Happy Holidays POWERED BY REAL TIMES MEDIA
michiganchronicle.com
Volume 80 – Number 15
December 21-27, 2016
Detroit inspectors put apartment building owners on notice:
Fix your heat or face fines Michigan Chronicle reports
With temperatures dropping to single digits, City of Detroit building inspectors are putting apartment building owners on notice to have their heating systems working or face potential fines. The Building Safety, Engineering and Environmental Department (BSEED) is targeting 143 buildings that over the past year have been issued correction orders to address issues with their heating and cooling systems. Inspectors have been visiting the buildings to determine whether the ordered corrections have been made, and if they haven’t, owners will be issued a ticket and fined. “Inspectors try to visit buildings annually and will respond immediately to complaints of heating problems,” said David Bell, director of BSEED. His office is hiring seven additional inspectors to increase their capacity to visit all apartment buildings properties and is also accepting inspection reports from two inspection companies to visit one-two family dwellings so his BSEED team can focus more on multi-unit apartment and senior buildings. “Renters are often at the mercy of their landlords and so this is part of a stepped up effort to make sure the owners of these buildings are in compliance with their heating and cooling systems, as well as other important code and safety issues,” said Bell. “Our goal is to work with every property owner and to get them into compliance without tickets or fines. But if conditions warrant, we will take whatever steps are necessary to protect the occupants of a rental property.” How to report a problem property Any rental property resident who is experiencing heating problems or other serious issues at their building can contact BSEED by calling 313628-2451 or email propertymaintenance@detroitmi.gov. In January, BSEED will provide an
See HEAT page A-4
WHAT’S INSIDE
Wayne County Executive Warren C. Evans
2016 was good for Wayne County, but now comes 2017… By Keith A. Owens
of the top issues remaining as his administration moves toward its third year in 2017.
Senior Editor
Although quite a bit remains to be done before anyone would feel comfortable breaking out the champagne, it’s still safe to say that, overall, this has been a pretty good year for Wayne County Executive Warren Evans. Just over two years in office and he has already been named as the 2016 County Executive of the Year by the National Organization of Black County Officials (NOBCO) for his commendable accomplishments in getting the county back on track toward more sound financial footing. NOBCO Chairman Roy Brooks had this to say at the ceremony held earlier this year: “Wayne County Executive CEO Warren Evans came into office and hit the ground running. He took over a county whose structural deficit, and unfunded OPEB liability, was so high that the county was on the verge of state receivership. Sixteen months after taking the oath of office, Warren Evans reduced the county’s OPEB (Other Post Employment Benefits) unfunded liability by almost a billion dollars.” All of which is true. And under normal circumstances, this would probably be enough for Evans to be granted time to ride off into the sunset. But these are hardly normal circumstances for the country, let alone for Wayne County or Detroit. That being said, Evans agreed to discuss some
The Wayne County jail “He’s (Dan Gilbert) made up his mind that he’s going to make an offer. There’s no question about it,” Evans said. “If you could finish it (the jail) on the existing site and just be done with it, I’d be one of the happiest men in the world. I think the cheapest way to build is to complete it on the existing site. Cheapest to the taxpayers. So we’re in the range of $300 million is all I think Wayne County should have to pay. “It’s [the current jail site] the cheapest, it’s the quickest, I think. But Gilbert will have a proposal that will try to get as close to that number and then say, ‘But I’m going to build you all new stuff. Somewhere else.’ Because that’s the only way he can do it. I said I’m in for $300 million. I’m sure he’ll try and stretch that number a little bit, but what he’s going to say is ‘I’m going to build you a new jail from scratch. I’m going to build you a new courthouse from scratch. And I’m going to build you a new juvenile detention facility from scratch.” Warren said he suspects Gilbert may try to see if he can get Warren to come up with more money, but Warren says there’s “not much room to dance” because the money isn’t there. “But it is possible he’ll come in here
and say ‘OK. $300 million is what you’ve got? I’ll build you all new stuff for $300 million.’ Now I have to really consider it because of the possibility of an all-new facility as opposed to a half-finished facility. So I guess I’d say I’d never say never. But as of today, we’re negotiating with Walsh Construction which is the company that showed the interest in building it and we’re going with the premise that we’ll build it on that existing site.” However, “There is an IRS problem in that we borrowed money and we didn’t build a jail. And so, the previous administration was given breaks and they haven’t been used. So I don’t know what the outcome is, but there’s a potential penalty that could be significant for not doing what we said we were going to do the first time. That penalty becomes even more troublesome if we build on a different site [because the agreements were made for the current site]. And so the exposure could be up to $150 million.” This would mean that even if Gilbert says he’s going to build all new everything for $300 million, Evans still has to worry about the possibility of getting bitten for $150 million in IRS penalties later on and how to cover that. Which means that even after Gilbert [potentially] comes through with a deal offering all new everything for the desired $300 million price tag, Evans might still be forced to remain on the cur-
See WAYNE
COUNTY page A-4
Public Lighting Authority completes relighting of Detroit The relighting of Detroit, a city that just three years ago was in chronic darkness, has been completed on time and under budget.
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HOMEFRONT Magic, creativity and exploration inspire students around the holidays See page B-1
The Public Lighting Authority on Thursday, Dec. 15, installed the last of 65,000 new LED streetlights, completing a massive relighting program that began in February 2014 after Mayor Mike Duggan and Detroit City Council appointed a new board to lead the project. In 2013, the PLA, under its previous leadership, had installed only 500 new lights, which were of the older technology, sodium style. “For the first time in a generation, Detroiters can step outside at night anywhere in their city and have an expectation of a street lit to the national standard,” Mayor Duggan said. “They also can have the expectation that if a light goes out, it will be replaced within five days. This major accomplishment for our residents would not have been possible without the hard work of the professional staff and board we have at the PLA.” Prior to the start of the LED project, about 40 percent of the city’s streetlights did not work, including entire neighborhoods in some cases. To bring relief to residents as quickly as possible, the mayor worked with the PLA to reverse the original plan that called for lighting major thoroughfares first in order to light neighborhoods first and complete them a year earlier. The new plan also called for installing brighter and more energy-efficient LED lights, as opposed to the dimmer sodium lights.
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The replacement of lights began in the city’s darkest ZIP codes on the far east and
far west sides, and moved methodically across the city, eventually reaching the final destination: downtown Detroit. At a ceremony held at dusk just east of downtown at Atwater and Riopelle, Mayor Duggan, Gov. Rick Snyder, Shaun Donovan, president Obama’s budget director, Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones and other dignitaries joined with residents to turn on the last stretch of lights to be replaced in the city. Dr. Lorna Thomas, chairwoman of the Public Lighting Authority, said the celebration “is the culmination of three years of intense work that has brought order out of chaos with the city’s street lights and has
created an effective solution to an issue that has plagued the city for decades. When we began installing new LED streetlights in Detroit’s neighborhoods in February 2014, many people thought what we were trying to do was impossible because it had never been done, but we have done it. This an example of how government should work." “I’m proud of our staff and want to thank them for their dedication and long hours in relighting our city,” said Nicolette Carlone, CEO of the PLA. “Their hard work is recognized in completing this monumental project
See RELIGHTING
DETROIT page A-4