Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan Answers Listener Questions on Detroit Today
Duggan talks about the city’s recent achievements, missteps, and what will happen to failing schools.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is running for reelection. He’s seen the city through bankruptcy proceedings in court, he’s turned on streetlights throughout the city, and he’s mounted an aggressive blight removal plan.
But Duggan will not go unchallenged in the primary race for mayor this year. A couple other candidates plan to run against him, including the son of former mayor Coleman Young.
Duggan joins Detroit Today with Stephen Henderson to talk about how Detroit is doing, as well as answer some WDET listener questions submitted prior to his State of the City speech last week.
During the speech, the mayor touted his accomplishments during his first term:
I fully expect that early 2018, we will be permanently out from Financial Review Commission oversight because we will have made budget and paid our bills for three years in a row — self-determination will be back.
“Our revenues are running way ahead of what was projected during the bankruptcy,” Duggan tells Henderson on Detroit Today, going on to say that development Downtown has directly led to more revenue for city services throughout the city. But he admits there have been some missteps.
On controversy surrounding the Detroit Land Bank Authority’s blight removal efforts, “We went too fast, we made mistakes, we fixed the mistakes,” says Duggan.
Duggan also says, after conversations with Gov. Rick Snyder, he believes the state is acknowledging that shutting down dozens of failing schools — many of which are in Detroit — is not the best approach.
Click on the audio player above to hear the full conversation.
