't quite get it done when I was deputy mayor, but when I was appointed as interim chief of police following James White's retirement, and I must say that he did a phenomenal job when I came in as the interim chief back in um 2024 in 24 of um October, um I inherited a well-functioning police department.

Um things were going in the right direction, crime was going down, and actually Chief Whitehead closed out the year with a historic low reduction in crime, and um, you know, when you inherit something that's going well, you know, being able to continue it in that direction, and my motto is continuous improvement.

And so during 2025, just closing out the year, um, invited you and thank you so much, Council President Tate for standing with me.

Councilman McCampbell, you were there as well, and I know other council members would have been there.

You were there in spirit, but we stood there with the collaboration of community members, clergy, um, state, county, and also federal partners because we don't do it alone, and we were able to um close out 2025 with crime drops in all categories, and so our homicide rate had dropped 18.7 percent, and we finally cracked the code of being able to come in at lower than 200.

The previous year was 203.

Um this past year, it was 165.

Um sexual assaults were down, um, aggravated assaults down, robberies were down 21 percent, our total violent crime was down 10.2 percent, but not just violent crime, property crime as well, because that's important to Detroiters.

You think about motor vehicle theft, uh, everybody has a car.

The worst feeling in the world is actually to come back to where you park your car and to see it gone.

So we had 2,000 fewer motor vehicle thefts in the city of Detroit last year, and I will tell you that hopefully it has an impact on our car insurance, you know.

Um, but our officers are just doing amazing work, and you all, city council has played a tremendous role in supporting me as chief when it came to supporting police officer raises, when it came to supporting technology, when it came to just um supporting and being there for us as well.

And I will say that in the category of non-fatal shootings, we were down 25 percent, just putting whole numbers on it.

What does that mean?

In 24, we had 603 persons who were fate who were shot who survived in 25, we had 447.

But one of the biggest categories of reduction was carjackings, and in 24 we had 142, and in um 25 we ended with 77.

So the goal, of course, being police chief is to continue that, continue with um community outreach and engagement, just um always engaging.

I want to go down as one of the most transparent police chiefs ever as well.

And I can tell you, you would say, well, Chief Bettison, well, how are we doing today?

And so I know we're only one month in, but um in carjackings compared to last year at this time, and the numbers really fluctuate, and you know, it's only one month in thus far.

But I can tell you that we're down 40 percent in carjackings as of right now.

Um down 25 percent as of right now in non-fatal shootings, down nine percent in homicides.

And so we're still trending in the right direction.

Um, and I humbly seek your support to continue and being the police chief in the city of Detroit.

And at this point, I'll take any questions that you all may have.

Thank you so much.

I want to just say that I have had the the pleasure of uh working with you in you know, various capacities in your uh career uh with the police department as well as the uh deputy mayor, and now of course, as the police chief, and I believe that you are uh certainly connected to the community.

I think that is critically important.

Uh and the work that you do uh is definitely calls for that connectivity with the community, and uh I think that's at the core of who you are.

So I appreciate the way that you approach um your professionalism and the way that you make sure you prioritize uh the quality of life for our residents.

Uh again, speaking not just about the the violent crime, but also property crime, understanding that that also is um an impediment to um the city of Detroit growth and the again a stated quality of life.

I do want to uh ask a question because I know it it's come up before, uh certainly during public comment, want to give you an opportunity to chime in on it.

I believe that there was a mandate, uh certainly a declaration that the city's police department would not assist in uh evictions, um observe, but not assist in evictions.

Um there's been allegations that have come before this body indicating that the Detroit Police Department uh has assisted in evictions uh recently.

Uh what do you have to uh say to that uh those individuals making those allegations, sir?

The Detroit Police Department does not assist in evictions.

We don't do evictions.

Oftentimes we're called by community members via 911 to the site of an eviction, and we're called sometimes to get involved in that eviction where if someone trying to get us to either stop an eviction, what they feel is an illegal eviction, or it's a landlord that's calling for assistance.

That's not our role.

That is the role of the county of Wayne County, the bailiff.

Um so when we're called, if you see a Detroit police officer at the site of an eviction, we're there to keep the peace.

We're there strictly to maintain order, ensure that there's no violence.

And any allegations that we're involved, we're more than happy to investigate, but I can tell you that we do not do evictions.

Okay.

And I know one of the other um policy items was that we do not enforce um immigration laws.

Uh we do cooperate with the federal government, um, but but the immigration aspect of that enforcement does not go through the Detroit Police Department from my my understanding.

Is that still correct?

That is correct.

It's within our policies.

Um that our job is to focus on local and um city ordinances.

That's that's what we do.

Um the extent of our cooperation with um uh entity such as um ICE, et cetera, would be when it comes to our Detroit detention center, they would have to issue um a detainer request that has been signed off by a judge, a judicial detainer request.

And at that point, we would honor that only after we have um adjudicated the individual that we locked them up for.

So it has to go through our process.

And we also will not hold the individual any longer, even if a detainer is issued longer than our mandate of 72 hours.

So um I'm focused on local and state law, and that is our lane, and we have ensured that um even though we have hired and continue to hire new officers, we push out training, we are pushing it out via administrative messages, and we're constantly um reminding our officers that that is not our lane, nor our focus, and if an officer does violate our policy, then we will strictly I will hold them accountable for that.

Thank you for that.

And I know while it may not be the lane of enforcement, and uh wholeheartedly uh appreciate the way that you approach uh that that aspect.

There have been situations where some officers have, I believe, not uh operated within the spirit of that.

I mean, there was one situation where there was a domestic violence uh situation between um uh someone who may have been undocumented and uh they were federal agents were called uh as translators, uh which I think was extremely inappropriate.

Uh while it may not have been enforcement, it still engaged and brought about a, in my opinion, uh unjustified um uh reaction and and an outcome for that individual who was the victim who was the victim.

What is being what what has been done or said, uh what uh action uh policy has been put in place to ensure that uh activities of that nature, uh while it may not be enforcement, it still does um potentially erode the relationship between the community and our local police department, but also I don't think it's the spirit of what uh you have really embodied um in your policing up to this point.

If you can talk to us a bit about that, please.

Absolutely, thank you, Council President.

Um I have roughly 3,500 employees, and occasionally somebody's going to violate policy, and with that, ensuring that they are all on the same page.

We have what we call an administrative message that everybody's required to read that goes out where I will reflash policy.

Um if we see as of an area of concern as a reminder, and then also the supervisors read that at the roll call and this additional training that all of my officers have to go through as well.

So that's how we're getting the communication out there.

It's even legal training that they have to go through what's called our 40-hour block on an annual basis.

Um but when individuals do violate that policy, and in this particular case, um the policy was violated where they called in someone to do interpretation, that's not supposed to happen because we have our own interpreters within the department, and then we also have aspects of where if it was a 911 call, et cetera, through communications and dispatch, we have the language line interpreter.

So we can get that assistance.

And so when that member violated that policy, we did hold them accountable, and the individual did receive discipline.

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions, comments, uh concerns.

I'll start with Member Santiago Romero, then we'll go to member McCampbell.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, through you.

Good afternoon.

Similar to the questions that have been asked by our president, yes, to that concern.

Also, we have forwarded other enforcement issues and not following our ordinances.

I guess how often do we train our officers on these ordinances?

One example that I have is the clinical protection ordinance.

A few times now we've gotten emails from clinics letting us know that officers do not know that they have to make the buffer space between people that are going to their appointments at our at our local clinics.

So just wondering how often do we train our officers on our local policies that they have to enforce.

Our officers or our local policies, um, they they have to go through annual training, and then when issues like that are brought up where it has been a violation of the policy, at that point, we will through the administrative message process push that out so that they're getting an enroll call, and then they also get what's called like monthly training as well, where it's um four hours out of the day at the local precincts where they're out responding, where um the various topics they receive um monthly training via their roll call, and they're actually we train so if it's at a precinct, for example, the first half of the shift will get it when the other officers are working the street, and then the other half of the ship will get the other four hours because typically they own an eight-hour shift.

Okay, through the chair understood.

I I'm assuming you keep track of when you send out these messages and what it is that you're sending out, and I asked because I don't want to make more work for you and ask that you send us when that happens, but when I get the messages that our our police are not enforcing, then I need to verify whether or not we actually are doing these trainings because I ask these questions often and I get the same thing, and now I'm just wondering, okay, then when was the last time that we did this training?

So if we were to ask you that question, would you be able to tell us a month ago we sent out a uh a notice with this uh training to to refresh our officers?

Absolutely.

Okay, thank you.

Um just really want to share um because we are working closely regarding the issue of ICE here in the city.

Um, and I really need to be honest about the fact that um I do believe that we have policies in place that are good, those need to be enforced, and I believe we have a lot more to go.

The meetings that I have with the immigration task force or folks that are of the immigrant communities have consistently asked that we enforce our policies that we have.

So just want to be able to continue to work with you on that.

Um, but then I just also want to be honest about the fact that we need to really dig um beyond just what we're doing well and reinforcing what we do and ask questions.

Um, because when we do, I think that we begin to understand more what's going on.

Earlier, member Pro Tam Young asked if the city is notified when ICE is in the city, if if we're given a heads up.

I do not believe that we do, and quite frankly, the concerns that we're hearing from residents right now, and these are whether or not you're indocumenting it or not, is that DPD is working with ICE, that we are doing federal um ICE enforcements, and I can we continuously ask you whether or not you do, and you say no.

Heard in reality, when I'm hearing from residents what's going on on the grounds, and they tell me we have new Dodge vehicles consistently coming into, and those aren't DPD vehicles, I understand that.

So then I asked CPD, is this your vehicle?

They run the plates, they say no.

The plates go to nowhere.

And then when the public is asking these agents what you're doing here, they're saying that they're DPD.

So that's the problem is that we might be doing what we're supposed to be doing, and we might be falling short on our own enforcement.

But I actually feel like we are gaslighting residents when we say it's not that bad here.

We're not Chicago, we're not Minneapolis, but people are still being deported.

The ICE um enforcement that happened at the Amazon facility, one of the residents was from Southwest Detroit.

And the ICE arrests that are happening here in Detroit, the majority of them are having they are arresting non-criminals, they have no criminal records.

So quite frankly, I just feel like we are brushing this under the rug.

We are maybe waiting for things to get violent, which is I think unacceptable.

But to the question of how prepared we are, what we know, how bad is ice here.

I actually don't believe that we have friendly ICE officers.

I know that in Detroit we have always had ICE here, and we have always had a working relationship.

But under this new administration, we have new agents coming into the city.

I'm hearing reports from residents on the ground that they are seeing new vehicles.

They are seeing hundreds of vehicles, and this is information that we need to verify in the neighborhood with vehicles that are not DPD vehicles with license plates that go to nowhere, and this is the fear that people are talking about.

So I share this to say that I am listening to my residents and what they're hearing and what they're hearing and what they're saying.

Um that I need us to be curious when they say these things and not brush it off.

Um and to really work closely together and to take this with more urgency.

Um because here it's again, it's quiet, it's fast, it's not how we see in other places, but almost every single day.

Families are being separated, people are fearful.

Um, and I really do believe that we need to be doing more.

Uh so thank you for your partnership.

This is a challenge for us to do better.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Good evening, chief.

Uh I do want to echo those comments on especially the behavior of ICE agents in the city.

I'm also hearing about the impersonation of DPD as well.

Um, so I definitely want to lift that up.

I also when we're thinking about, I appreciate the work that has gone on CVI and such, and really getting down to the community level and and um decrease in violence in our neighborhoods.

If you can just go on to, and it's been said before, I know we cannot erase, I mean, arrest our way to public safety.

Um, just thinking about moving forward uh in the next four years or next year and such, what is your view on how do we actually uh uh attack the quality of life issues and the what is mental health, poverty and such that we know goes into public safety.

Um through the chair, thank you for that question about continuous improvement.

And when I look at the continuous improvement aspect of it, and I definitely appreciate you coming out and and advocating for um mental health and co-response, Councilmember McCampbell.

Um, one of the things that I share with you that I'm going to do to ensure that our residents um get better service in that aspect because we know that now it just seems like it's just a mental health crisis that's um occurring and going on, and then also um what you don't hear a lot about is substance use disorder and just the number of um whether it's Detroiters, Metro Detroiters, et cetera, who actually perish from um suicide and also overdoses, and so those are areas that I'm really focused on as well.

But with our mental health co-response, um currently it's not 24-7.

And so within short order, um, within the next 60 days, I would say I'm gonna actually expand it so that it is 24-7 and that it does cover our midnight shift.

Folks will say, well, why didn't you start it out immediately being 24-7?

Well, with behavioral health specialists always ensure that we got the right folks at the table to have a conversation.

That's something that they typically don't do, you know.

We being a social shoe worker and behavioral help therapist typically work like a nine to five, but um we have and through council funding the efforts, we have hired additional behavioral specialists, and I'm going to reallocate some officers, the right ones that are trained in the CIT, so that we can stand that up, and that will not only support our residents in the city of Detroit so that we don't have a person in crisis actually get the wrong response, but it supports our police officers that are working Platoon 1 as well, so that when they call, they can call a unit that responds with two police officers and a behavioral health therapist.

My goal is to continuously um address quality of life, because oftentimes Detroiters don't move out of the city of Detroit because of necessarily a violent crime, but the quality of life aspect of it as well.

And so one of the things that we will continue to do and focus on is problematic locations in the city of Detroit.

It could be a house on the block.

And regardless of what's going on, it could be that one individual location in Detroit's know that brings down the overall quality of life of that block.

And so our neighborhood police officers know who they are, and not coming just from an enforcement standpoint, but how can we help standpoint?

And if an enforcement has to be necessary, then of course we'll do that as well.

But what can we do to change the overall conditions utilizing all of our city departments to address that problematic location?

And of course, continuing on with um blight enforcement as well.

So just the holistic wraparound approach, and I'm sure that we're gonna get there, and I'm in complete alignment with the mayor when it comes to really really focusing on the neighborhoods and this council as well, so much so that each council member looking forward to meeting with you, and I met with you all pretty much, and each district has neighborhoods within that district, but what your focuses are as well.

And I know each of you have your own individual focuses because every neighborhood is not the same, but knowing that the Detroit police department will ensure that we work with you so that we're delivering the qual the type of service that you want for your constituents in your neighborhood and addressing their top issues, qualities and concerns.

Thank you, Chief.

And um another thing, and I appreciate the answers that you have provided to my office.

You probably realize that surveillance and data is a concern for me.

Um and understanding how technology can help and a lot of the things that we do as a city government, but also the need to balance, you know, um folks' rights and privacy and that way.

So just wanted to talk about if you can just talk about how do you and the leadership at DPD balance the seeing new technology um but also not getting us into a uh a surveillance state.

Barry Barry, that's an excellent question.

Um, and when you're seeking to get new technology and the technology that we have acquired over the years, um has shown that it's having an impact.

But with the balanced approach, it's not the silver bullet.

I would not say that that's the only thing.

And so when you look at when we um got Project Greenlight, we started with eight gas stations and now we're up to over a thousand.

And we've added various components within our real-time crime center, and so it can feel like well, you know, it's a state of surveillance, but with our our COX ordinance and being transparent and how we're gonna use it and putting in the strictest policies and holding our individual members accountable if they violate that policy.

That's and then also through our board of police commissioners, which is that oversight, providing them a report as to how it's being utilized.

I believe that that right there is the balance and that is the key.

And initially, um, I'll be honest, with going through the COX process, and then also when um now Madam Mayor, when she was um president, um Cheffield of City Council, and when the you the ACLU was invited in to actually help strengthen our policy around how we utilize facial recognition and other things.

I would say that we probably have the most stringent policies out of any department around.

Going so much so that if you were to talk to Sandra Ustall of procurement, what she was saying, and then our law department when it comes to our contracts, our contracts have stipulations in there where the City of Detroit police department, we other entities, third party, they can't share our data without our inform without our explicit sign-off on it, and we have not signed off on that.

And so continuing in that vein, I think that that's how we can be transparent and we can get the technology, we can continue to solve client crime in close cases, but we'll be accountable to our community and not get into a state where it's over surveillance.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

And that's also not just from the city standpoint as a very, but also particularly the private surveillance state, uh, private surveillance state as well, because the laws are what you're talking about.

I just want to say you are absolutely right about that.

And also the banning of predictive policing, and other such technologies that you can use through artificial intelligence.

Um, before I wrap this up, I just wanted to take a personal privilege just to say I appreciate all the work that you've done.

You know, I remember I'm I'm I'm not that um young enough to remember, I'm pretty old to remember the time when there was over 400 murders that were going on in the city of Detroit, and people were justifying all kinds of things they want to do to the city of Detroit because of that.

And I remember, you know, especially uh right leading up to the bankruptcy because I was there through that whole process.

You know, that's probably part of the reason why I don't have any hair anymore.

And you know, I remember you know, people just harping on the fact that Detroit was just not a safe place to be.

And so for us to see where we are now, we have gone through a whole turn, and that is no short part because the leadership that you and your officers are shown and exemplified the professionalism in which they have exemplified, and even though the biggest room in the world is a room for improvement, and we could all make improvement.

I think that the professionalism that your officers have shown to the citizens is something that needs to be um not only praised, but also something that needs to be modeled across the country because there's a lot of things that could have happened in the city of Detroit that did not happen because of your leadership and because of your compassion and because you're willing to de-escalate and the professionalism of your officers, and so that is in no short part to you.

So I just want to say thank you for your leadership and everything that you have done.

With that being said, Mr.

Chair, uh Chair recognizes Member Johnson, thank you, Member Waters is late.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I just wanted to uh take a moment to say thank you to you, Chief, for um always being accessible, at least to me, um, and probably to a whole bunch of other folks, I'm sure.

Um we have been working very closely on the travel in situation, and because of your intentional focus on making sure that there are improvements in that community.

Um, I'm glad to know that the number of calls to the police department have decreased drastically.

Um, that the officers who have been there undercover have not witnessed anything, um, any illegal activity taking place at the building.

Um, and just wanted to just say thank you for that because I know the community was a bit up in arms about the entire facility.

Um you and your team have been able to calm their concerns.

Uh, and so now we're looking forward to how we make sure that this building is a a stellar building in the district.

Uh, I think it's in the great, uh really great location.

I think they can really benefit from um just doing some improvements and and you know they could attract a lot of people to the building.

So just wanted to say thank you to you for that.

And I know we've already communicated via text about the um the resident who came down from district four on Tuesday.

So look forward to connecting with you on that and hearing what transpired and how we can help just make sure we improve processes within the department within the city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Chair recognized Beverly Caller.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and um good afternoon.

Um, Chief Bettison, I totally support your reappointment.

Um, I just want to thank you for um being so supportive of our human trafficking ordinance.

Thank you for showing up at the press conference and um making sure that we had a 313 number along with the one eight eight number.

And that makes a difference because it goes, I think to the real crime center when they call that 313 number.

Somebody is there on the other side uh of the phone.

They're not getting a recording um as they get when they call the 1-800 number.

So thank you for that.

And um, I want you to know that I'll be out with um attorney uh Jade Mathis tomorrow installing um more um human trafficking signs, and you know that we installed one at the Crystal House on um Eight Mile and Greenfield, so we'll be out tomorrow installing um some more signs, and I wanted to let um uh member Johnson know that we'll be meeting with the um owner of the travelers in because he owns about five motels in the city, and they're all problematic.

And so we'll be with him tomorrow.

I hope he'll be there tomorrow, but we will be making sure that he gets at least five of the placards and we've had them framed.

So they look really nice in the lobby of all the hotels and motels.

But thank you so much for your full support.

Um, and again, I fully support your reappointment, sir.

And thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Mr.

Chair.

Yep, Chair recognizes uh member Romero.

Thank you.

I'll be really brief.

Uh go ahead.

Chief, regarding truck routes and an enforcement units.

Have you discussed this?

Will this be coming down the pipeline this year?

Yes, we will.

Perfect.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Any other questions?

Comments and concerns.

All right.

Uh motions been made to move line item 3.5.

Reappointing Ty Bedison to serve as chief of police upon confirmation by city council.

Are there any objections?

Hearing none, line on 3.5 passes.

Thank you so much, sir.

We appreciate you.

Mr.

Mr.

Pro Tim.

Pro Tim Young.

Is it appropriate to add a waiver on that?

If so, waiver.

Is that appropriate?

Okay.

Okay, waivers been.

Much more waivers been made on any objections?

Hearing none, waiver is approved.

Congratulations, sir.

Thank you.

All right.

We will now move on to line item 3.6.

Reappointing Charles Sims to the fire commissioner upon confirmation by City Council.

Member Member Callaway, is there a motion?

Councilmember Collarwell resolution.

Yeah, thank you.

Um motion to approve with discussion, sir.

Motion approve discussion.

Are any objections?

Hearing none, we will now go into motion to approve with discussion.

Um first, before we begin though, Chair recognizes um the fire commissioner Sims.

Anything you want to say?

Go ahead now, the time.

Yes, yes.

Uh good afternoon.

Uh Pro Tim Young and to the honor this honorable body.

Um first of all, I want to say thank you for your support that um you've given the Detroit Fire Department over uh the years, and I want to thank you in advance for your continued support.

Um just a little bit about me, born and raised in the city of Detroit, graduate of uh Persian High School as well as Wayne State University.

I um started on the department when I was 19 years old.

I'm proud to say it's been 40 years, and I'm a I've been a public servant for 40 years.

Proud to say that um I started on department as a firefighter, worked my way up through the ranks, then went to fire investigation, became chief of fire investigation.

In 2016, I was appointed to second deputy commissioner, and then in 2022, I was appointed by the previous mayor to um executive fire commissioner.

And then thankfully and and and gratefully and humbly I was appointed by uh Madam Mayor, um, and I'm looking seeking for your confirmation for that reappointment.

I just want to really start off by some of the accomplishments of the Detroit Fire Department.

Um, just amazing me and the women on the Detroit Fire Department.

Uh, they've rose to the occasion every single incident we've had.

Um I'm proud to say that we have the lowest response time to CO1 medical cause in the in the history of the department, and it's probably across the country.

I have not found another fire department with a lower response time.

Um it's right around seven minutes and thirty seconds.

That's the time you call 911 to a medical um to medical personnel shows up on the scene.

Another big uh accomplishment was we're the largest heart-safe city in the United States.

What does that mean?

That means that we were able to satisfy 13 requirements to prove that we are ready for cardiac arrest that happens in our city.

We've cross-trained over 450 members, so um now our members are medically and firefighting uh trained.

What that means is that when you get a fire truck that comes to your house, that person, those people will be medically trained and they can provide medical care.

We have over 800 firefighters that are EMTs and over 150 firefighters that are paramedics.

What we notice is that there's a shortage throughout the state and throughout the country for paramedics.

So we decided to invest in our own personnel.

We just had our first paramedic class in the history of the department where we we were able to graduate 23 paramedics, and what that's what that's gonna do is really uh secure those paramedic roles that we need, and we won't have to compete with other cities throughout the state.

We've increased our health and wellness resources for all our members.

Um we have now biannual cancer and biometric screening.

Um I don't know if you guys have heard, but we've lost a couple members lately, one due to cancer, so we're really sensitive about making sure that our members get tested.

We are the first um uh fire department for the House Alert Safety Cloud.

What that is is a software package that goes into the fire trucks and the ambulances, and when their license sirens are activated, it alerts uh people in their vehicles who but they must have a Volkswagen Stallantis, Google maps or or Apple maps to get that alert.

And the goal is is to become not only nationally recognized but internationally recognized.

Um People Magazine just did an article on the Detroit Fire Department in October stating that we are now on the stage with the best fire departments in the country, and that is our goal.

Our um citizens deserve the best, and we're here to make sure that they receive the best.

Some future initiatives that we have, we're gonna uh reinvent our apprenticeship program, which is a pathway from high school into the fire department.

And uh we had that a few years back.

Cody was the first high school, COVID came and it was kind of um shut down then, but we're gonna reinvent that starting in the fall.

And our nurse navigation, I just want to thank uh council member Santiago Romero for for really being at the start of this.

We're gonna try to implement that by uh by July of this year.

What that is is a program where all our low acuity calls, our code three medical calls will be transferred to a nurse, and that nurse could possibly help this person out without using our resources.

Right now we respond to COVID 3 medical calls with our ambulances, and um most of them really are not emergencies that require those resources.

So this is a uh opportunity to free up those resources for the high acute acuity costs.

And a big thing is I think it's time for us to invest in new fire stations.

Um we have the a deployment footprint from a hundred years ago, meaning we we've created a new deployment footprint that would cover more area that would give us faster response times.

Um that means building new stations.

And our stations are really, really old, and and they just I think we need it's time to invest in new stations.

Saying that, I'm ready for any questions.

Anybody have any questions?

All right, uh first we will go with uh member uh Santiago Romero and then we will go with Member McCampbell.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, good afternoon.

Uh, thank you for your work and thank you for mentioning nurse navigation.

We're really excited about that.

Um wondering you mentioned the need for repairs of your stations, I agree.

Are these a part of any capital plans um in the city?

Um do you have any plans to invest in in these kind of investments, or do you need our help in having those conversations?

Yes, through the chair, uh the council member at Santiago Romero.

We definitely need your help.

Um there we do have funding through demo for um um upgrades and and things of that nature.

But I think we have stations that are becoming m money pits that we're just investing way too much money in.

Through the chair, okay.

I would be very interested in having these conversations with you and seeing how we can help.

Uh, because I agree, and I've seen the investments that your department has in making, how we are reorganizing ourselves too, so that we are better and faster at responding.

Um so want to make sure that you're continuing to do your job to the best of your abilities.

Last question that I have is you are investing in paramedics and and in first response, uh medical first response really.

When will you take over the mental health response units?

Because quite frankly, it just seems like it makes more sense that it be under fire, where we have people that are trained paramedics, and where frankly we're not holding guns or non-lethal weapons.

Now I understand we can talk about this for a long time, what it means to respond, but just wondering have those conversations been had.

Um, can we consider moving our health, our mental health response um into fire?

Would you have the capacity, the ability to do that?

We would have the capacity, that would be a conversation that we would need to have with with um Chief Badison and DPD.

Heard okay, we will continue to do that as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Well, well, as the person who uh funded the uh mental health co-response for the police department, I am wildly opposed.

Um Mr.

Oh, sorry, member McCampbell, go ahead.

Yeah, I would say I I agree that it makes um a lot of sense to have mental health with the fire, but uh good afternoon, uh commissioner.

Uh thank you.

Uh and you are right, uh the folks that are in the department are definitely dedicated public servants.

We had a fire at the end of my block just this week, um, and a very quick response, and and folks who were dedicated to their job and helping my neighbor, so I appreciate that.

Um I I wanted to touch on a few things, and I uh I appreciate you mentioned the apprenticeship program.

Um hopefully Cody could also be the first um in this new reiteration of District 7.

Um but if you can go a little bit more about is this part of the efforts, or let me just ask, what efforts are being taken to have DFD and its members be more reflective of the community that they serve and and and be Detroiters.

Great question.

Uh through the chair to council member McCampbell.

So that is one initiative is to uh re reinvent the apprenticeship program.

Another thing is um working with human resources, we make sure that we get out and and our community relations division, we make sure that we go to schools, churches, community uh neighborhoods, black black uh meetings, uh, et cetera, to make sure that we can um attract and recruit Detroit residents as much as possible.

So we we just have continual efforts going on.

Um right now uh we have uh our department is made up of approximately 33 percent African American, uh 51 percent white, and um the rest is other, and so we're looking to balance out those numbers, and uh so we're gonna continue those recruitment efforts.

Thank you.

And if there's any way Miles can be a part of helping us spread the word, let me know.

I have I still have my kindergarten book by ourselves to be a firefighter when I grew up.

Took a different route.

But uh I have another question on um I know um DFD is looking to drones um uh for first responders.

If you could touch on that and touch on the policy that would govern the operations of those drones, sure.

Um through the chair.

So we actually have drones already.

We have 13 drones.

We're looking for um stationary drones to place on a few of our vehicles, and also we're looking to go into autonomous drones.

Those drones will actually be um uh the the time that we send a fire truck, the drone would be alerted to go to the fire as well, or to a medical call, and we can send us pictures back on what to expect when we get there.

We're working on that now.

Uh we're working on policies right now for that, and so um that information would be coming shortly, but I can make sure your office gets that information.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um you'll go to Member Waters, then we'll go to Member Miller, and then we're gonna member Johnson.

Well, thank you.

Um how are you?

I'm well, how about yourself?

I'm good, thank you.

I just have uh couple of quick questions.

Number one is that we talked about renovations for the firehouses.

Um what do you think that's gonna cost?

Well, um, through the chair um to council member waters.

So uh let me start off with new fire stations.

We're looking at probably 10 to 12 million per station, but that can house two or three different fire and EMS apparatus.

Okay.

Those for new stations.

Okay.

For repairs and upgrades.

Um, I know in the previous uh well, a couple of budgets ago, we were given 13 million dollars for uh upgrades and improvements, and and we went through that pretty quickly.

We're talking 38 locations, you know, 38 roofs, 38 boilers, 38, I mean, just everything.

So it can get pretty expensive.

Um even talking about uh concrete work, um electrical, mechanical, so it can get pretty expensive.

I don't have an exact number for you, but we we went through that 13 million dollars, probably halfway through the budget cycle.

Yeah, wow.

Yeah, yeah, we certainly want to make sure that our firemen have a safe place to lay their heads.

And if I could say thank you too for your initiative for the mattresses as well to the are they working?

The mattresses, yes, they're working.

Okay, all right, very good.

We want them to be able to rest too.

Okay.

All right, well, that's it.

Um, Mr.

President, thank you.

Mr.

Miller.

Hello, Commissioner.

I wasn't gonna say anything today because I have interviewed each of you for an over an hour in private, and I've also interviewed everyone at the IOS meeting.

So I was trying to be silent so we could hurry up and leave this meeting.

This is a long day.

But I just wanted to say, um, thank you for starting the um the uh trade at Persian High School.

I look forward to visiting that um as they actually redo Persian.

I'm in uh I am a firefighters kid.

Uh you know my dad on the captain of the fire department.

Everybody knows my dad.

Um I'm glad you're a Persian, is where he graduated from and living in District 3, my family for over 90 years.

It is uh area that could really use that program.

But I am um to piggyback on what Member Campbell said, I am disappointed in the 35 percent uh percentage of African Americans in the fire department.

I grew up in the fire department, and for a city with 77% African American, it's very disappointing.

I know uh people say it's it's a recruitment issue, but it's a drastic drop over the last I'm gonna say 10 years.

And sometimes we have to look beyond recruitment and look at the systematic issues that is upon us.

So I look forward to meeting with you regularly.

Uh we already had the commitment to to um because it's not just about recruitment.

We know it's about testing.

It's about um availability, and it's about a lot of our already missed talks spoken with the union because they pay they pay a pretty big price in that uh recruitment issue, the union itself.

So we can all be on the same page.

I don't know what your relationship is with the union, but I look forward to seeing down with both of you so we can see about raising that number um for the fire department.

Through the chair, um thank you.

I look forward to that.

All right, thank you for that.

Member Johnson.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Good afternoon, almost evening, Commissioner Sims.

Um, you know, I always speak very highly of the community relations team.

Um I think they do a phenomenal job.

I you know have the privilege of going out with uh specifically Lieutenant Terrell, Lieutenant Terrell, as we used to call him, um, multiple times a year to do uh fire safety walks.

One of the things I have noticed though, as we talk about recruitment and encouraging more Detroiters to become firefighters.

Do you all have a paid recruiter that focuses only on recruiting?

So through the chair, um we work through the city's um human resource department, and so that's they we work we coordinate with their recruiters, so we don't have our own other than our community relations division.

We don't have our own recruiter, but we do work through the city's um human resource department.

And I think that's the difference between DPD and D FD, right?

DPD has I've met some young recruiters um at community meetings that are there just sharing information about becoming a Detroit police officer, um, what that looks like, how much the pay is, training, all of that.

Why don't we have why can't we get a an actual recruiter that is specifically for the fire department, but also working with the community relations team.

I mean, we go out, we're going door to door and having conversations about um fire safety, talking to young children about fire safety, and then you know, you always get a young child like Member McCampbell who says they'd like to be a firefighter, right?

And it it takes for the community relations team to have that conversation, but I'm not sure if they have the capacity to follow through and make sure that people get information about opportunities, and I don't know what the process is, um, but just making sure that people are having continual communication with individuals who've expressed interest, I think will go a long way if you had a dedicated recruitment team.

Um and with that, I just wanted to ask if you have any additional plans for the community relations team uh moving forward.

I think again that I I believe there's only two um gentlemen that are out in the community with the fire chief who does he only oversee two people.

He has a he has a larger team, please tell me.

Um he oversees three people.

Does that include himself?

No.

But the plan is through the chair um to council member Johnson.

The plan is to increase our community relations division.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

And thank you for that idea.

I like that idea of our having our own recruiter in-house.

I think that's important.

I know several people who have started the process, and I'm not sure why they have not completed the process.

I will tell you my niece is included within that.

So uh really interested in in understanding what that process is and making sure that you all have someone who can have direct communication with those, particularly in the city who've expressed interest, who may have started the process.

Maybe they just need a little nudge.

And and just for the record, we have we had an opening um for the fire department.

It was a three-month opening.

We received over 2,000 applicants.

So she wants your chips.

All right, sounds great.

We'll we'll see you during budget.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

No problem.

Uh member Callaway.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair, and good evening, um, Commissioner.

Um, just real quick, uh, just the recruiting, just the outreach to our high schools.

You were 19 years old um when you signed up to be a firefighter.

And so that's just one year out of high school, or I don't know, but um usually you're 18 when you graduate from high school.

You could be younger, could be older, but typically um you're 18 years old.

So, right out of high school, you made a decision to be a firefighter.

And um, there are several retirees in my district, and they often send me information about the lack of diversity in the fire department.

We know they don't even live in Detroit.

A lot of them don't, the majority of them don't live in Detroit, and that's not a requirement um per the state per state law.

But we gotta beef it up.

We have to um do a better job, um, not that you're not doing a good job, but just a better job of recruiting right here in Detroit.

We have wonderful high schools.

Some of those graduating students don't want to go to college right away.

They want to get out and start making money so they can help themselves and help their families.

So, just again, I know we talked um on um January um 7th when you were originally um interviewed during internal operations and it was moved um for another special session that didn't occur due to a lack of quorum, and then that brings you here today.

So my question is what is the plan to really do some intentional recruiting in our high schools?

So um uh through the chair uh to council member um Whitfield Callaway.

So you know what to talk more with our human resource partner, number one.

Number two is I'm really gonna look into um getting our own recruiter.

And uh number three is you know, making sure our community relations divisions they have the the tools and the and the resources they need to get the message out there along with our firefighters and medics in the in in the engine houses.

So um definitely we will uh uh beef up our recruit efforts, but I would tell you this um over the last six years, we've actually exhausted the list of all Detroiters and all minorities.

And so um I I could I can confidently say that no minority or Detroiter was left on the list.

That's wonderful to hear.

Thank you so much for that.

I appreciate all that you're doing.

Um, and uh I'll report back to my retirees who live in district two.

They retire from the fire department.

I'll let them know um what you've said, but thank you so much, and I'm just looking forward to um even a greater effort to recruit.

Thank you so much, sir.

Thank you.

Um does anybody else have any questions?

Comments or concerns.

All right, well, sir, I just want to say I thank you and I appreciate your hard work.

I have a lot of questions for you, but I'm gonna ask you those questions during budget time.

I'm not gonna ask you right now.

So I I think those questions being more appropriate.

So um, but I just want to say I appreciate uh the work that you're doing and uh I wish you well and can you're continuing journey and all the things that you've done for the city and thank you for your say 19.

Wow, thank you for your service.

We truly appreciate that.

You truly represent being Detroit's bravest.

And with that being said, motion has been made.

Are there any objections to reappointing Charles Sims to fire commissioner upon confirmation by city council?

A motion to approve line of 3.6.

Any objections?

Hearing none, line on 3.6 will I line on 3.6 will be approved, reappointing Charles Sims to fire commissioner upon confirmation by city council.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, sir.

Yes.

Request a waiver on all of the ones that we've approved.

Um 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 5, and 6.

Uh uh requesting a waiver.

I already requested the waiver on um Chief Bettison, but I'm requesting a waiver on all the other ones.

And thank you.

Right.

So everyone is set 3.5.

Um yeah.

Okay.

Motion has been made for a waiver for 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.6, and 3.7.

Wait, you can't do 3.7 because we ain't done 3.7.

So see our lady is around here.

All right.

So um, 3.4.

Okay, objection 3.4.

Oh, okay.

Thank you for making this more difficult.

Okay.

Objection 3.4.

Objection of 3.2.2.

Any more jessures.

Say now for hold your peace.

All right.

So 3.4 and 3.2, those waivers are rejected.

For all the other waivers have been made.

All right, set for 3.7.

And last but not least, we will now have um is there a motion for us to take up line item three.

Is no, no, sorry.

Is there a motion to approve line of 3.7, the reappointing of Denise Starr to serve as the human resource director upon confirmation by city council.

Uh, member Callaway.

Yeah, thank you, sir.

Uh motion to approve with discussion.

Motion to approve with discussion.

Are any objections?

Hearing none.

We will now with discussion take up line item 3.7, reappointing the DNA star to serve as human resource director upon confirmation by city council.

Director Starr.

Good to see you.

Did you have anything you wanted to say?

Now is the time.

Um I was gonna say, yes, I have a half an hour presentation.

First of all, um, I am Denise Starr, the um current HR director for the city of Detroit.

I'm a proud resident of the city.

Is she turn our mic on?

Is the mic turned on?

Okay, okay, it's all okay, Gary.

Okay, go ahead.

Can you hear me?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

I'm a uh proud resident of the city of Detroit.

I have been the HR director uh now for 11 years.

Prior to that, I was chief administrative officer for Compu Work Corporation and had various responsibilities, including human resources.

In you know, human resources, we oversee the entire life cycle of an employee from start to finish, uh, recruiting, onboarding, benefits, employee engagement, um, all the way through to retirement.

Um, and uh, and that's what we really hope is that individuals come to us and start their career and stay with us.

Um, retention is very important.

Uh since um I uh came to the city, uh we transitioned.

One of our biggest accomplishments was transitioning from two 40 plus year old HR payroll systems to the current UKG platform that you all enjoy and our employees do.

Um, the the old systems, there was uh the checks were almost in hieroglyphics.

It was very hard to read them.

You had to have a chart that told you what the codes were and what they equated to.

Um now it's very clear on your pay stub.

And uh the W-2s are generated and 100% accurate.

Um a few years back, we introduced bi-annual employee engagement surveys.

One of the most important things that you can do once you hire individuals is to make sure that they are engaged and you work on making sure you retain them.

We lose many individuals within the first five years.

We find that if you stay with us five years, then you you typically are going to stay with us for quite some time and earn your pension with us, which is after 10 years.

Um with the employee engagement, we have over we have over nine employee resource groups that we started several years back, where employees from citywide um engage with fellow workers in various uh employee resource groups, which I believe several of you have actually helped in supporting us on.

Um we've uh proven that we're able to pivot in a national emergency, which was uh COVID, and we're able to not only make sure that we took care of our employees during that time and uh with wellness checks, but also we were able to process the unemployment and the um almost like we were doing the state payroll for them uh for the unemployment because we have many of our employees on work share as well as some reduced to one day a week.

Our policy and planning team develop our paid parental leave with the support and leadership of Councilmember Callaway, thank you, and Councilmember Benson.

Really appreciated that.

We've had over 300 employees take advantage of the paid parental leave uh for six weeks, and we hope at some point to be able to increase that to even be more competitive competitive in the marketplace.

Our classification and compensation team is partnered with labor relations to do market surveys on pay throughout the city, and um most recently we finished up with a bus driver's ATU contract and also our AFSME group, which represents almost 2,000 employees citywide.

Um, this is another tool that we have in how we pay our employees.

We have 10,000 plus employees.

Our payroll is close to a billion dollars a year.

It's one of the biggest expenses.

That's our you know, our investment, and we want to make sure that we retain that investment as long as we possibly can.

We also uh about 25% of our um hires end up being promotions from within, which then creates the vacancy to backfill for those positions.

Our talent development and performance management team has received multiple national recognition recognition.

Um in the past 10 years, they implemented uh performance evaluation online reviews, which the city had never had before, and it's a way to have it as your record as you progress in your career.

Then uh your next manager can read your performance and understand uh your strong capabilities and any type of training that we might need to do to help them to be prepared for their next opportunity.

Our talent acquisition uh team has held over 100 hiring events uh in all the districts last year.

Uh we also uh work with returning citizens.

Went to the correctional facility in Jackson to look at their program for diesel mechanics because we have high turnover and a need for mechanics, especially at DDOT for diesel.

And so we are working with them.

We also had several events for veterans.

And our benefits team has been focused on using technology to improve efficiency and personalization.

And labor contracts are just not you know about the wages, you know, when you're engaging your workforce.

It's about how happy am I in the job?

Are there other opportunities?

Do we have enough classes and opportunities so that I can better myself and move up the ladder and uh and increase your wages and also your um uh promotability within the city?

Okay, with that, um I am hoping that I will earn your or have earned your uh confirmation for this position.

Um, and um I'm open to questions.

I would like to say one last thing.

I know councilmember Santa Girl Romero, you asked about the immigrant um affair uh position and um what is going on there.

So the mayor was very intentional in um uh having the director, the interim director of health, human and poverty solutions, um uh Chef Juan Ahmed, who was um uh placed in that position, so there is someone that is um actually taking care of it until that whole um organization is set up with that.

Any questions?

Excellent.

Okay, uh first we will have we will recognize uh Member Santiago Romero and then we will recognize uh Member Galloway.

Thank you, uh Mr.

Chair, good evening.

Um briefly just want to share and thank you for providing that update.

Yes, we work closely with Shafuan.

Um wanted to ask some questions regarding um some concerning conversations that are happening right now in iOS regarding the city talking about removing work visas from city employees.

This sounds like something that Republicans are talking about right now, removing visas, removing opportunities from people that currently have them who have no criminal record, who are simply here living and doing their jobs literally.

Um my concern is just wondering not only about the fact that we are currently in a state where immigrants are literally under attack and they are being stripped of their rights and opportunities.

Will this open up a lawsuit for the city because we are actively removing visas from city employees?

Will this open us up from any kind of lawsuits or can this be used against us?

Um is my first question.

Okay, uh, through the chair.

Um we are not removing anyone's visas.

Um we have uh 10 employees who we currently have actively engaged, doing a great job for us, and uh what we are not doing at the moment is engaging to hire any additional ones.

I'm sure you've seen uh some of the stories about the uh federal fees that they want to tack on for employ um anyone to get a visa, an H1B visa, and up to 100,000.

So the city absolutely cannot afford that.

We have actually partnered um with Councilmember Callaway's office.

I think they even had one meeting so far, and there's another scheduled in a couple weeks, and we've actually you know, we are talking about what's the best path forward for any new if that's even needed with various partnerships, but we are not um doing anything about uh actively taking away anyone's visas or rights to employment.

They're in civil service positions that they aren't there of earned and there are civil service rules that we need to follow for to support those employees.

Through the chair, thank you.

That is incredibly helpful because these things matter and um making sure that we are not removing opportunities and yeah, this is a really terrible federal government that we have and that we're working under.

Um but just want to make sure that the current city staff that we have now are protected.

Um there was conversations about this about them being phased out, but it sounds like they will just serve their time, their their work with us, and until there are changes at the federal level.

We will not be moving forward with those visas understandably why.

But I just wanted to make it very clear because of what is being discussed that we're not removing visas and understand that we are in the position that we are now in hiring new folks or bringing in new people.

But just wanted to get that clarity.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Mr.

Chair.

Okay.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

No, no, no, no.

We're gonna have a member Meryl now is gonna be Member Callaway.

Thank you.

Mr.

Waters and then Member Miller.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Chair, and thank you for being here, Director Starr.

Um my staff, as you indicated, we are working with someone from your staff who's the main recruiter, Mr.

Um Conrad.

And then we also had a meeting with the um Clark Hill, who does all of the processing of the paperwork.

Um, and um what's exciting about this is that we're working to make sure that we are able to recruit um and offer positions to those who have a degree in civil engineering and have the experience because I think that's the bulk of the HB1 visa holders.

Um there's one that's like a program analyst, um, but for the most part, um, and there's one who has um from what I understand um um experience with AltiPro, extensive experience.

So I looked at the spreadsheet that you that you provided.

So, what we're working on now, um, which is what you mentioned earlier.

My staff and I are working with um University of Detroit Mercy, um, their engineering school and their um their IT department, and we have um Zoom calls scheduled this week coming up, and we are working with um Wayne State University.

We have a call schedule with um UAD, and we have one with Lawrence Tech, and they are just so excited about the possibility of establishing this um partnership with your HR with our HR department and recruiting from their school.

They're getting their students excited about it, and hopefully we can offer them some internships so they can get the skill set that they need and and some um may already have that skill set.

I'm not sure some of their recent graduates, but um, that's what we're working on, and I thank you for um um having your staff work with my staff and me, because I'm very much involved in the process um with recruiting these civil engineers and these folks with the IT background and experience.

Um I have a question for you.

Um with respect to a return to work policy.

Now we talked about this, I think about a year or so ago, and I'm just concerned about those who are working in Florida, those who are working in Chicago.

I know we can't make them um work in Detroit, but can we require them to at least work in the state?

I really find that problematic that we have folks living in Florida full-time and living in um Chicago full-time, working for the city full-time.

And um, I you know, I won't call in names and I won't call in departments, but what is our plan to make sure that we have folks who live at least in the state and not so far away?

Um, and I've had folks who work with these folks who live in Florida and live in Chicago, and they've come to me, you know, anonymously, and I'm just bringing it to your attention, but you already know.

So, do we have a number an approximate number of those who live outside of the state of Michigan working for the city full-time?

Yes, through the chair, I believe it's five individuals that are um outside of the state, and they are individuals that have a skill set that we were not able to identify, or they were working for us and moved and they had an expertise, and the department wanted to keep them and retain them.

We do not actively recruit out of state except to relocate to you know the state of Michigan, and so by word of mouth or them look you know, looking on our website, individuals applied, and I believe one of them is the IT that might have be in uh not Chicago, Minnesota, I believe it is Yeah, um so I just have concerns about that.

We should have some type of um maybe some type of program in place where those who have this expertise are just not sitting on it and not when they retire, it goes with them.

What is the succession plan with respect to those individuals who are working outside of the state who have this expertise?

The only ones that have this expertise, according to you.

How are we making sure that those individuals, the five individuals, and it could be more, can share that information, train someone so we can have an when they decide they're retiring, then what?

What how do we how are we going to fill the gap?

How are we going to recruit for those individual positions?

So through the chair, um we're very thankful that City Council late last year approved the zeroed in contract and our policy um guru um uh Marcus Holmes is going to be heading up the effort where we're gonna be able to have more predictability and be able to look at you have a certain skill set.

We see that you've worked for us for you know a while, you haven't had any movement because you you are doing the job you love, but it's at risk because of how long you might have been here, you might be getting ready to retire, and that there would be a backup plan for those individuals that we would be able to identify the skill set, and then in our system, we keep track of through our performance evaluations, what are your skill sets, and then we can identify individuals to reach out to them to say here is going to be a potential future need.

Would you be interested in help them get the skills to be ready to take that on?

Yeah, that's that's great to hear.

And um, lastly, what is our plan to mandate a return to work?

I know Stellantis did it, Amazon did it, Ford did it.

Most of the major industry um organizations and companies are requiring their workers to um return to work.

Um the hybrid schedule that was acceptable and reasonable considering the circumstances of COVID.

But now, what's the reason why our employees are not coming to work?

I know one for a fact works two days a week in the office.

Okay.

Well, through the chair, uh we are talking to the mayor's office about re you know, return to work full time.

Uh I will say that many departments um have instituted where they're adding it incrementally by one or two days, uh, just you know, from what they were working.

And uh, and I can attest to the fact because we'll be bringing you another contract very shortly, that our parking has gone up from what we estimated because we estimated only a certain amount in the office based on the based on the flexible work schedules, and so now that's changed, and now that's impacting another cost that we're going to have to um incur, but um a good investment.

I think so.

I think so.

I'm hoping that we will think through the chair to yourself.

I'm hoping that we will have a mandate requiring people to come to work in person.

Um the reasons why we start the hybrid schedule is because of an emergency, a pandemic, but that no longer is can be used as the reason why we're allowing people to work home and then the expense of their parking can no longer be a reason that we not require them to come to work.

They have to come to work, and I'm hoping I'm and I'm gonna definitely send an email to the mayor because people should be coming to work.

Um, and and there shouldn't be any exceptions, not as a sick day, vacation day, personal business day, but to be able to work, collect a full-time check, and you only work two days a week.

That is to me unconscious unconscionable.

Although they will argue that they're working five days, three from home, right?

I don't know what systems we have in place to monitor their work.

I know one company, as soon as you get on the um, they they count your keystrokes, they know exactly when you're at that laptop doing your work.

I don't know if we have that capability.

I don't know if some department has have that software in place, but they know when you're working, and they know when you're not.

So I don't know if we have that capability, but I certainly hope that there will be a uniform um requirement that we have a five-day work week like we always have, and that the hybrid was just an exception due to a pandemic.

So that's that that's my request, and I'll be making it known to uh Mayor Sheffield that it should be required.

And and I remember talking to you not not so long ago, might have been in 2025 when I asked you about this very issue.

You said it's to the discretion of the department head, and that's to me that's not um, there's no uniformity in it, because if this director is letting their folks work, you know, one day in the office four at home, then what about the other director who may be working down the hall and they're all talking, well, you get to work from home, you know, uh, four days a week, I gotta come in.

So I think there should be a uniform mandate mandating our employees who work for the city of Detroit to come to work and not do this haphazard um scategory type of hybrid work schedule, allowing departments had to have total discretion in terms of their work schedules.

It should be uniform across the city, across all departments, and that's that's my recommendation, and I'm hoping.

Well, Mr.

Washington is listening, so if we can get that message to the mayor that we should have a mandatory mandate requiring people to come back to work and not allowing them to work two days and three days in Florida, it's just unacceptable.

It should be more uniform and it should not be left to the discretion of department heads.

Thank you, um, Director Starr, and thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Before we go um on to our next speaker, I just want to have more of a statement and the question.

It was my and I gotta ask the corporation counsel about this, but my understanding involved in the issue of residency, that they had to live in the within a certain zone of the place from where they work.

They couldn't live beyond a certain zone, and living in another state was outside of that zone.

I don't know if state law changed.

I remember there were conversations about doing that, but I can't, but I left kind of before that kind of materialized.

So there's a question I have to go ask uh corporation counsel.

I'm not saying that you're doing that intentionally or anything, and I know sometimes there's a sense of the rule that people get away and things that nature, but from my understanding, I always thought that if you lived outside of the zone, you were violating the residency law.

I mean, Ms Mr.

Wittergun, I don't know if you want to be able to chime in on that, but I thought that law still existed.

I wouldn't have to look at the law.

Yeah.

I'm trying to remember it.

And um, I think we'll just write on it.

Yeah, that was my recollection.

All right.

Now we will go to member waters and then we will go to member Miller and Mr.

Waters.

Okay, well, thank you so much.

Um I want to say to my colleague from district two.

Well, I I gotta tell you that's a little bit uh difficult when you know, council members have employees that work uh from their district offices and and things like that.

So I don't know how that's gonna be uniform for some of us.

Um I'm not looking for the mayor to make that decision, that's for sure.

We have to make that decision as a legislative body.

Um so I just want to say, uh, director, that um it is certainly a pleasure working with you.

Um you're always so responsive.

Um there's never been a time that when I've called you or emailed you, even if it's on the weekend, and we are neighbors, you live in district five, we're neighbors, and so um it's never been a time, even if it's on a Saturday or something, you respond.

And I just want to say uh thank you for that.

Um I just want to um uh ask you, you know, I'm all I'm always trying to identify Detroiters to work for the city.

Um is there anything additional that we can do to ensure that we are hiring more Detroiters?

Or are you already working on that?

I'm too the chair.

Yes, we are working on it diligently um to have more events to understand where the community would like or feels is the best place for us to recruit from.

You know, maybe some of the places that we're going isn't capturing or a wide enough net, and so we look you know forward to getting your input as well uh and ideas on that.

Uh, we do go to high schools um and um we have partnered with the fire department.

We do have one recruiter that is just dedicated to hiring uh for the fire department.

Um, but maybe we need to beefed up and have more or have you know one or two in the department is in as well.

Um, but any um you know, we'll be coming to you for additional ideas of maybe in your communities where else we might go.

I know many of you will um reach out to us and and share where your community meetings will be.

We try to be on top of that and are able to support any events that you have uh as well, and we always do appreciate you sending candidates our way.

Um there is in the civil service rules that you do have um a 15-point advantage uh for being a Detroit resident.

Um, and even though you know the state law changed back in 1999, um you know, where it wasn't enforcing or saying that we could only hire Detroiters.

Umfortunately, that you know, you know, passed at the state level, and um, but we do have our civil service rules that do promote that we're able to give additional points for candidates that are Detroit residents.

And thank you so much for um helping me to raise the level of awareness as it relates to uh breast cancer.

Thank you for the partnership.

The chair, you're very welcome.

Okay, member Miller.

Mr.

Starr, I just wanted to say um thank you for your commitment to working with IOS as a member on that committee.

I want to say thank you for even championing with our uh chair because the last two weeks has she has diligently been meeting with your office and as well with the recruiter and the immigration lawyer who we met with, and I welcome anyone to come to IOS and hear what we're doing to get the information firsthand because we are not in the business of taking anyone's money out of their pocket or food off your table.

But we are committed, what we are committed to is not nationality but residency.

So going forward in 2026, our major number one acts is that we recruit within first.

And we are committed to seeing the those um contracts out.

We made it perfectly clear that we were committed to seeing those contracts out.

And I'm gonna thank you for your involvement in that.

So because I need understanding and clarification.

Um I know how hard it is is to get a job, but most of the jobs were in civil engineering, and I think there's a uh recruitment going forth with Kettering Lawrence, Lawrence Institute, uh, Kettering University.

There was like five different colleges that um we have set up with to go out and get recruitment because the major problem is experience.

There's a lot of students that want to go to college to stay home in Michigan, but they don't have the experience, and we're looking for someone with 10 and 15 years.

And I'm and I'm just saying, give them a chance.

When did you get the experience?

You never get the experience when you go to college, and you can even get a job coming out of that field if you don't have the experience.

But we are dedicated to residency, and we talked about the price of the visas.

I know there's a fixed fee of 100,000, which you know we typically we don't get that high up.

They did give us the actual amount.

I think one of them were like $4,930 is one of the lowest.

And we're paying people to come work for us that live, and I think um a lot of them were some of them were overseas, and it's totally asinine to pay someone to come work for you and then take your money and take it to their wherever they are, and it's tax their taxpayers' money.

So I'm committed to residency, especially in District 5 and throughout the city of Detroit, and I champion that because that's what our residents are calling for.

When they call in every day, they're saying, what are you doing about the residents here?

And when I walk in the neighborhoods, I have to give answer to that.

So no, we do not want to take anyone's jobs, take anyone's income, but we have to do business different.

We got to move forward and be productive where we live.

Charity starts at home.

Thank you.

All right.

Member McCampbell.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, good evening, uh, Director Starr.

I just leads into my question, but I made a joke, I have joke um the other day in uh budget finance and audit that we should have vacancies to uh because we heard to our committee name because we hear constantly about vacancies throughout our city government.

So as I know much of the conversation today has been about Detroit is actually getting those jobs.

Um I I hope as uh a city council and folks in the room that we actually send those vacancies and postings out to our residents to make sure we're getting folks um in that uh and that goes to my question on the high number of vacancies that we're seeing.

I know there's been some progress in bringing them down, but if you can just touch on the steps you all are taking in HR to bring down those vacancies, because in turn we have to go out and get contractors to fulfill that role that may cost more than hiring someone, um, but also uh to what has been what was in a DFD conversation that member Johnson brought up.

Has there been any conversation about more specialized recruiters in various departments?

Um through the chair.

We have through the years uh spoken to FIRE about uh additional resources to help with their recruitment, and so we will partner more closely um with the uh commissioner and the team to find out, you know, and and figure out what the right mix is, you know, uh HR recruiters as well as fire recruiters because I totally agree having a firefighter um go out to a recruitment fair or a police officer that is done at the police department that is very enticing for individuals to um respond and apply to those positions, and so I'm glad to hear the fire department will be back out into the high schools in a more aggressive way.

I think that can you know be very helpful for the future as well.

And as far as uh through the chair, as far as the vacancies, um right now we do have a little over 400 vacancies that I just looked at.

Now the budget there is a process uh where individual departments have to put through a requisition to create the opportunity for us to hire.

We can't just uh post something that we've seen in the budget, it has to go through an approval process through finance.

So right now there are about 400, uh a little bit over 400 vacancies.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director.

And um, yeah, I just happy to be as much help as possible to get those vacancies filled.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

We appreciate that.

Thank you.

Does anybody else have any questions?

Mr.

Chair.

Uh Chair recognizes Member Johnson.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Just a question relative to the conversation about um working with and hiring more Detroiters.

Do you all work with Detroit at work?

And their facilities, I know we do um job fairs with them throughout the year, and and they engage with a lot of our residents just who just go to the facility from the neighborhood.

Do they have access to all of the jobs that the city has available to be able to share and align with residents?

Uh through the chair, yes, absolutely.

We work very closely with uh the director of DESC, Dana, and our uh link to jobs is on their site as well, and they send us candidates all the time.

So that is DESC.

I wonder what the partnership relationship is like with the actual facilities that are in the neighborhoods.

So I'll I'll reach out to Dana Williams and and have that conversation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

All right, does anybody else have any questions, comments, or concerns?

I I just wanted to say you have a really um unique and interesting record.

I'm looking at some of the stuff that you did while uh car while uh Carmont, well the chief of research for Carmados was there, and you participated in building campus marches in Capitol Park, if that if I'm not mistaken.

Did you just want to talk to me?

Can I walk me through that a little bit?

So um through the chair.

The um I I was I was fortunate enough to be the head of the project that um got the uh campus martial building, the one with the fountain.

That was one of our projects that was a 450 million dollar project that um Mr.

Carmen has moved his 3,000 plus employees from the suburbs to downtown Detroit, and then we also invested heavily in Campus Marshall's Park as well as um Q line.

Yeah, and my understanding, I think Campus Marshall's Park was like mean like ranked like the number one park in America, if I'm not mistaken, is that true too?

Yes, so yeah, so congratulations.

That's off to you.

All right.

Yeah, it's just just a little tidbit just case you want to know FYI there.

Uh that's what I do around here.

All right.

Motion has been made to approve line item 3.7 reappointing Denise Starr to serve as the human resources director upon confirmation by city council.

Are there any objections?

All right, hearing none, line 3.7 passes, and we are reappointing Denise Starr to serve as human resources director upon confirmation by City Council.

Thank you.

Now, waiver has been requested.

Are there any objections on the waiver?

Excellent.

Waiver will be approved.

Now, hearing no objections, the Senate resolutions will be approved.

And thereby being no further business to come before this body, the meeting will stand adjourned.