Detroit thread. Post Kwame, Monica, and $1 houses here.

[Savonarola]

The Detroit Public Schools has its own public radio station.  They have PSAs on telling how many opportunities await students at DPS

on many levels.

Not every school system can teach you how to jack cars and perform a drive-by.


Seriously, Detroit is a huge school system and even with the graft, they can offer programs that the suburbs districts can't (you can get your pilot's license at DPS, for instance.)  Some of their magnet schools are supposed to be decent.  Kwame (and Christina Beatty) went to the science magnet high school, Cass Tech, and the school system just opened a school for the arts (like "Fame" in Detroit.)  Most of the schools are awful, of course and since we have charter schools and school of choice in Michigan many families have taken their children out of the district.  The PSAs are mostly to try to discourage students from leaving the district.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Mugabe should be brought over to take over.  He could do a better job and probably be more honest about it. 

[Savonarola]

Apparently lauging at the plight of Detroit makes one racist now.   

I'm a good person, but Languish has led me astray:

.Sunday, October 11, 2009 .Laura Berman
Rush-ing to judgment: National commentators don't understand Detroit's plight

They came in droves.

By 10 a.m. Wednesday, Cobo Center was drawing a bigger crowd than you could squeeze into Comerica Park for a free Eminem concert.

All that was in the air was a whiff of hope -- the promise of help -- and that hope drew tens of thousands, so many people that 150 police officers arrived on the scene to contain people. There was jostling, minor injuries and the frenzy of a crowd excited about rumored promises that weren't going to be delivered.

What was just as predictable as Detroit's chaotic botched application process for Detroiters seeking access to federal stimulus dollars was the national and international response: Laughter.

Nobody laughs at Indonesians buried under rubble. They don't sneer at hurricane victims whose houses float away. But to the media conservatives who feed on the despair of the poor, Detroit's economic Katrina is an opportunity to stir up the rabble. In this week's case, it created a rush to Google and YouTube and provided fodder for fringe hate groups.

"Detroit's Model Citizens Line Up for Money from Obama's 'Stash' " is the way Rush Limbaugh's Web site headlined a story about the stampede for grant applications at Cobo. Two breathless days of commentary were devoted to the appalling greed of broke Detroiters. He also nationally aired WJR-AM's (950) onsite interview with a Detroit woman who explained she'd come to Cobo for "Obama money."

"Where did he get it?" asks WJR reporter Ken Rogulski.

"I don't know, his stash," the woman responds. "I don't know where he got it from, but he's giving it to us, to help us."

She added: "We love him. That's why we voted for him."

How did this woman's anticipation and excitement become a trigger for ridicule? For contempt and loathing?

From that brief exchange, Limbaugh extracted a wealth of knowledge about this anonymous woman. He went on to describe her as "dumb, uninformed, shockingly, saddeningly stupid, the model citizen for Barack Obama."

The truth is that her answer wasn't stupid: She believed she had a chance to qualify for assistance from the federal government. She received an application.

But she said, "Obama money," a phrase that he uses to then disparage the entire mass of people in attendance, people he assumes lack all good qualities, from work ethic to intelligence to education. Those are qualities he and his audience apparently share automatically, by virtue of their enjoying of his program and their shared ability to sneer at desperation.

This spirit -- of denunciation and contempt for poor, black people -- has been picked up by white supremacist sites that are unapologetically and openly racist.

Big surprise.

If Limbaugh came to Metro Detroit, he could visit virtually any street in any suburb and find unemployed engineers and teachers and executives who would happily walk to city hall for legally available grant money.

He could find hard-working, well-educated white people who have lost their jobs and whose seemingly guaranteed futures -- the reward for all those years of enterprise -- just ran out of warranty.

Why not sneer at them? Because most of them might become "us" at any moment? Because "we" need a "them" to keep the yawning abyss at bay?

I don't know WJR's hopeful woman whose sin is admitting on-air that she "loves" Obama. He's a United States president who signed a bill, passed by Congress, that may help her pay rent and utilities for a few months, assuming she qualifies for Detroit's $15.2 million share of $1.2 billion in grant money being doled out to 535 communities.

"The large number of people seeking to apply for this program demonstrates the breadth of the recession here in Detroit, and in the region," said a statement released by the mayor's office Friday.

Beyond her big moment, this woman is unlikely to receive a piece of the grant money: Only about 3,400 Detroit residents will get assistance. Already, the city has received 25,000 applications.

Everyone's had their fun at the expense of an impoverished city and a woman whose enthusiasm eclipsed her common sense.

Still, would a white woman's need seem quite so funny? Would Rush and Glenn Beck and the far-right-race-supremacists lagging just behind still leap to insult?

Poverty and despair aren't funny, of course. But hope? In Detroit?

[garbon]

I hope I don't become an unemployed Detroiter any time soon.

[Savonarola]

Bing tries to throw his upcoming election:

The delusions that Detroiters can no longer afford to indulge
BY DAVE BING

It is both amazing and unfortunate that many fail or refuse to understand a reality that is staring us all in the face. We are in a modern day recession. The lines at resource and assistance initiatives mirror those of soup lines of days we thought were long gone. Businesses that we thought would be around forever have shuttered their doors and windows, and our bad numbers -- unemployment, illiteracy -- continue to rise as our good numbers -- population, graduation and revenue -- plummet.

A city whose numbers once danced near 2 million now hangs by a thread of 900,000. This is a major contributor to our declining tax base and revenue sharing appropriation. This means that doing what we did then no longer works -- or is affordable.

We must make the tough but necessary changes. We can't operate an entire bus line for a couple of riders; we can't employ every resident, and we can no longer afford the perks once demanded by the unions. Times have changed. And now, we must do the same.

To unions that refuse to compromise for the sake of their membership, employees that refuse to give 200% to delivering quality and uncompromised service, to vendors who won't agree to a break in payments and to those who expect more, I say: We can't.

My critics have chided me for the decision that I have made. Yet they have failed to say how they will do otherwise. At some point, logic has to replace emotion and we all move forward in the best interest of the city and its residents. With an inherited deficit of nearly $300 million, the situation is not a good one.

The reality is that we have recycled and applied Band-Aids to wounds that required surgery. Yet, now that we attempt to resurrect a city that is on life support, many are fighting our efforts every step of the way.

I am not a politician. I did not take this job to do anything more than to help a city that I have supported for more than half of my life. I am aware of and sensitive to the needs and challenges of a diverse community. Yet, if I fail to do what I know will have short-term pain but be best in the long run, then I have failed those who put their faith in my leadership. If I don't, I will have failed, but so, ultimately, will the city.

It is not enjoyable to make decisions that impact the lives and livelihoods of others. Compromise is at the table, and we must all share in its sometimes bitter taste. But this is our reality; a reality that has been here for a long time, but cloaked in political rhetoric and the shuffling of figures and facts.

Detroit deserves better. First and foremost, it deserves the truth. We might not want to hear it or embrace it, but it is staring us all in the face. We can approach it head-on with a strategic approach and focused outlook, or we can close our eyes and simply hope for the best.

Dave Bing is mayor of Detroit.

He's right about everything in this; but that's not the voters want to hear.  I hope that he's re-elected and can continue his work, but the city unions could well end his career.

[Savonarola]

And here is the Rush Limbaugh clip referenced in the above article:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKb78kJhaMw

WARNING:  CLIP CONTAINS RUSH LIMBAUGH!  LISTENER DISCRETION IS ADVISED!

[Savonarola]

Police car cameras fail city

Millions wasted on system that leaves Detroit vulnerable to lawsuits

David Josar and George Hunter / The Detroit News

Detroit -- The Police Department has spent more than $18.5 million since 2001 on an in-car camera system so ineffective that the top brass this spring told the Justice Department they should "tear it out at the roots in order to start from scratch," according to internal documents.

The total cost could be higher. But police can't find all invoices for the mishmash of cameras and computers that are plagued with image and audio problems. They work less than 17 percent of the time, according to confidential reports and internal records obtained by The Detroit News.

Police Chief Warren Evans plans to announce improvements today to the system that a federal report in June claimed is so bad "its most common use today is a platform to play solitaire." Two years ago, the city tried to solve the problem by buying equipment that was already obsolete. In May, police brass suggested fixing the cameras by using Velcro, briefcases and cigarette lighters to jury-rig incompatible hardware to squad cars, according to reports.

"With such low expectations that the system will work, few officers appear to use the technology in their daily patrol activities," according to a June 1 report commissioned by the U.S. Justice Department. "The current technology cannot be salvaged."

The reports highlight the city's struggles to make basic changes required by a 2003 federal consent decree to settle lawsuits about police brutality and jail conditions. The city has spent $13 million on monitoring costs alone and met 39 percent of goals imposed by the Justice Department.

The federal agency required cameras be immediately implemented in all patrol cars to record vehicle stops, consents for searches and use of police dogs. At least 72 percent of the nation's police agencies have video cameras, according to an International Association of Chiefs of Police report in 2003, the most recent report available.

Detroit's system is "pointless" and "non-responsive," leaving the city vulnerable to false accusations about cops and frivolous lawsuits that cost millions of dollars each year, according to the Justice Department report from June obtained by The News through the Freedom of Information Act.

The city spent $15 million trying to solve the problems in May 2008, after investing nearly $1 million in 2001 and another $2.5 million in 2004. As recently as August, Evans called the cameras "junk" that "don't work."

"It has been a mess," Evans told the Board of Police Commissioners.

Saul Green, a mayoral aide who oversees public safety, said he's confident Evans can salvage much of the equipment. Evans released a statement Monday night saying he'll announce a "major breakthrough" today for the "long-troubled system," but his spokesman wouldn't elaborate on the plans.

"As bad as the history has been, right now I feel where we are today and based on where we were in June, this is a good news story," Green said. "I am very, very pleased on what we have done in 120 days."

The Justice Department wrote a step-by-step memo to Detroit officials in June, instructing them on how to solicit contractors that could fix the cameras. The city has yet to act, but Green said proposals will be distributed "very soon."

Dates, lighting are issues
Video cameras not only protect the public from rogue cops. They protect police -- and cities -- from false claims of brutality and may even put crooks in jail faster.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police estimates 93 percent of complaints against officers are dismissed after reviewing video evidence. And 94 percent of defendants plead guilty before trial in cases that involve video, according to the group.

But the tool isn't available in Detroit, which has lost $116 million in settlements and court judgments against the Police Department from 2002 to 2007, the most recent years of data.

"The problem in Detroit is that video evidence is rarely available," said David Robinson, a former Detroit police officer and attorney who has filed several misconduct lawsuits against the department.

"We ask for the video all the time and we never get it."

Police Officer John Bennett, a candidate for the City Council, calls cameras an insurance policy. "It protects the officer against accusations that may not be true," he said. "That's huge, especially in this day and time when you have people willing to sue the police for any and everything."

But only 37 of 212 squad cars were able to download usable video in an April 24 test by Lt. Dale A. Greenleaf of the city's Office of Civil Rights, according to an internal report. Just one of 21 traffic enforcement cars had working cameras, while none did among the nine cars at the city's Northeast District, according to the reports.

As bad as the findings were, the Department of Justice thought Greenleaf's study was too optimistic. In a June 1 review, it deemed some of the video from supposedly working cameras too dark or improperly dated.

Vendor installation skipped
The city's problems with the cameras precede federal oversight of the police.

In 2001, two years before the decree, Detroit paid Mobile Vision of New Jersey $854,080 for roughly 220 cameras. The city hoped to save money on the units that cost about $3,800 apiece by having city workers install them. At the time, the company was charging $100 an hour for installation.

Usually, municipalities pay extra for the installation to avoid problems, said John Powers, a spokesman for the company that has provided more than 65,000 systems in 5,000 departments nationwide.

"Once we delivered the equipment to the city, it was out of our hands," he said.

The city tried to overhaul the system in May 2008, awarding a $15 million, no-bid contract to install prototypes to 200 cars. The contract, which went to Bob Maxey Ford and Great Lakes Service Center, was criticized by the Justice Department for "multiple failures," including faulty wiring and bad video. Calls to both companies weren't returned.

One year after the contract, a consultant for the Justice Department spot-checked eight squad cars. None could upload or record video.

Other problems documented in the reports: Many cameras can download incident footage only through wireless Internet networks, which takes three hours; the city has resisted calls to buy computer systems from one vendor, preferring instead to issue contracts and build the systems piecemeal; when the system does make recordings, the images are time-stamped incorrectly or there is no audio; and one of the prototypes the city is testing was deemed "expensive" and only applicable to military vehicles.

'This would help both sides'
Detroit's problem with cameras is illustrated in a lawsuit involving the June 2, 2008, death of Tommie Staples.

He was shot by two officers, who claim he had a gun. His family, which is suing for $525,000, claims the weapon was planted after Officers Darron Townsend and Steven Kopp used their squad car to run him down in an alley and shoot him.

A video could help resolve the accounts, but even though the squad car was supposed to be equipped with cameras, the city maintains it can't find a video of the incident, according to court records.

"This would help both sides," said Robinson, who represents Staples' family. "If you want justice, you have video cameras that work."

[Savonarola]

Another Travel with Charlie:

Cass Corridor isn't what it used to be
Charlie LeDuff / The Detroit News
Detroit -- Upon being buzzed through the iron door of the Temple Hotel, a visitor is greeted by a rendering of Jesus of the Sacred Heart. There is another painting of the Crucifixion. A quick appraisal of the library shelves reveals four dusty volumes of the Holy Bible.

But this is where the comparisons between the Temple Hotel and a holy sanctuary end. Located in the middle of the Cass Corridor -- a highly unrecommended quarter of the city long notorious for narcotics traffic and ladies of the evening -- the Temple is one of corridor's last "minute hotels," where rooms are let by the hour.

And after visiting on a late Friday evening, it is safe to surmise that the only virgin in the Temple Hotel is the icon of the Virgin Mary hanging near the desk of the maitre d' -- Robert Rayis.

"I'm running a deal," says Rayis to a customer coming out of Room No. 15. "You can have it for five dollars off the second hour."

The man gladly accepts.

Nevertheless, the red-light special has not translated into an excess of clientele. Fact of the matter is, the Cass Corridor, like so much else, has gone dead. Blame it on the bad economy (even the poor are returning to the South). Blame it on escort services available at the click of a mouse. Blame it on the proliferation of strip joints and dope houses around the rest of the city. Any way you measure, the Cass Corridor is no longer the elite destination for ill repute. The Temple is the last joint on the block.

"I myself am in need of some charity," Rayis said glumly with his feet on the desk, his hands folded behind his head. A game show was playing on the television. "This area just ain't what they used to be, bro."

Things have gotten so slow that the waterbed in No. 15 has been removed since no one can afford to pay the extra $5. "It didn't make economical sense," Rayis said, leading a late-night tour of his establishment. Located east of the historic Masonic Temple at Park Street, the hotel was purchased by Rayis and his brother, Basil, in 1987 for $50,000 cash and the other $20,000 on payment. The place was a cash cow.

"Man, it was popping and rocking, thousands of dollars a night," Rayis said, lighting a cigarette at the memory of it. "We had a few issues here. Someone shot a bullet through the window once and someone, one time, threw a Molotov cocktail through the plate glass. I had a couple threats to my life, but it was never nothing serious. You slap guys around, you point a gun at their eyes, you let them know you're going toe-to-toe and pretty soon, you got your respect."

Catholics who were raised in the Christian corner of Baghdad, Robert and Basil used to make a nifty living in the '80s and '90s with people wrapped around the block in need of a room, if even for just a few minutes.

"The things I seen, the human nature of it. I had a guy here who was in love with a girl and begged me to let him hide in the closet and watch while she was working. The poor dope, the john came out and bought an extra hour. When he came out of that closet he was a hunchback."

Now with Basil back in Iraq serving as an interpreter for the U.S. Army, Robert is the sole proprietor of a half-empty hotel, ministering to people with half-empty lives drawing on Social Security checks.

A woman in No. 25 who has three children came to stay for three days and has been here for three months. The television plays deep into the night.

Eddie in No. 23 also has been here for three months and is working on a couple of short stories.

Washington lives in No. 16 and has been here as long as the plastic-covered couches. He sees dead bodies nobody else seems to see.

An old white man watches TV in No. 20.

As for No. 36, it's better not to ask, Robert said.

There are 29 rooms in all (the numbers don't start with No. 1). The cost is $350 a month. The bathrooms are communal and management recently spent $3,000 to have the place deloused.

What Rayis waits for now is a miracle: someone willing to pay him millions of dollars for his little grotto in the ghetto.

"I'd like to get out. Sometimes I look at my life and I wonder what I'm doing here," he said, sweeping the ashes off his desk. "And then again I think, why not? Don't judge, not even yourself. After all, Christ himself was hanging around with criminals and prostitutes."

The place fell eerily silent, except for the drone of Pat Sajak.

Then Washington appeared like a ghost.

"Hey, Washington!" Rayis hollered.

"Clean up 15. I'll make it worth your while. And don't come back here telling me you seen someone dead in there."

My first job out of college involved driving around the city of Detroit and monitoring our cellular network.  We had some engineers in from Columbus, Ohio helping us at one point.  One time one of the bumpkin engineers from Columbus was out riding with one of the Detroit engineers, Don, who was raised on Detroit's southwest side.  They were down on Cass Corridor when they saw a scantily clad woman shivering in a cold Detroit February morning.  Their conversation went as follows:

Bumpkin:  What's that?

Don:  That's a hooker.

Bumpkin:  A hooker?  It's ten in the morning.

Don:  This is Detroit, that's a 24/7 business here.

I never thought I'd see the no-tell motels in Detroit fail.  Times really are tough here.   

[Savonarola]

Mother of the year, Detroit style:

Mom didn't drive son to rec center, lawyer says
BY AMBER HUNT
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

The Detroit mother accused of helping her 15-year-old son kill a 19-year-old outside a recreation center did not drive him to the crime as police initially claimed, the woman's lawyer said Thursday.

"Things aren't what they say they are," Lillian Diallo said, referring to prosecutors, who allege that Tarranisha Davis met her son at the Considine Little Rock Family Center on Woodward and unlatched the hood to her van so he could retrieve a .32-caliber revolver stashed in the engine compartment.

"She did not drive him there," Diallo said after Davis, 35, was arraigned in 36th District Court on a first-degree murder charge. "What is in the investigators' report is not what's been in the papers. ... There's more to the story."

Diallo said she couldn't comment further.

Davis' son, Tremaine Davis, was arraigned Wednesday on murder charges. He's charged as an adult in the case.

"We stand by what we have released to the media," Maria Miller, spokeswoman for the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office, said Thursday in an e-mail to the Free Press seeking a response to Diallo's comments. "The evidence will be presented in court to support our case."

Soon after the Oct. 8 shooting death, police said the mother had driven her son to the recreation center. But Prosecutor Kym Worthy said Wednesday that Tarranisha Davis met her son outside, then popped the hood of her van to allow him to retrieve the gun.

Authorities said the victim, Dmitri Jackson, was an innocent bystander caught by a bullet meant for someone Tremaine Davis had fought with earlier in the day.

After Davis opened fire, he and his mother fled the scene in the family van, police said.

A preliminary exam was set for Oct. 26 for Tarranisha Davis. An exam for her son is set for Nov. 6.

At least she stayed involved in her child's hobbies.    

[garbon]

My first job out of college involved driving around the city of Detroit and monitoring our cellular network.  We had some engineers in from Columbus, Ohio helping us at one point.  One time one of the bumpkin engineers from Columbus was out riding with one of the Detroit engineers, Don, who was raised on Detroit's southwest side.  They were down on Cass Corridor when they saw a scantily clad woman shivering in a cold Detroit February morning.  Their conversation went as follows:

Bumpkin:  What's that?

Don:  That's a hooker.

Bumpkin:  A hooker?  It's ten in the morning.

Don:  This is Detroit, that's a 24/7 business here.

So? Amsterdam hookers are up in their windows before 10.

[Ed Anger]

bumpkin engineers from Columbus

Your insult has been noted for future reference Sav.

[Savonarola]

So? Amsterdam hookers are up in their windows before 10.

I'll tell Mayor Bing; maybe Amsterdam could be one of our sister city.

[Savonarola]

bumpkin engineers from Columbus

Your insult has been noted for future reference Sav.

I'll make it up to you.  I'll sacrifice a goat to a graven image of Woody Hayes.

[Ed Anger]

bumpkin engineers from Columbus

Your insult has been noted for future reference Sav.

I'll make it up to you.  I'll sacrifice a goat to a graven image of Woody Hayes.

Better. 

[Savonarola]

Electioneering, Detroit style:

Detroit groups accept money from council candidates they endorse
It can cost $500 to $2,000 to keep support of key groups
David Josar / The Detroit News
Detroit --A long-secret cost of Detroit elections -- paying for endorsements -- is generating controversy in the City Council election, even though most candidates defend the expense.

To many, it's a simple investment, part of what candidate Jai-Lee Dearing calls Detroit's "culture." To others, it smacks of pay to play. Either way, candidates who want three or four endorsements from prominent groups in the Nov. 3 election may have to shell out about $5,000.

It's a system virtually unheard of in U.S. politics -- where groups traditionally give money to candidates they like, not vice versa -- and it's providing fodder during council debates.

Candidate Shelley Foy on Thursday complained she was approached this summer by an unnamed group interested in endorsing her. The cost: $2,000.

"I told them I didn't have any money ... I never heard from them again," said Foy, a retired police lieutenant.

Leaders of mainstream political groups, such as the Original Eastside Slate, the Community Coalition and Fannie Lou Hamer PAC, acknowledge they accept money from candidates. But they say they do so to offset costs of mass-mailing thousands of pieces of campaign literature and to send hundreds of voters to canvass polls on Election Day.

Original Eastside Slate leader LaMar Lemmons complained the number of groups accepting money from candidates has swelled to a dozen or more. That's partly because of the unprecedented cycle of four elections this year necessitated by Kwame Kilpatrick's resignation as mayor, he said.

"There are a few shady characters out there who try to promise more than they can deliver," said council candidate Fred Elliott Hall last week.

Hall and several other candidates defend older, more established groups that interview candidates for potential endorsements and then ask for money to underwrite expenses. Hall called the system "good American politics" that helps lesser-known candidates get out their message for a low cost.

Ernest Johnson, leader of the Community Coalition that seeks $1,000 from council candidates, said no one is forced to pay.

'Just part of the process'
He noted that Mayor Dave Bing didn't donate after his group endorsed him in the Aug. 4 primary. The group isn't endorsing a mayoral candidate in November.

"We tell candidates we need their help getting the word out," Johnson said. "This is just part of the process."

The Michigan Spanish Speaking Democrats, in a June 10 letter, asked for $550 from endorsed candidates because distributing ads to 10,000 residents with Hispanic surnames is "increasingly expensive."

The Original Eastside Slate, co-founded by Lemmons and county Commissioner Jewel Ware, charges $500 to charter commission candidates and $2,000 to council candidates.

Lemmons said the slate's nod is free -- but candidates need to write checks if they want more than their names on campaign literature.

The fees are charged to utilize the slate's 200 Election Day workers, print mailings and sometimes go door-to-door in targeted neighborhoods.

"We don't have much money, and the services we provide cost money," Lemmons said.

"We can get out the vote on the east side."

One of the best-known groups, Fannie Lou Hamer PAC, asks for money to help pay for poll workers and slate cards, said Yvette McElroy, its field director. If candidates can't pay, the PAC's board "takes it up on a case-by-case basis," she said.

"We are very good at what we do," said McElroy, noting that 94 percent of candidates on the group's primary slate advanced.

Even so, paying groups after endorsements undermines their integrity, said Vince Keenan, who founded publius.org, a nonprofit information clearinghouse for Detroit voters.

"If there is compensation, there should be some sort of disclaimers or a notice," he said. "People should know what is behind an endorsement."

A one-party city
Political consultant Eric Foster said the process thrives in Detroit because it's a one-party city.

The last Republican mayor was Louis Miriani in 1957, so Foster said candidates are desperate to distinguish themselves by aligning themselves with powerful groups. Foster said he knows of no other city with the practice.

"In other places, you'd have a candidate trying to appeal to a certain group or certain agenda, but here everyone is a Democrat," said Foster, of Urban Consulting of Detroit, which manages political campaigns.

"Sometimes it can be a good investment, sometimes it may not."

Johnson said his Community Coalition is a wise investment, sweating details to maximize impact on Election Day. Mass mailings go to at least 25,000 likely voters, and the group pays 200 workers $85 a day to canvass polls. "We are at the polls from 6:45 a.m. until they close at 8 p.m.," he said, and "we don't rely on any homeless people. None of our people are drunk."

A common ancestor
The oldest and most recognized groups -- Black Slate, Fannie Lou Hamer, the Original Eastside Slate and Community Coalition -- share a common genesis: Shrine of the Black Madonna.

The church on Linwood near Grand seeks to "create oppositional institutions that are independent of the white power structure," according to a 2001 Wayne State University study.

The Black Slate, an offshoot of the church, formed as a political action committee in 1977 to give black Detroiters a bigger voice in politics.

It focused mainly on the center city, according to Lemmons, who described himself as a "missionary" for the church. He founded the Original Eastside Slate with Ware in the 1980s to focus on that part of the city.

The Fannie Lou Hamer PAC, named for a civil rights leader, also was founded in the 1980s with the help of former members of the Shrine who now attend the Rev. Wendell Anthony's Fellowship Chapel in northwest Detroit. Anthony is president of the Detroit Branch NAACP.

Johnson also belonged to the Shrine. The debate over ownership of casinos in the late 1990s prompted him to form the Community Coalition.

"There is a certain way things get done in Detroit," said Dearing, a businessman making his third run for the council. "And this is part of that political process. It is part of our culture."

You're supposed to pay off groups that endorse you after the election, not before.  Detroit can't even get that right.