Sarah Cwiek

Detroit can just barely avoid running out of cash this fiscal year--if it implements some key measures.

That’s what the city’s finance officials told its financial advisory board on Monday.

The premise to avoid insolvency involves some immediate cuts, some deferred payments—and a few big “ifs.”

Some of those measures are so-called “structural changes,” like mandatory furlough days, layoffs, and possible pension and health care changes. Others defer payments or take one-time opportunities to grab
cash.

There’s some good news for the Detroit Public Schools in newly-released Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) scores.

42% of the district’s 3rd-through-8th graders scored “proficient or advanced” in reading. That’s up more than 6% from the prior year.

Math scores jumped more than 4%, with fewer than 15% of students rated proficient.

In most subjects, Detroit students’ gains outpaced state averages. But the district’s scores still remain well below state averages.

Roy Roberts, the district’s emergency financial manager, says that’s exactly the sort of progress people should expect at this point.
 

“If I had walked in here and said we’ve improved every class by 25%, you oughta call the FBI,” Roberts said. “It doesn’t happen that way. It’s incremental improvement.”

The number of Detroit students tested did drop more than 20% this year, though, as the district’s enrollment shrunk significantly. 

The state-run Education Achievement Authority took over 15 of the district’s lowest-performing schools last fall, leaving fewer kids in DPS. The district also has a dramatic long-term enrollment decline.

But that’s not the case at Dixon Elementary-Middle school on thecity’s far west side. That school has actually increased
enrollment—and posted some of the biggest gains citywide on this
year’s MEAP scores.

Principal Ora Beard took over the school three years ago. She says boosting student achievement in a school takes time—and lots of reaching out to students and parents to build trust.

“Our first year was totally building relationships,” said Beard. “And trying to get them to understand that we’re not here to fight you…we’re here to help you. And that’s what school’s got to be about.”

As tax season approaches, programs to assist low-income families with tax preparation are kicking into high gear.

That includes a program run by the Michigan Association of Certified Professional Accounts in Detroit.

Stewart Sakwa is an accountant and a volunteer with the program. He says many people don’t know that they qualify for certain federal and state tax credits if their incomes are below a certain level: $35,000 a year for individuals, and $50,000 a year for families.

“We provide tax preparation for low income individuals, to get them some tax credits and refunds they may not get otherwise,” said Sakwa. "It's extremely worthwhile."

The Tax Assistance has adopted the Detroit non-profit Focus: HOPE as the site where volunteers serve roughly 150 families over three weekends.

Sakwa says there are four main tax credits available to low-income people. On the federal level, there's the Earned Income Tax Credit and child tax credits for families. On the state level, homeowners qualify for the homestead tax credit and home heating credits.

The state of Michigan also offers an Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income working people. However, Governor Snyder and the legislature greatly reduced the amount of that tax credit in 2011--something critics say amounts to a 70% tax increase on the working poor.

Other volunteer groups, including the non-profit Accounting Aid Society, also assist low-income people in Detroit and southeast Michigan with tax preparation.

Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson struck a lot of triumphant notes during a sometimes-emotional state of the county speech Thursday night.

Patterson has been at the helm in Oakland County for decades.

At least one Detroit City Council member thinks that a deal to make Belle Isle into a state park can be salvaged.

The state took the deal off the table last week, after a majority of Council members declined to vote on it. Lansing had set the end of January as the deadline to finalize a lease agreement.

But Council President Pro-Tem Gary Brown says he thinks a deal can still get done if both sides are serious about it.

Brown used Governor Snyder's catch phrase when he suggested the Governor “use some relentless positive
action” to push the issue.

Noting that he supported the deal last week along with two others,  says three of his colleagues who voted against considering it are persuadable.

“There’s certainly enough time to ask my colleagues," Brown said.

"I mean, ask them what they need in this deal to change their vote. And then give it to
them. And make sure that the deal gets done.”

Governor Snyder pulled the deal off the table after the failed vote last week, saying that was a hard deadline the Michigan Department of Natural Resources needed to include Belle Isle in this year's state parks programming.

State officials could not be reached for comment on whether the Belle Isle deal could be revived.

The Detroit City Council on Tuesday approved articles of incorporation for a public lighting authority in the city.

The state legislature passed bills in December enabling the lighting authority. Detroit has chronic problems keeping many of its streetlights on, though no one can say for sure how many aren't working at any given time.

It allows Detroit to retain ownership of its lighting system, but lets the authority run it. The city currently has about 33,000 lights on its grid; DTE Energy has the other 55,000.

Now that Council has approved its articles of incorporation, the next steps are to find five Detroit residents to act as board members.

Council President Pro-Tem wants to move as quickly as possible to get the authority up and running—and get some of Detroit’s chronically-dark streets lit.
 

“We need to be out of the business of public lighting,” Brown said.

The authority has the ability to issue bonds to upgrade Detroit’s lighting infrastructure. The legislation also carves out $12.5 million of the city’s utility

The resolution passed over the objections of some Council members.

They’re concerned that streetlights will be turned off forever in some targeted neighborhoods—and taxpayers living there will foot the bill anyway.

“The corporation will make all the revenue and profit, while the taxpayers pay off the debt,” Council member JoAnn Watson said. “The city of Detroit’s proposal would only provide designated neighborhoods
with streetlights, but every taxpayer in the city will pay for it.”

Council member Ken Cockrel Jr. says there are “a lot of perfectly legitimate concerns” with the plan.

"But they probably should’ve been raised six months ago before we approved a resolution, sent it to the legislature, and got the legislature to create the authority,” Cockrel said. “You can’t turn back the clock at this point.”

One of the authority’s biggest decisions will be to decide how many of Detroit’s estimated 88,000 streetlights should remain on. That number—and where service is concentrated—are likely to be major points of contention in coming months.

The legislation calls for taking about 40,000 lights offline.

Volunteer groups in Detroit are still absorbing news that the city will stop maintaining about 50 parks in the spring.

It’s especially upsetting for the many neighborhood and volunteer groups that already work hard to help maintain those parks throughout the year.

A group of former Wayne State University law students make up the 313 Project. They semi-adopted Romanowski Park in southwest Detroit last summer for a “Motion to Makeover” last summer.

Director Aisa Berg says the group marshaled volunteers and nearly $30,000 to invest in upgrading the park. They installed trash cans, bike racks, picnic tables, and helped board and clean up houses surrounding the park

Since the makeover, Berg says she’s heard lots of positive feedback about improvements in the area. “It’s been great just driving around the park, seeing the park being used, whole families coming to the park to barbecue,” Berg says.

Romanowski is one of the parks the city plans to stop maintaining in the spring. But Berg says the group will stick with the park because they’ve “come too far to go back.” But she calls the planned closure “a shame.”

“In a lot of ways, it seems that the city has turned its back on these efforts,” Berg says. She says it would be “wonderful” if the group could develop a more formal relationship with the city to maintain the park.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing announced the park closures last week, after the Detroit City Council effectively rejected a deal that would have made Belle Isle into a state park.

Bing says that deal would have saved the city $6 million that they had counted on to invest in other parks and rec centers. But since that’s no longer possible, they’re being forced to close parks, and maintain others less frequently.

That includes parts of Rouge Park, Detroit’s largest park at nearly 1200 acres on its far west side. Part of the park will be closed, while another portion will be maintained regularly as a so-called “premier” city park.

That’s upsetting news to the Friends of Rouge Park, a group that’s worked to protect and restore the park since 2002.

Sally Petrella is the group’s President. She says they’ve been working on a master plan for the park—and have been trying to leverage that to get additional money.

“Which is part of what makes us really disappointed to hear that the mayor wants to shut down the park,” Petrella said. “It really puts a damper on efforts like that, where we’re actually working to bring more money to the park.”

Petrella says the park is too large for a volunteer group to maintain on their own—there needs to be at least some small budget allocation just to cut the grass.

Still, Petrella is hopeful they can reach some kind of deal to keep the whole park open.

“We need to come together and say these parks are important,” Petrella said. Like we did with the zoo, like we did with the DIA.

“These are resources, assets that we all benefit from, but we need to find a way to foot the bill.”

Monday would have been civil rights’ icon Rosa Parks’ 100th birthday.

Her legacy was honored with a National Day of Courage—and a day-long program at Dearborn’s Henry Ford museum.

Parks’ was remembered as a “social innovator”—someone whose commitment to civil rights and democracy continues to inspire countless people.

The US Senate unanimously passed a resolution last month honoring Parks, and Michigan Senator Carl Levin was on hand at the Henry Ford to read it.

Levin also helped unveil a new US Postal Service stamp bearing Parks’ profile, and the word “forever.” “Because Rosa Parks’ values, and her courage, will inspire us and this world forever,” Levin said.

Parks migrated to Detroit in the late 1950s, and lived the rest of her life there. The Henry Ford houses the Montgomery, Alabama bus where Parks famously refused to give up her seat

Former Henry Ford President Steven Hamp says that’s just one reason why it’s an appropriate home for that piece of history.

“Detroit has had such a fascinating part to play in the civil rights story,” Hamp said. “And because it really was the endpoint of so much of the great migration, the bus really kind of rounds that story out in a really powerful way.”

Detroit firefighters have won the right to subpoena and depose top members of Mayor Dave Bing’s administration.

The firefighters union is suing the city. They say that decisions to close firehouses have jeopardized public safety in violation of the city charter and national fire protection standards—and have left targeted areas of the city virtually without adequate service.

Detroit Firefighters Association President Dan McNamara says they’re “looking for the decision-makers,” and they want them under oath.

The city of Detroit will close 50 parks in the spring because of the City Council’s inaction on a proposal to make Belle Isle into a state park.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing says that would have freed up about $6 million for the city to invest in other parks and recreation centers—and that effectively means $6 million they’d counted on to bolster other park services have disappeared.

So the city is responding by making cuts: closing 50 parks, limiting maintenance at another 38, and canceling plans to extend rec center hours and add 50 employees.

General Motors is expanding its Global Powertrain Engineering Headquarters in Pontiac, and consolidating some major research and development operations there.

The company says investing $200 million in a new test wing there will allow them to bring work that’s being done all over the country under one roof, and move faster in developing next-generation powertrain technologies.

A plan to turn Detroit’s Belle Isle into a state park appears dead.

The Detroit City Council declined to vote on a lease proposal for the island park Tuesday. Now, Governor Snyder’s officer says the state has pulled the offer because the city won’t meet an end-of-the-month deadline.

Caleb Buhs, a spokesman for the Governor’s office, says the deal needed to be finalized by then so the Michigan Department of Natural Resources could make funding and programming arrangements for the upcoming fiscal year.

The idea faced fierce opposition from the get-go.

President Obama and federal lawmakers are announcing new plans for major immigration reform this week.

That comes as activists from Michigan and around the country are preparing for a major immigrant rights march in Washington, D.C. this spring.

There are an estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally, and an estimated 100,000 in Michigan. Advocates hope to send at least 250 affected families from across the state to the “Keep Families Together” march on April 10th.

Congressman Gary Peters, a Democrat representing Detroit and much of Oakland County, says he’s hopeful that event can capitalize on growing public pressure for immigration reform.

“I think if most Americans can hear these compelling stories of people trapped in a dysfunctional immigration system, and the types of problems it’s created for their families…the American people will not
believe that’s an acceptable system,” Peters said.

Peters says he’s “cautiously optimistic” that real immigration reform is possible, despite likely fierce opposition in the Republican-dominated U.S. House.

A bipartisan group of Senators and President Obama are releasing frameworks for such reform this week.

Immigration reform advocates are cautiously hailing the Senate framework on some key points. They’re happy it includes a so-called “earned path to citizenship” for those now in the country illegally.

Detroit resident Cindy Garcia will attend the April march with her family. She’s fought successfully to prevent her husband, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, from being deported.

“Because if I can do it for myself, and my family, I can do it for the eleven other million families. Because when I stand here and tell my story, it’s not just for me,” Garcia said.

“I have to think of other children being separated from their families, and it’s not fair.”

Some students, parents, and education advocates from Detroit and Highland Park will testify at a federal hearing in Washington this week.

They are part of a nationwide group speaking out against changes in Detroit and other poor school districts.

The group alleges that some of the measures, particularly closing neighborhood schools, have “sabotaged and destabilized” education for many children.

Helen Moore is with the Detroit-based group Keep the Vote-No Takeover.

She said the group wasn’t getting far fighting these measures at the local level.

It appears that a plan to turn Detroit’s Belle Isle into a state park will be voted on next week. But it’s far from clear how that vote will turn out.

The plan calls for the state to lease Belle Isle from Detroit for 30 years, and have the Michigan Department of Natural Resources manage it as a state park.

The Detroit Public Schools plans to shrink even more to wipe out its deficit by 2016.

The district’s latest deficit elimination plan projects that enrollment will dip below 40,000 by then.
And in order to “stay ahead of the cost curve,” emergency financial manager Roy Roberts proposes some drastic cuts—including closing as many as 28 more schools, and cutting more than 1000 employees.

The Detroit Police Department is launching a major re-organization to put more officers on the street.

On Wednesday, Detroit mayor Dave Bing and police officials finally unveiled the plan that’s been in the works for awhile.

An Ohio woman who was arrested and strip searched at Detroit Metro Airport says her constitutional rights were violated.

The Michigan ACLU has now filed a federal lawsuit on Shoshanna Hebshi’s behalf.

Flying from California to Detroit on September 11, 2011, Hebshi says she was seated next to two men she didn’t know or speak to during the flight.

Those men were accused of behaving suspiciously during the flight. When they landed at Metro, Hebshi and the two men were arrested.

“I can only gather that I was targeted and forced at gunpoint off that
plane, handcuffed, and taken into custody for hours because of my ethnic name, and an arbitrary seat assignment,” said Hebshi, who is of
mixed Saudi Arabian and Eastern European-Jewish descent.

Hebshi and the ACLU are now suing federal agencies, airport officials
and Frontier Airlines. They allege her story is an example of
unconstitutional racial discrimination leading to false arrest and
imprisonment.

“I’m extremely concerned about my children growing up in a country
where your skin color and name can put your rights at risk,” Hebshi
said.

ACLU attorney Sarah Mehta says there have been a number of lawsuits
alleging racial discrimination against airlines since the September
11th, 2001 attacks.

“Generally, though, those claims have been about people being pulled off of planes for suspicious activity,” Mehta said. “What is unique about our client is that there are no allegations whatsoever about her involvement in anything suspicious.”

Hebshi is seeking monetary damages, and the court’s declaration that
her constitutional rights were violated.

Events in Washington Monday honored President Obama’s inauguration, and the Martin Luther King Day holiday.

The two events also meshed at Detroit’s Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, where a few dozen people came to the Wright Museum to watch a live broadcast of President Obama’s second inauguration.

Detroit Public Schools worked to draw district alumni back to their
old schools for this Martin Luther King Day.

Thirty schools across the city are participating in the national day
of service, and former students are invited to join in.

Spokesman Steve Wasko said the district was searching for a way to
draw DPS alumni back to their former schools.