Detroit City Council facing busy year as mayoral election looms

Detroit City Council was back at it this week with a light schedule — mostly taking public comment in Tuesday’s session.

With Mayor Mike Duggan running for Governor, council members Fred Durhal III and Mary Sheffield are both aiming to fill the spot. So this is expected to be a very busy year for the public body — if not a little distracting.

Councilwoman Gabriela Santiago-Romero is running for reelection in the newly redrawn 6th District, which encompasses parts of downtown, Midtown and all of Corktown and Southwest Detroit.

In an interview with WDET, she said the city’s allotment of federal money from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) is spoken for. All they have to do is approve contracts.

The ARPA cash has gone toward improving city services and infrastructure as well as things like eviction defense and job training.

One area that could still use an influx of cash is public transit.

“We’re going to be pushing for better transits. Many of us have been riding the bus during our terms. Here we have incredible transit advocates who are asking that we double the DDOT budget,” Santiago-Romero said.

Last year’s budget for the Detroit Department of Transportation was $188 million.

Detroit police and Duggan have credited Community Violent Intervention (CVI) programs for reducing crime in parts of the city. Much of the funding for those programs came from ARPA.

Santiago-Romero wants to go a step further.

“I have been pushing for an Office of Violence Prevention since my time here,” Santiago-Romero said. “It would codify an office that does research, that does best practices, that gives the kind of grants that we give to those CVI programs, but that, again, requires funding to staff to continue those programs.”

For the past two years, the Michigan Legislature has been completely controlled by Democrats. Santiago-Romero was optimistic some long-term funding for CVI would be passed. However, House Republicans and Rep. Karen Whitsett (D-Detroit) shut down the lame duck session last month preventing dozens of bills from receiving a vote.

Public safety funding was among the legislation that was killed.

“Lame duck season was incredibly disappointing,” said Santiago-Romero. “A lot of the bills that we wanted to get passed did not get passed.”

That included bills for water affordability championed by Detroit-area legislators like Sen. Stephanie Chang (D-Detroit) and Rep. Abraham Aiyash (D-Hamtramck).

Pollution is a problem in District 6 and is set to get worse with the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge later this year.

“We are also just bombarded by industry,” Santiago-Romero said. “So one of our main focuses is going to establish, is to establish a truck route, first in Southwest and then an ordinance that establishes those routes in other places in the city that have high truck traffic as well.”

Santiago-Romero says some in her district are being denied the basic functions of city government.

“My residents want basic city services, working street lights. When there’s an issue on their block, they want to call the police and have them show up on time. It’s about making sure that they are able to live a good, healthy quality of life.”

Santiago-Romero says the council should consider repealing and replacing the city’s human rights ordinance.

“Right now, city employees don’t have a way to file discrimination against the city, and we need to update our language, codify it, bring it up to speed to the state and federal policies.”

A challenge to Santiago-Romero is likely coming. She won in 2021 by a 3-1 margin. Why does someone want her seat?

“It’s a job that people think is a title and easy, or they just want the power,” Santiago-Romero said. “And quite frankly, that’s not at all how we do our work. We see this as an actual job that needs to get done, that needs to be taken seriously.”

With two of her colleagues running for mayor, Santiago-Romero is taking a wait-and-see approach and isn’t quite ready to make an endorsement.

“I think there are going to be a lot of candidates that run and whoever runs for mayor, in order to receive my support, I will need to see a vision. I need to see what their vision is for the city, what their plans are for the city.”