A delicate dance resumes Thursday at Detroit City Hall, where Mike Duggan and Kevyn Orr will continue discussing how much authority -- if any -- the incoming mayor can have during his first nine months.
“Whether I will ultimately take responsibility for services Jan. 1 or Oct. 1 is still to be resolved,” Duggan said Tuesday at a public forum. “We’re going see if we can work something out that works for both us.”
Darren Nichols and Christine Ferretti covered the event organized by their paper:
Duggan, the keynote speaker at the first in a series of public policy forums sponsored by The Detroit News, said the arrangement between him and Orr is complicated, but stressed talks about his role will continue and he won’t be criticizing the emergency manager because it wouldn’t be constructive. Their next scheduled meeting is Thursday. . . .
Duggan said he hopes to persuade the state-appointed Orr to give him responsibility for police and other services.
Mike Duggan told a WSU audience that this test will shape decisions: "Will this contribute to people leaving or people coming back?” (Photo from WXYZ)
Oct. 1 is an important date next year because that's when the City Council can remove Orr if six of the nine members vote to do so.
Until then, Duggan said at the Wayne State forum, "the reality I’m facing is I don’t have the authority. . . . Whether I like it or not, the emergency manager has the right to run the city of Detroit."
Duggan . . . said his tenure will be determined by one thing: growing Detroit. “Every decision I’m going to make is: Will this contribute to people leaving or people coming back?” . . .
A key issue will be Detroit’s finances, he said, citing a four-month Detroit News investigation that found Detroit has the highest property taxes among big cities nationwide and relies on seriously inflated assessments — which contribute to nearly half of property owners not paying their tax bills.
“The city of Detroit has made a decision not to lower the assessments,” he said. “We have been driving people out of their homes with tax foreclosures.”
Duggan said his priority would be “to go through and reassess the city honestly.”
