A Detroit News columnist looks past the Duggan-Napoleon duke-out to consider another mayoral candidate
Bill Johnson, a former editorial page staff member, speaks with an announced contender he sees as "sensitive to distressed families and wayward children -- and yet tough enough to enact effective reforms."
"Those illuminating qualities [are] found in former state Rep. Lisa Howze," Johnson writes at The Michigan View, the paper's opinion site.
"There is nothing more critical to the city of Detroit than the safety and protection of our people," Howze told me. "Because violence imposes so much fear, real pain and suffering, I would not hesitate as mayor to devote the necessary resources into making neighborhoods where children live and play safe havens."
"Not only will safe streets will be my highest personal objective, it will be my highest budget priority," she continued. "I would spare no expense in making sure that the carnage of 2012 will be a bloody memory that never repeats itself."
Candidate and columnist share a belief that "increasing police ranks -- not reducing the number of cops -- is the best defense against ruthless predators," says Johnson, citing "what happened in New York City under Mayor Rudolph Guiliani in the 1990s."
Howze, a 39-year-old lifelong Detroiter who lives on the northeast side, served in the state House from 2011-12. She's an accountant who graduated from Cass Tech, the University of Michigan (1995) and .earned a master's in finance at Walsh College (2004)
The columnist challenges the guys with campaign exploratory committees to step up:
Mayor Bing doesn't have a plan. Lisa Howze does. Do any of the other potential candidates?
