Black Mothers You Can Have It All Roots. A3
Michigan Chronicle
Vol. 85 – No. 29 | March 23-29, 2022
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Coalition Group Endorses Adam Hollier By Andre Ash A crowed field of candidates are vying for the 13th Congressional District. Wayne County Executive Warren Evans recently created a coalition of Detroit-area political elite to select their “consensus candidate” and for Black representation. After a transparent interview process of candidates, the Legacy Committee for Unified Leadership announced state senator Adam Hollier as their preferred choice. “If we split of the vote too far, we as people of color will have a situation where we will be the only state with this significant of an African American population that does not have a representative in Congress,” said County Executive Evans. “Most of us have been around long enough to know that is very disconcerting to us.”
Detroit Public Schools’ $700M Proposed Investments in District Renovations
Adam Hollier
By Sherri Kolade
The group of over 50 community members ranging from religious, business, political officials, and labor unions are standing in solidarity to support Hollier who they believe will represent the interest of Black Detroiters in Congress and gain supporters of the suburban Detroit community as well. “We are together as a result of a consensus to support an individual whose record, knowledge and preparedness is what the hour calls for,” said Rev. Wendell Anthony, pastor of Fellowship Chapel. “Our nation is at a crossroads. The Congress of the United States is often in log jam and entrenched in ideological quagmires of inaction. What is needed in the 13th Congressional District and in the city of Detroit is one who possess the energy, the knowledge and the readiness to engage the Congress on day 1.” The crowed race includes, son the late congressman John Conyers Jr., John Conyers lll, former Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee Jr., Detroit School board member Sherry Gay-Dagnogo and a host of others. “This is everybody saying they are going to stand with me,” said state senator Adam Hollier. “This is an incredibly diverse district... this is a district where people need to know I am fully committed. As the only candidate with military service, I understand how important it is to continue to work those relationships and to build on them. This is a new district where the representative, hopefully me, understands their unique challenges and get to know them.” The primary will occur on August 2, 2022. The general election will occur on November 8, 2022.
*The Michigan Chronicle is discussing the Detroit Public Schools Community District’s (DPSCD) $700 million renovation project in this two-part series. In this first installment, we lay the groundwork for the motivation behind DPSCD’s building advancements from the district’s viewpoint. In the second installment, we learn from a student leader what this move means.
WHAT’S INSIDE
A multimillion-dollar investment by the Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) would mean new opportunities for a district with aging buildings in desperate need of facelifts. A recent DPSCD announcement unveiled a proposed Facility Master Plan for the future of school building use in Detroit, according to a press release. The plan is the next phase of the commitment to continue the process of rebuilding the District after Emergency Management through improved school buildings. “One of the first things I observed during the superintendent interview process in 2017 was the overall low condition of school buildings. Over the last four years, I am proud of the fact that the district experienced facility investments for the first time in over a decade through unspent expenditures, but this was simply putting a band-aid on a life-threatening wound. Access to federal relief funding provides us now with an opportunity to make a substantial short- and long-term investment in our school buildings that paves the way to a broader investment plan to right-size the district and provide each employee and student with a school building they deserve,” said Dr. Nikolai Vitti, superintendent, DPSCD. The Facility Master Plan provides
The Historic Little Rock Baptist Church in Detroit is in a season of a refresh.
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Sonya Mays, president & CEO of Develop Detroit Inc. and also a member of the Detroit school board, told the Michigan Chronicle that the money will extensively help building facilities, keep students safe and provide even more PPE. “We also saw an opportunity to use some of that funding and create a better physical environment for students,” Mays said, adding that this is to help students overcome some pandemic-related challenges. “Some of our schools don’t have modern heating and cooling systems so the ventilation can be better.” Mays added that the school district is also evaluating endemic measures along with the standards of how they respond to “COVID shifting over time.” “A lot has happened over the last several weeks in terms of CDC recommendations,” she said, adding that some of the schools have a large and growing population that needs more than a little TLC, which the funding will assist. “We took a look at all of that and decided to allocate $700 mil-
lion of our federal dollars toward building facilities.” The plan will support maximizing utilization of district school buildings, improving the overall condition of schools through some new school buildings and renovations focused on HVAC, roofs and masonry. It will also place significant investment in the expansion of Pre-K to strengthen feeder pattern enrollment. All the recommendations will be explained and vetted by internal and external stakeholders through seven public meetings, three of which will be in person. The feedback from those meetings will hone the district’s plan and lead to a final recommendation to the School Board for the $700M investment in facilities by June 2022. The highlights of the recommended Facility Master Plan include: • Upgrading the District schools’ overall FCI rating from 40 (deficient) to 28 (fair) by 2027 with a $700 million set of investments. • Improving overall District utilization rate from 71 percent to 81 percent. • $281 million in new school buildings, $35 million to reactivate school buildings for Pre-K and schools to address overcrowding, $82 million to add new buildings on existing school campuses to address overcrowding and improve enrollment, $296 million to renovate school buildings district-wide with a focus on HVAC systems, roofs, and masonry and $11 million to demolish school buildings that will be deactivated. • Plans to reactive, sell or preserve each of the district’s unused school buildings and properties.
See RENOVATIONS page A2
New Pastor Leads Historic Little Rock Baptist Church in Detroit By Sherri Kolade
Find Your BAE By Following the Stars
a 20-year facilities’ vision and investment plan for the district. The district requires $2 billion to upgrade all school buildings to a “good” rating based on a Facilities Condition Index (FCI), which determines the extent of facility investment to restore a building to its best operational level. The district recommends investing $700 million by 2027 as it works to acquire access to equitable state funding to address its long-term facility needs. The plan seeks to protect neighborhood schools and feeder patterns, placing students in the best school building possible with the review of FCI, current enrollment, local demographic studies and school building utilization.
Not only is that this year’s church theme, but it’s a growing movement for the church and congregation as it transitioned from Dr. Reverend Jim Holley’s retirement this past January, after a 50-year tenure of pastoring and faithfully shepherding the church. At a special congregational meeting, Sunday, October 3, (after about two years of searching for a pastor) the Historic Little Rock Baptist Church officially selected Rev. Antoine Colvin as its new senior pastor. Rev. Colvin, who hails from Columbus, Miss., said that the church’s Pastoral Transition
Committee (made up of 11 church members) invited him to come back last fall during the finalizing of the interviews where he was later officially selected by the church.
the ministry at Historic Little Rock are very affirming,” Pastoral Transition Committee Chairperson Dr. Lynda Jeffries said in a press release. Rev. Colvin told the Michigan Chronicle recently that he is “thankful” for the opportunity to lead this Rev. Antoine Colvin is historic church.
“Through our intentional process of prayer, discernment, interviewing, reviewing references, and more dis- the senior pastor at Little “It was just a cernment, we [felt] Rock Baptist Church in confirmation for guided by the Holy Detroit. Photo courtesy of Little me to what God Spirit and confi- Rock Baptist Church in Detroit had shared with dent that this canme, [in] my spirit,” didate possesses the qualities he said. “It [is] just a great opporand strengths required of this tunity for me to actually fulfill position and church family. Rev. the vision that God had placed Colvin’s clarity of responses, on my heart and serving the ability to vision and his love for
people of God, which was essentially connecting communities to Christ.” Rev. Colvin’s education includes a Bachelor of Science in Communication from Towson University in Maryland, and a Master of Divinity with Honors in Biblical Studies from Howard University School of Divinity in Washington, D.C. He is also currently enrolled in the Master of Social Work program at Temple University. Rev. Colvin began his ministry as Youth Pastor and Men’s Ministry Leader at New Unity Baptist Church Ministries in Baltimore, Md., among numerous other positions held at various churches. Rev. Colvin and his wife, Errin, and their two sons, Andrew and Austin, now call Detroit their
See NEW
PASTOR page A2