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Blighted holdout house near Little Caesars Arena mysteriously burns down

By Randiah Camille Green

YET ANOTHER BUILDING in Detroit has burned down under suspicious circumstances.

The ramshackle house at 2712 Cass Ave., near Little Caesars Arena, was engulfed in flames early Monday morning.

It was one of the last remaining residential properties in an area that was mostly bought out and razed for Ilitch family development projects. The Ilitches quietly purchased around 70 properties in the South Cass Corridor District over 15 years that were left to decay, driving down land value in a strategy critics called “derelict by design.” This allowed the Ilitches to buy more property in the area for cheap to redevelop.

Over the years, the “holdout” house has been for sale for as high as $5 million due to its close proximity to the $839 million arena. Now the last house standing is gone.

Detroit Fire Department Chief James Harris tells Metro Times he got the call just before 4 a.m. Monday and more than 20 officers responded to put out the blaze. A cause has yet to be identified.

“The house is completely burned down,” he says. “Right now we’re still investigating and we don’t have any further information or a cause to report.”

Harris says no one was in the house at the time and no injuries were reported.

A “for sale” banner by Darren Johnson at Johnson Premier Realty Co. hung on the abandoned home for several years. Johnson was pretty annoyed when we called him on Monday morning, informing us that he was no longer “dealing with that property” and that he had been bombarded with media calls all morning.

Property records show the house is owned by the Scheherazade Love trust. P&P Realty most recently had the house listed for sale at $2.5 million. P broker and owner Shane Parker confirmed the house was zoned B4, which is a general business district and it was available for cash or land contract terms.

The house at 2712 Cass Ave. was one of the last houses in Detroit’s South Cass Corridor that hadn’t been sold for redevelopment. STEVE NEAVLING

Conservative Michigan town defunds library over LGBTQ book

By Steve Neavling

A CONSERVATIVE TOWN in Michigan voted to defund its library this week because residents were angry about an LGBTQ-themed book that was on its shelves.

About 62% of voters in Jamestown Township, located outside of Grand Rapids, rejected a millage that funded the Patmos Library.

Now the library is at risk of closing.

Residents were incensed over the graphic novel Gender Queer: A Memoir, a coming-of-age autobiography that explores the life of the non-binary author and illustrator.

For months, residents have demanded the removal of the book. The library responded by moving the book behind the counter so it was out of reach of children.

But that wasn’t enough. Opponents of the novel formed a group, the Jamestown Conservatives, which baselessly suggested the library was grooming children and led an effort to defund the library.

The group then wanted more LGBTQ books removed from the shelves.

Library officials refused, pointing out that only 90 of the library’s roughly 67,000 books, videos, and other items have LGBTQ themes.

The defeated millage would have provided 84% of the library’s $245,000 budget.

“I wasn’t expecting anything like this,” Walton, the library board president, told Bridge Michigan. “The library is the center of the community. For individuals to be short sighted to close that down over opposing LGBTQ is very disappointing.”

A GoFundMe campaign was launched last week in hopes of keeping the library open. As of Friday morning, the campaign raised $4,745.

The head of the fundraiser, Jesse Dillman, tells Metro Times that the Patmos Library “is a core part of our small community” and that his family and many others rely on the collection.

“My kids love the toys and games, my wife and I love to rent the puzzles and attend the events, and we all love reading books there,” Dillman says. “The state of Patmos Library impacts my family in a very direct way.”

Dillman says he was “discouraged and disappointed” that the library was defunded.

“It even made me a bit angry to see people willing to tear down the very fabric of our small community over this perceived issue,” he says. “I spoke with other residents who were also very concerned about the future of the library after the results came in. Some are even getting more involved to help share the GoFundMe, or campaign in other ways.”

About 30% of the township’s residents turned out to vote. Dillman says he suspects that the opponents are a vocal minority and that most of the township’s residents support the library.

“I firmly believe most Jamestown residents are in favor of funding Patmos Library,” he says. “If we work together with the wonderful team at Patmos, I know we can overcome the rhetoric from a small vocal group and secure the funding the library needs.”

Metro Times is seeking fall 2022 interns — and we pay!

By MT staff

COME LEARN WITH us! We’re looking for a few exceptional student journalists to join the Detroit Metro Times newsroom this fall.

You’ll get a chance to take the pulse of the city, interview creative people, and even confront the powers that be. Working closely with an editor, you’ll get to write, you’ll get to take photos, you’ll get bylines and photo credits — and suffice it to say, the only coffee you’ll fetch will be your own.

We pay $14/hour, so you must be eligible to work in the U.S. (We’re also open to candidates who prefer course credit.) You should be able to join us for 12-15 hours each week and have transportation (or the ability to access public transit), since we’ll be sending you out on assignment. You must live within our coverage area of metro Detroit for that same reason.

If this sounds appealing, please send a cover letter, résumé, and three samples of your work to internships@metrotimes.com. Please specify whether you are most interested in photography, food writing, arts writing, news writing, or some combination of all of the above. We’ll consider applications on a rolling basis, but please aim for Sept. 9.

The GOP’s Trump-backed, conspiracypeddling candidate for Michigan attorney general could be in deep shit

By Steve Neavling

THE RACE FOR Michigan attorney general took an unexpected turn after the incumbent Dana Nessel requested a special prosecutor to investigate alleged election breaches by her Trump-endorsed opponent Matthew DePerno.

In a petition requesting a special prosecutor on Friday, Nessel’s office said DePerno and two other people “orchestrated a coordinated plan to gain access to voting tabulators” that were illegally taken from county clerks.

Nessel announced the referral Monday morning, citing a “potential conflict in the case.”

According to the petition, DePerno’s involvement was discovered during a months-long, joint probe by Nessel’s office and the Michigan State Police. While investigating “a conspiracy to unlawfully obtain access to voting machines used in the 2020 General Election,” state police found that DePerno was involved, the petition states.

“When this investigation began there was not a conflict of interest. However, during the course of the investigation, facts were developed that DePerno was one of the prime instigators of the conspiracy,” the petition reads.

Nessel’s office made the request to the Michigan Prosecutor Attorneys Coordinate Council, an autonomous entity within the Department of Attorney General that ultimately will decide if a special prosecutor is warranted.

In February, state police began investigating allegations that supporters of former President Donald Trump gained unlawful access to voting software and tabulating machines in an attempt to prove widespread fraud.

DePerno was at a hotel room where he and three others “broke into” tabulators and performed “tests” on them, according to the petition.

Deperno, a Kalamazoo Republican, has built his reputation around baseless claims of election fraud. He filed an unsuccessful lawsuit challenging the results in Antrim County, where a brief error that was quickly corrected turned into a baseless conspiracy peddled by Trump and his supporters.

According to the petition, DePerno received help from state Rep. Daire Rendon, R-Lake, who informed a clerk that the Michigan House of Representatives was investigating election fraud.

The petition also names Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, who previously said he was investigating election fraud.

In a hyperbolic statement late Sunday, DePerno’s campaign said he “categorically denies the allegations.”

“The petition itself is entirely an incoherent liberal fever dream of lies,” the statement reads. “It is clear that Dana Nessel is attacking our democracy and demonstrates she wants to turn our great country into a banana republic.”

The statement continues, “This is a complete absurdity that shows the tactics of the institutional left and Matt DePerno looks forward to defeating her and bringing back orders to this office in November.”

DePerno’s campaign then insisted that if Nessel presses on, she “will ultimately find herself on the defendant’s side of a malicious prosecution case.”