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

[Savonarola]

Conyers fires staffer, lashes out at Sheila Cockrel
Leonard N. Fleming and Darren A. Nichols / The Detroit News
Detroit --Two security officers for City Council today escorted a staffer for City Council President Monica Conyers from City Hall, one day after he says she fired him for talking to The Detroit News about her troubles gathering signatures for the Aug. 4 primary.

The incident comes on the same day that the controversial president engaged in a shouting match with Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel over whether news cameras should be removed from council chambers during a discussion about Cobo Center.

Taft Gaddy, who was Conyers' staff secretary, was led out to the parking garage across from the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center with his belongings in his hands. He said he was handed a letter this morning making his dismissal official.

"She called me yesterday and told me not to come to work because of the article, cussing me out," Gaddy said. "I wouldn't have been getting terminated for nothing else. I don't think she was fair with that, but that's her prerogative."

Gaddy was out last Saturday at the Eastern Market trying to persuade wary voters to sign Conyers' petition. He pleaded with one woman to sign because he needed to keep his job and feed his children. She refused.

"There's some challenges, sure," Gaddy told The News in the article. "But I convince more people than not to sign."

Conyers and her spokeswoman, Denise Tolliver, didn't immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

This morning, tensions boiled between Conyers and Sheila Cockrel during the closed-door discussion of the transfer of the Cobo Regional Authority. Sources say Conyers used foul language when Cockrel questioned her about allowing the media into the council's chambers.

"It just doesn't send a good statement about how this particular council is led," Cockrel told The Detroit News' reporting partner, WXYZ-TV (Channel 7).

Conyers' longtime consultant and former chief of staff, Sam Riddle, went to City Hall after the incident to discuss it and other matters with the council president. Riddle said Conyers feels the council has run smoother in the past several days, when Cockrel was absent due to an illness.

"We talked about the so-called incident. She seemed to feel very strongly Sheila Cockrel is a disruptive influence on the council," Riddle said. "(Conyers) was on the job of taking care of the people's business without disruption."

Riddle said Conyers isn't remorseful and remains concerned that Cockrel is a disruption.

The flap is the latest in a string by Conyers, who has had significant run-ins with colleagues since joining the panel.

Last year, she infamously called then-Council President Kenneth Cockrel Jr. "Shrek" during a heated argument. In February, she apologized for making light of Councilman Kwame Kenyatta's hearing and education during a dustup over her attempts to lay off a council staffer, Michelle Williams. Kenyatta told Conyers she needs mental health assistance and referred to her as "Councilwoman A," a reference to an unnamed panel referenced in federal documents as taking bribes.

Conyers brought Williams back on the job a day after laying her off.

[Savonarola]

Kenyatta to council: Reprimand Conyers
By Zachary Gorchow • Free Press Staff Writer • April 2, 2009
Detroit City Councilman Kwame Kenyatta called today for the council to formally reprimand President Monica Conyers through a censure resolution condemning her conduct.

Kenyatta said he will introduce the resolution soon and that it was prompted by the accumulation of incidents involving Conyers, the latest of which were some negative remarks she made toward Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel this morning behind closed doors.

Earlier this year, the Free Press reported that Conyers hurled insults at Kenyatta about his hearing aid, untrue rumors that he had cancer and lack of a college degree.

Conyers would remain in office regardless of whether she was censured. The move would amount to a rebuke.

There have been a series of incidents involving Conyers since she was first elected in 2005.

Conyers got into a bar fight although prosecutors exonerated her. She called Cockrel a "drunk" during a council meeting after Cockrel needled her about the bar fight. Perhaps most infamously, she exploded at then Council President Ken Cockrel and called him "Shrek" during a meeting over a procedural dispute.

During her time on one of the city's pension boards, Conyers was accused of threatening another member with a gun -- although she denied the allegation.

"I think it's just gone too far," Kenyatta told reporters. "We have to stand up to this president and say -- I'm not asking for her to resign at this point -- but I am saying that your behavior needs to be curtailed. It needs to be professional. It needs to be positive. It needs to be representative of the citizens of Detroit."

Kenyatta said he did not know whether a majority of the council would support his resolution.

Monica is the gift that keeps on giving. 

[Admiral Yi]

You could probably get the Lions fairly cheap.

Doesn't the NFL have revenue sharing?  If so I bet not.

[charliebear]

Monica is the gift that keeps on giving. 

I'd pay good money to see Monica Conyers and Martha Reeves get into a squabble with each other. 

[Savonarola]

Who's stealing from Detroit's kids?
BY ROCHELLE RILEY • FREE PRESS COLUMNIST • April 3, 2009

Years of financial mismanagement have come home to roost, and emergency financial manager Robert Bobb made clear this week just how much he has to clean up.

He announced that the school district's deficit now exceeds that of the City of Detroit. I still haven't figured out how the city ran up a $300-million deficit. So it is beyond me to understand how DPS could go over budget by $305 million -- and expect to get away with it. Even Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr., who is working to balance the city budget, called the DPS deficit "staggering, and certainly ... very scary."

The deficit was caused partly by instances of mind-boggling ineptitude or stupidity, including $15.2 million in unrecorded invoices and contracts and -- get this -- millions to cover 597 employees who weren't supposed to be on the payroll.

What?

The findings will force Bobb to close as many as 50 schools and cut thousands of jobs in the next two years. But my broken record is still playing: What happened to the money? Who's going to pay it back? And who's going to jail?

Force the guilty to repay it all
I've been swamped with calls about payback. But those callers asked how former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick went from $6-million man to $6 man, a parolee who claims that, after expenses, he can afford to pay only $6 a month toward the $1 million he owes the city in restitution. (Instead of a letter saying, "The dog ate my promissory note," Kilpatrick sent his lawyer with a note saying, "It will take me almost 14,000 years to pay y'all back.")

But now callers are asking when the county will find and fine the crooks who stole education from Detroit's children and helped rob the district blind.

To the callers: It's about time. And to Bobb, the manager who is turning dysfunctional into functional, I say: Leave no stone unturned.

Bobb and his team, which includes a former FBI special agent, must review every contract, every check, every construction order, travel order, phone bill and agreement signed by a DPS employee in the past 10 years.

And any person they believe guilty of stealing from children should be tried, sent to jail and forced to repay the district every dime. With interest.

Get the priorities straight
And before school board member Marie Thornton sends me another e-mail about how much board members need to go to San Diego on Saturday to a school board conference, let me preempt her:

Marie, it doesn't matter what you might learn about stimulus funds at a California retreat. This district cannot afford to send you.

THERE IS NO MONEY.

The district can barely afford to send people to Lansing to explain why, after being in the hole by $139.7 million last year, according to a report by staff writer Chastity Pratt Dawsey, it then overspent by an additional $166.1 million this year!

Unless they're teaching math or accounting in San Diego, every Detroit school board member must stay home and work with Robert Bobb to fix the district and FIND the crooks.

I hate to skip to the end of the book for everyone; but they will only find a handful of the guilty, the few caught perpetrators will get token fines or short jail sentences and the vast majority of the theft will be financed by the taxpayers.  Plus it will all be the fault of white people and suburbanites.

[Savonarola]

Know your bureaucrats:

Conyers got ex-con brother city job
Building official says councilwoman recommended him; she denies it
David Josar / The Detroit News
Detroit --A top city official says City Council President Monica Conyers pulled strings to get her brother, an ex-con with a violent record, a job in the building department that was to last only 120 days but was extended for two years.

"She came up to me, handed me his resume and said 'You should hire him. He's a good guy,' " said Amru Meah, director of Building & Safety Engineering.

Reggie Esters, 38, was fired from the $30,500 job last summer on claims of chronic absenteeism. About the same time, he was charged with 10 felonies stemming from allegations he brandished a shotgun at two people, according to court records. He pleaded guilty to one count and faces sentencing April 17.

Records obtained this week by The Detroit News show Esters submitted a resume showing he worked continuously for two construction firms from 1999 to 2006. State records show he was incarcerated for assault and weapons charges for much of that time.

Meah said Conyers wanted her brother hired as a $50,000 inspector, but he wasn't qualified and wouldn't pass a license exam. Instead, he was hired as an investigator who checked if businesses are properly licensed.

Conyers, whose maiden name is Esters, said Meah is wrong. She denied that Esters is her brother, despite papers filed in Wayne County Probate Court in 1976 that identify them as siblings with the same parents, Robert H. and Alice Esters.

"I have no idea what Mr. Meah is talking about," Conyers said.

Calls to Marlon Evans, Esters' attorney, were not returned.

The city has no rules against hiring felons and Meah said he didn't know of Esters' record until a reporter told him about it Thursday.

"Human Resources is supposed to check that," he said.

Daniel Cherrin, spokesman for Mayor Kenneth Cockrel Jr., said Esters' position did not require a background check although Human Resources "looks for inconsistencies and other red flags."

Esters' resume "was reviewed and he met the minimum requirement for the position," Cherrin said, but added that the person who headed Human Resources a the time, James Tyler, an appointee of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, was fired shortly after Cockrel took office.

Cherrin did not know if any references were checked. None was listed on Esters' application.

According to records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Human Resources fast-tracked Esters' hire as a commercial and residential investigator after Meah wrote that there was an "immediate need" to fill the position.

"Mr. Esters has the experience that we require for this position. Please see attached resume for your review," Meah wrote in an Oct. 27, 2006, letter to Tyler. Conyers was elected to the panel 11 months before.

Meah said he fired Esters last summer after he was repeatedly missing from work.

"I said, 'He's not around. Fire him,' " he said.

A provisional employee does not get benefits and can be terminated at any time.

Esters, who records indicate is one of Conyers' three brothers, has been arrested at least 14 times since 1988, when he pleaded guilty to shoplifting in Redford Township and was put on probation for one year. In 1990, he was charged with first-degree murder but was acquitted after a jury trial. In 1998, he pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed weapon, according to Wayne Circuit Court records.

On his one-page resume, Esters stated that he had graduated from MacKenzie High School in 1988 and had worked as a "FORMAN" for Jenkins Construction in Detroit from 2000 to 2006 with responsibilities that included "Plan, organize and manage the overall construction development."

But on Sept. 20, 2001, Esters was incarcerated by the Michigan Department of Corrections after he pleaded guilty to assault with intent to cause great bodily harm and being a felon in possession of a weapon. He began his sentence in prison but was then transferred to a boot camp until he was released on May 30, 2006.

That was about the time Meah said Conyers approached him about finding a job for her brother.

Esters was reappointed five times to the post even though he had signed a statement saying he knew the job would last 120 days.

The practice is not uncommon in Detroit.

[charliebear]

[
I hate to skip to the end of the book for everyone; but they will only find a handful of the guilty, the few caught perpetrators will get token fines or short jail sentences and the vast majority of the theft will be financed by the taxpayers.  Plus it will all be the fault of white people and suburbanites.

Doggone those white people and suburban.....hey!  wait a minute here.

[Savonarola]

Surprise!  It really was her brother after all:

Conyers acknowledges ex-con brother after denying him
David Josar / The Detroit News
Detroit --One day after denying it, City Council President Monica Conyers acknowledged that Reggie Esters, the ex-con she helped get a job in City Hall, is her brother.

Denise Tolliver, spokeswoman for Conyers, acknowledged the relationship this morning, but didn't explain why Conyers told The Detroit News she isn't related to Esters, 38, a felon with a long rap sheet. When speaking to a reporter Thursday at City Hall, Conyers said, "That can't be my brother."

Thursday, Conyers denied pulling strings to hire Esters for a building department job in 2006 that he lost last year on claims of absenteeism.

Since then, Tolliver released a statement attributed to Conyers saying she's an advocate for helping those who have been incarcerated get their lives back on track.

"You don't get to choose your family, and everyone has a right to be productive," the statement read. "That is why I fight so hard at council for ex-offenders to have jobs."

She added that she also visits inmates at local correctional facilities to "lift and encourage them."

The Detroit News reported today that in 2006 Conyers -- whose maiden name is Esters -- suggested to Amru Meah, the head of Building Safety & Engineering, that he would be a good hire as an inspector.

"She came up to me, handed me his resume and said, 'You should hire him. He's a good guy,'" Meah said.

Meah said Esters did not have the qualifications for that position but found him a $30,500 job checking if city businesses were properly licensed. The job was supposed to last 120 days, but was extended for two years.

Records obtained this week by The Detroit News show Esters submitted a resume showing he worked continuously for two construction firms from 1999 to 2006. State records show he was incarcerated for assault with intent to cause great bodily harm and weapons charges for much of that time.

Meah said he fired Esters because he missed work. About the time he was fired, Esters was charged with 10 felony counts related to his brandishing a shotgun at two people in Detroit. He pleaded guilty and is set to be sentenced this month.

I'm glad Monica didn't have to resort to a life of crime like her brother.   

[jimmy olsen]

Surprise!  It really was her brother after all:

Conyers acknowledges ex-con brother after denying him
David Josar / The Detroit News
Detroit --One day after denying it, City Council President Monica Conyers acknowledged that Reggie Esters, the ex-con she helped get a job in City Hall, is her brother.

Denise Tolliver, spokeswoman for Conyers, acknowledged the relationship this morning, but didn't explain why Conyers told The Detroit News she isn't related to Esters, 38, a felon with a long rap sheet. When speaking to a reporter Thursday at City Hall, Conyers said, "That can't be my brother."

Thursday, Conyers denied pulling strings to hire Esters for a building department job in 2006 that he lost last year on claims of absenteeism.

Since then, Tolliver released a statement attributed to Conyers saying she's an advocate for helping those who have been incarcerated get their lives back on track.

"You don't get to choose your family, and everyone has a right to be productive," the statement read. "That is why I fight so hard at council for ex-offenders to have jobs."

She added that she also visits inmates at local correctional facilities to "lift and encourage them."

The Detroit News reported today that in 2006 Conyers -- whose maiden name is Esters -- suggested to Amru Meah, the head of Building Safety & Engineering, that he would be a good hire as an inspector.

"She came up to me, handed me his resume and said, 'You should hire him. He's a good guy,'" Meah said.

Meah said Esters did not have the qualifications for that position but found him a $30,500 job checking if city businesses were properly licensed. The job was supposed to last 120 days, but was extended for two years.

Records obtained this week by The Detroit News show Esters submitted a resume showing he worked continuously for two construction firms from 1999 to 2006. State records show he was incarcerated for assault with intent to cause great bodily harm and weapons charges for much of that time.

Meah said he fired Esters because he missed work. About the time he was fired, Esters was charged with 10 felony counts related to his brandishing a shotgun at two people in Detroit. He pleaded guilty and is set to be sentenced this month.

I'm glad Monica didn't have to resort to a life of crime like her brother.   

Nice!

[Neil]

Chances are, it was the school board who stole a bunch of the money anyways.

[Syt]

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090402/METRO08/904020395/To+urban+hunter++next+meal+is+scampering+by

To urban hunter, next meal is scampering by
Detroit retiree, 69, supplements his income by living off the land

Detroit - When selecting the best raccoon carcass for the special holiday roast, both the connoisseur and the curious should remember this simple guideline: Look for the paw.

"The paw is old school," says Glemie Dean Beasley, a Detroit raccoon hunter and meat salesman. "It lets the customers know it's not a cat or dog."

Beasley, a 69-year-old retired truck driver who modestly refers to himself as the Coon Man, supplements his Social Security check with the sale of raccoon carcasses that go for as much $12 and can serve up to four. The pelts, too, are good for coats and hats and fetch up to $10 a hide.

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While economic times are tough across Michigan as its people slog through a difficult and protracted deindustrialization, Beasley remains upbeat.

Where one man sees a vacant lot, Beasley sees a buffet.

"Starvation is cheap," he says as he prepares an afternoon lunch of barbecue coon and red pop at his west side home.

His little Cape Cod is an urban Appalachia of coon dogs and funny smells. The interior paint has the faded sepia tones of an old man's teeth; the wallpaper is as flaky and dry as an old woman's hand.

Beasley peers out his living room window. A sushi cooking show plays on the television. The neighborhood outside is a wreck of ruined houses and weedy lots.

"Today people got no skill and things is getting worse," he laments. "What people gonna do? They gonna eat each other up is what they gonna do."

A licensed hunter and furrier, Beasley says he hunts coons and rabbit and squirrel for a clientele who hail mainly from the South, where the wild critters are considered something of a delicacy.

Though the flesh is not USDA inspected, if it is thoroughly cooked, there is small chance of contracting rabies from the meat, and distemper and Parvo cannot be passed onto humans, experts say.

Doing for yourself, eating what's natural, that was Creation's intention, Beasley believes. He says he learned that growing up in Three Creeks, Ark.

"Coon or rabbit. God put them there to eat. When men get hold of animals he blows them up and then he blows up. Fill 'em so full of chemicals and steroids it ruins the people. It makes them sick. Like the pigs on the farm. They's 3 months old and weighing 400 pounds. They's all blowed up. And the chil'ren who eat it, they's all blowed up. Don't make no sense."

Hunting is prohibited within Detroit city limits and Beasley insists he does not do so. Still, he says that life in the city has gone so retrograde that he could easily feed himself with the wildlife in his backyard, which abuts an old cement factory.

He procures the coons with the help of the hound dogs who chase the animal up a tree, where Beasley harvests them with a .22 caliber rifle. A true outdoorsman, Beasley refuses to disclose his hunting grounds.

"This city is going back to the wild," he says. "That's bad for people but that's good for me. I can catch wild rabbit and pheasant and coon in my backyard."

Detroit was once home to nearly 2 million people but has shrunk to a population of perhaps less than 900,000. It is estimated that a city the size of San Francisco could fit neatly within its empty lots. As nature abhors a vacuum, wildlife has moved in.

A beaver was spotted recently in the Detroit River. Wild fox skulk the 15th hole at the Palmer Park golf course. There is bald eagle, hawk and falcon that roam the city skies. Wild Turkeys roam the grasses. A coyote was snared two years ago roaming the Federal Court House downtown. And Beasley keeps a gaze of skinned coon in the freezer.

With the beast fresh from the oven, Beasley invites a guest to lunch.

He believes coon meat tastes something like mutton or pork, but to the uneducated palate, it has the aroma and texture of opossum.

While Beasley preps his coon with simple vinegar brine and spices, there are 100 ways to cook a coon.

There is roast coon with sweet potato, sausage and corn bread stuffing; raccoon cobbler and roast marinated raccoon with liver and onion. It is this reporter's opinion that the best sauce for coon may very well be hunger.

The story of Glemie Dean Beasley plays like a country song. The son of a sharecropper, Beasley left school at 13 to pick cotton. He came to Detroit in 1958. His woman left him in 1970 for a man he calls Slick Willy.

Someone stole his pickup truck and then someone killed his best dog."I knowed some hard times," Beasley says. "But a man's got to know how to get hisself through them hard times. Part of that is eating right."

So, Detroit is turning into something like the NY in "I Am Legend"?

[JacobL]

DETROIT —  A social worker at a high school in Detroit is being lauded as a hero after he stopped a 17-year-old boy who allegedly was carrying a sawed-off shotgun and wrestled the boy to the ground.

No one was injured.

The Detroit Free Press reports 41-year-old social worker Idris Herring saw the teen rush through a metal detector Thursday at Westside Academy and glimpsed what looked a gun.

The boy fled after Herring tackled him and no arrests had been reported Saturday. Detroit Public Schools police said they were seeking a warrant for the teen's arrest.

There was no indication whether the shotgun was loaded.

The newspaper said the teen got the gun from a vehicle after having an altercation with a student at the school.

[charliebear]

Moore, Nugent, Wilson sound off on Detroit
April 4, 2009, 1:17 PM EST
DETROIT (AP) -- Michael Moore says parts of it look like "the landscape of another planet."

Ted Nugent refers to its "embarrassing filth."

Mary Wilson speaks of its beauty and prosperity — from another time, long ago.

What is this woeful place? It's Detroit, a city they all know well and (believe it or not) love dearly.

It's also a place that's hard to avoid hearing about lately.

It started last month when the contestants from "American Idol" descended for "Motown Week" and heated up Monday with a presidential rejection of General Motors' and Chrysler's turnaround plans. It ends this weekend when college basketball's premier showcase, the Final Four, hits town.

The events have trained an oversized spotlight on the Michigan metropolis and have people across America talking about the state of the Motor City.

Three of those who weighed in this week are Moore, Nugent and Mary Wilson, all famed Michigan-bred entertainers who were asked to address autos and all things Detroit. And the consensus is this: The city has seen better days.

"Sadly, a majority of Americans have written off Detroit, and for those of us who grew up in Michigan and still live here `heartbreaking' doesn't really describe it," said Moore, who rose to prominence with his 1989 documentary, "Roger & Me," which focused on GM plant closings in his hometown of Flint.

Moore, who now lives in Traverse City, currently is filming a movie on the economic crisis, Wall Street and corporate greed — "a comedy," he says.

Moore recently was flying to Detroit when, on approach, an out-of-towner in a nearby seat motioned toward the window and asked the filmmaker: "What's it like down there?"

Nothing like it used to be, Moore told his fellow traveler.

"There was an attitude then that anything was possible," said Moore, who feels the old Detroit mantra that hard work equals a good life no longer holds.

He places the blame on the shoulders of auto executives, who he says presided over "a pathetically run business."

He applauded President Barack Obama's decision to remove Rick Wagoner from his post atop General Motors Corp. The new president on Monday also rejected GM's and Chrysler LLC's restructuring plans and set the stage for a major realignment of the industry.

Nugent, the wildman rocker and outdoor enthusiast known as the "Motor City Madman," is far to the right of Moore on the political spectrum and doesn't see government intervention in autos as a particularly good thing.

"Left to their own accord and entrepreneurial enterprise, I am confident the U.S. auto industry would have outperformed all others. ... Now that Fedzilla has had the audacity to turn up the havoc-wreaking, criminally violating the U.S. Constitution and all parameters of logic and decency, it appears the death knell has sounded. It breaks my Motor City heart," he said.

Wilson, who grew up in Detroit, fondly remembers the city then as "a beautiful, prosperous place" where car jobs were plentiful. Her father worked in an auto factory.

She later became a member of the legendary Motown group The Supremes and went on to worldwide fame. Wilson said she "wouldn't have wanted to grow up in any other city."

But Wilson, who now lives in Las Vegas, said things have soured in Detroit, and jobs could be the key to a resurgence.

"It's all about people working. The city needs the factories," she said. "It needs the auto industry ... so people can work."

As for the city itself, the trio believes Detroit can rise again despite the autos meltdown, recent mayoral scandal and the long-standing problems of crime, poverty, blight and population loss.

Some good news will arrive Saturday when years of planning and preparation culminate in tens of thousands of hoops enthusiasts, many of whom traveled a great distance, packing Ford Field.

"Outsiders will experience the glowing good will and decency of the fine folks of Detroit and Michigan ... and will also eat great food and meet great people and hear soulful music," said Nugent, who will be back in town later this month for a reunion of his group, the Amboy Dukes.

While some in the converted football stadium will be pulling for one of the other three entrants, it's fair to expect quite a few will be cheering on the local favorites from Michigan State, who play Big East power Connecticut in the evening's first game.

Moore, who often is seen wearing a green Michigan State ball cap, has this prediction: Spartans 72, Huskies 53.

I mentioned to Sav just a few days ago that I was embarrassed by Detroit.  I think Moore and The Nuge got right to the point.

[jimmy olsen]

I mentioned to Sav just a few days ago that I was embarrassed by Detroit.  I think Moore and The Nuge got right to the point.

Isn't everyone embarrassed by Detroit?

[charliebear]

I mentioned to Sav just a few days ago that I was embarrassed by Detroit.  I think Moore and The Nuge got right to the point.

Isn't everyone embarrassed by Detroit?

It does have pockets of beauty, which is what I wish people could see.  Some of the older homes are incredible.  The library in Highland Park is one of my favorite buildings, but it's been boarded up. 

It's not only embarrassing, but it's sad.