Detroit Mayor’s State of City Speech to Chart Path Beyond Bankruptcy
Detroit Mayor prepares to give annual State of the City address as balanced budgets have Detroit ready to emerge from active state oversight of city finances. But serious issues with crime, poverty and education remain.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is preparing for his first State of the City address since being re-elected in a landslide.
Duggan delvers the annual address on the heels of proposing a balanced city budget he says should pave the way for Detroit to end state reviews of its finances.
Audits are expected to reveal the city has had three straight balanced budgets.
But the state will continue to examine Detroit’s fiscal situation for the next decade.
Duggan also says Detroit needs to become a safer city.
His budget calls for adding more than 100 new police officers to the Detroit Police Department.
Detroit continues to struggle with poverty rates far above the national average as well.
City officials say the abandoned, blighted buildings dotting Detroit are both magnets for criminal activity and a barrier to bringing more jobs and business to impoverished areas.
So Duggan is proposing to double commercial demolitions in the city, though his Administration is still being investigated for how it used previous blight removal funding.
In addition, the Mayor wants to increase efforts to educate and train Detroit’s workforce.
Amazon recently cited Detroit’s “lack of talent” as a reason it turned down the Motor City’s recent bid to house the company’s second headquarters.
