www.michronicle.com January 9-15, 2013
VOLUME 76 – Number 18
Voucher program fails to relocate families from poor neighborhoods (Page A-3)
Teachers hold the key to our collective future (Page A-5) Training our adults to be competitive on the world stage and educating more of our children to be able to collaborate and compete globally is the key to the country’s future prosperity.
Stan ‘The Man’ does it again (Page B-1) It’s almost become a cliché to call Stan Lee the father of the modern superhero, but look around you, and all the major movies released by Hollywood these days are based from ideas he worked out way back in the 1960s with such artists as Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and others.
Gary Brown
Who will be Detroit’s
Lions’ brass deserve another year (Page C-1) As the very interesting NFL Playoffs continue, the road to New Orleans will get clearer and clearer. Sports Editor Leland Stein examines a complex situation.
Spotlight: Shaun T (Page D-1) Exercise, especially today, is in some respects a form of entertainment. And thanks to his groundbreaking and omnipresent “Insanity” workout infomercials, Shaun T has the most popular workout program today.
Freman Hendrix
By Zack Burgess CHRONICLE SENIOR WRITER
For most Detroiters, cars are like clothing. Life would go on without them, but it wouldn’t be the same. The city has carried on a 125-year love affair with the automobile.
Emergency Manager? Charlie Beckham
Charlie Williams
Beckham, Brown, Hendrix, Williams viewed as viable candidates
By Bankole Thompson
searching and bold action needed to get Detroit back on track. Because Detroit cannot continue borrowing to pay its own bills, the city faces a series of choices for financial recovery including an emergency manager, mediation, consent agreement and bankruptcy.
CHRONICLE SENIOR EDITOR
Emergency manager are two poisonous words in Detroit politics right now, yet they ANALYSIS are the two most powerful words in the city’s cataclysmic financial conversation.
But the most obvious reality that some are now resigned to is the real possibility of an emergency manager running the city — for at least a year — to get the city’s books in order before the return to representative democracy.
Bankole Thompson
With last week’s financial report showing the widening financial crisis of the city, and the escalating crime rate reducing Detroit to a killing field, it’s hard to imagine how the city can extricate itself once and for all from the malaise of economic hardship and public safety nightmare it is already in without the requisite soul
For critics of the revised emergency manager law, this is the worst that could
See emergency
manager page A-4
“Driving is what we do,” said Gloria Usher, a government worker from Detroit. “When I look back on it, how I started driving, at such a young age mind you…what cars have meant to me, my father and my brothers. Cars are so important to who we are as Detroiters.” For most people driving has been a lovehate relationship — traffic jams, accidents, noise — but overall, it has been an enduring and fascinating one. Growing up in the automobile capital of the world has its privileges.
Delphis Eddie DRIVEN.
Wright,
featured
in
“The only way to describe cars…is beautiful,” said Cam Collins. “Just the mere fact that so many things come together to make an automobile functional and then to get behind the wheel of a car and feel its power, is unbelievable. I think we take it for granted. “ On January 16, 2013, the North American International Auto Show and the city of Detroit will host a plethora of events surrounding a group of people who have made the relationship with automobiles possible. One event in particular, DRIVEN, honors African Americans who have not only withstood the onslaught of the recession and the automobile industry’s restructuring, but have thrived despite it. In the 1880s, the continental United States wasn’t even united. California, Oregon, and Nevada were states, but separated from their eastern counterparts by nine territories that would ultimately become 10 states. There were not yet cars, but the Indus-
See auto
industry page A-4
Council promises greater cooperation with mayor’s office in 2013 By Patrick Keating
saying he didn’t want to fight.
CHRONICLE STAFF WRITER
“So, that has really been kind of the new approach within the last month,” Pugh said, adding that the administration has realized that a viable plan needs to be produced and implemented over the next month or so.
In a meeting last month at the Michigan Chronicle, members of the Detroit City Council spoke on various issues. Council President Charles Pugh said he thinks there will be greater cooperation moving forward in discussions with the mayor’s office. He also said the program management director has worked harder to meet with council members individually about upcoming issues, and so has Jack Martin. Mayor Bing appointed Martin the city’s chief financial officer last spring.
www.michronicle.com
$1.00
Love for cars helped growth of Detroit automotive industry
WHAT’S INSIDE
Social scientists and policy makers have long understood the harmful effects that living in high poverty neighborhoods can have on children and adults. The HUD voucher program has not been the success its organizers had expected.
313.963.5522
479 Ledyard • Detroit MI 48201
“For instance, we’ve had this facilitation over the transitioning of the health department, really, without us, without our approval,” Pugh said. “And so we
“Because there’s no more time left,” he said. “So there has to be cooperation. They realize we’re not the enemy. We actually live here, and we are willing to not only approve what you send us, but also give good ideas on how to improve the whole process.”
Dave Bing
Charles Pugh
had a facilitation based on that. The outgoing COO was a part of that going around the council, and was going to be the mayor’s representative. So we were expecting an awful facilitation, just to go very poorly, because Chris Brown was going to be the rep-
resentative of the mayor’s office. Well, thank goodness Chris Brown got another job.” Mayor Bing had appointed Brown as the city’s chief operations officer in early 2011.
Pugh said Martin came in
Pugh expects there to be greater cooperation because A) of the urgency of the matter; and B) new people have the mayor’s ear about how to proceed. “That’s just my opinion,” he said. “I could be wrong.”
Councilman James Tate said
See promises page A-4