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

[charliebear]

re:  Cobo

So, Detroit would rather have 100% of nothing than 20% of something?  You go, Monica!

[jimmy olsen]

Crazy

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30311735/

Detroit councilman walks away from mortgage
Candidate for mayor saw value of home tumble as payment set to rise

DETROIT - It was their dream home, a two-story, four-bedroom colonial in one of Detroit's nicest and most stable neighborhoods.

But then, one day in December, City Councilman Kwame Kenyatta and his wife packed up their belongings, locked the doors, mailed in the keys and walked away — adding another vacant house to the thousands in a city hard hit by the nation's mortgage crisis.

"We're already underwater when it comes to what we're paying on the house versus what the house is worth," Kenyatta said.

Around the country, the practice, sometimes referred to as "mortgage walking" or "jingle mail," appears to be growing. But for Kenyatta, the decision could do more than hurt his credit rating.

It could damage his bid for mayor of Detroit this summer, particularly since he has been one of the city's most vocal supporters of measures to improve neighborhoods and clean up blight.

"If I'm going to follow you, you need to be a leader," said Patricia Dixon, a former neighbor of Kenyatta's. "You don't show leadership by walking away from your home in the city of Detroit. You have vandalism where they find out the houses are vacant. You have people stealing fireplaces."

Kenyatta, a Democrat, is not the only elected official facing mortgage trouble. The Wayne County prosecutor's Detroit home has gone into foreclosure. And California Rep. Laura Richardson nearly lost her home before she paid up delinquent home loans.

Walking away from a mortgage isn't illegal; the bank takes possession and tries to sell the house. But "it just puts more properties in foreclosures, and that's the last thing we need right now. That's just pulling the median sales price down," said Karen Kage, who runs a real estate listing service in suburban Detroit.

In Detroit, the median sales price for a home is now a pathetic $5,800, down more than $66,000 from seven years ago. An estimated 16,000 foreclosed homes are on the market in the city of about 920,000 residents. Detroit also has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, at around 20 percent.

Kenyatta's former neighborhood, North Rosedale Park, is unlike most of the rest of Detroit. Stately, well-kept brick homes line quiet, winding streets. It fights to hold off blight from surrounding northwest side neighborhoods.

Kenyatta's former home is the ugly duckling on its block. Dead grass spreads gray across the lawn. Withered advertising circulars are strewn about the porch and the hedges.

Bought for $225,000, the home nose-dived in value to $100,000, according to Kenyatta. Its manageable $2,600-a-month mortgage soon was about to soar about $1,000.

About five months ago, the Kenyattas moved to a rented condo on the city's east side. It has three bedrooms, four baths, a whirlpool bath, finished basement and garage. The rent is less than their old mortgage. (In Detroit, City Council members are elected from the city at large, not from districts, so leaving the neighborhood does not affect Kenyatta's eligibility to serve.)

"It's not like I'm making out like a fat rat here," Kenyatta said. "The credit is now going to be shot."

Kenyatta said that because his mortgage payments were made on time and he was not in foreclosure, he did not qualify for any relief programs through his lender.

Kenyatta, 53, once served on the Detroit school board and was a Wayne County commissioner before winning his council seat in 2005. He council salary is about $81,000 a year. His wife, Monifa, also a former county commissioner, is retired.

Kenyatta said he hopes voters can separate the personal from the political with the August mayoral primary approaching.

"History will show that some of the greatest leaders who did great work for the public may not have done so good by themselves," he said. "In most cases, they neglect themselves to take care of the people's business. My record in public office, I'm proud of it. I think I've done good."

But public confidence in Detroit's political leadership has been in the cellar for more than a year, beginning with the scandal over then-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's affair with his chief aide. Both were charged with perjury and sent to jail.

Kenyatta can only hope that Detroit voters are forgiving.

"If voters view being an excellent financial manager as an essential quality for the mayor, then it may cause him problems," said Lyke Thompson, director of the Center for Urban Studies at Wayne State University in Detroit. "If on the other hand, they sympathize with him because so many voters have had similar troubles, it may be less of a problem."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press

[Neil]

Old.

[Caliga]

Kwame Kenyatta

You're not African, dude.

[Savonarola]

The FREEP won it all:

Free Press wins Pulitzer for mayor probe
Panel cites 'uncovering of a pattern of lies' by Kilpatrick, Beatty
Francis X. Donnelly / The Detroit News
Detroit -- The Detroit Free Press won journalism's highest award Monday for an investigation that led to the resignation, conviction and three-month jail stretch of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

The newspaper staff won the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting for the probe, which showed that Kilpatrick committed perjury by denying a dalliance with his chief of staff.

The citation singled out the work of investigative reporters Jim Schaefer and M.L. Elrick, who had pursued the often-troubled mayor for five years.

"This is something you want to do your whole life," Elrick told the ebullient staff in its cramped newsroom in downtown Detroit. "This is validation for all our work."

It was the ninth Pulitzer won by the 177-year-old Free Press, and its first in 19 years. The paper shared the award with the East Valley Tribune of Mesa, Ariz.

In naming the Free Press, the Pulitzer board cited the paper's "uncovering of a pattern of lies by (Kilpatrick and his chief of staff), prompting an investigation of perjury that eventually led to jail terms for the two officials."

Kilpatrick was dogged by questions of irregularities throughout two terms as mayor while the Free Press, The Detroit News and other news outlets frequently chronicled his misbehavior.

But it wasn't until last year that he found himself entangled in a legal morass he couldn't escape.

The Free Press obtained 14,000 text messages written by Kilpatrick and chief of staff Christine Beatty that contradicted their sworn testimonies in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by two police officials.

The ensuing investigation has won several other prestigious awards, including the George Polk Award, Worth Bingham Prize, Eugene S. Pulliam First Amendment Award and Investigative Reporters and Editors Award.

I hope the reporters thanked Kwame in their acceptance speech.  The couldn't have done it without him.   

[Savonarola]

Welcome to Detroit! (part 2)

2 Chihuahuas stolen as woman shops in Detroit
Dogs taken from car as woman seeks wig for cancer-stricken grandmother
BY AMBER HUNT • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • April 22, 2009

Jaronna McCrae left her Muskegon home Saturday on a mission: to buy a wig so that her cancer-ridden grandmother could feel pretty on Mother's Day.

She was in the city less than 30 minutes, she said, when her car was broken into and the cargo inside — her two red-furred Chihuahuas — was stolen.

"She's been crying for three days," said Jaronna McCrae's mother, Erline McCrae. "She's just hysterical."
Jaronna McCrae, 27, who works in nursing and group homes with mentally ill people, said the dogs were stolen from her car about 10:15 a.m. Saturday while she shopped at Kelly Beauty Supply at Kelly and Houston/Whittier.

"They did it so quick," she said Tuesday through tears from her Muskegon home. "I wasn't even in there for 10 minutes."

McCrae asked that the Free Press not publish the dogs' names so that whoever stole them won't be able to give them commands.

The dogs are a mother-daughter pair. Mom is 4 years old and daughter just turned 1. Both have red fur, though Mom's has some dark undertones throughout.

McCrae said she regularly takes the dogs with her to play with the mentally ill patients with whom she works. They were tag-along dogs so accustomed to riding in the car that they had a nice-sized kennel decorated with a pink bed and a water bowl.
On Saturday, she ventured into Detroit to shop for a wig for her ailing grandmother, Frances Love, who has colon cancer and lost her hair in chemotherapy. McCrae said she felt comfortable leaving the dogs for a few minutes because the weather Saturday was pleasant, so she cracked the car's sunroof and windows.

Within 10 minutes, she said, she heard glass breaking, followed by a car alarm. Fellow patrons tried to grab the dog thieves' license plate but it sped away too quickly, McCrae said.

"They were in a burgundy Oldsmobile Alero and there were two of them," she said. "That's all I know."

McCrae is venturing back to Detroit this weekend to post flyers in hopes of finding her beloved pups. In the meantime, she hopes that making her story public will alert would-be dog buyers to be on the lookout.

Her mother, Erline McCrae, isn't a fan of her daughter returning to Detroit. "You just can't find a dog in a big city," she said.

People with information can call the Detroit Police Department's Eastern District at 313-596-5900.

In the Detroit Institute of Arts there is a collection of pre-Columbian Art including funerary objects.  One item is the statue of a fat little Chihuahua.  This represented the Aztecs hope for good food in the afterlife.  This story reminded me of that.   

[Savonarola]

Accounting, the Detroit way:

Detroit audit: Use of funds violated city policy
By ZACHARY GORCHOW • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • April 22, 2009

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A petty cash fund in Detroit's Water and Sewerage Department was improperly used to pay $1,400 for the retrieval of a city truck that was impounded after the city employee driving it was caught in a prostitution sting, according to an audit of the department.

Funds from one of the department's petty cash funds also paid a total of $44,900 for two annual dinners in the 2005-06 and 2006-07 fiscal years to honor retiring employees - at a cost of $57.25 and $55 per person, respectively.

Not only did that violate city policy that bars the use of taxpayer funds for food when it is not for public or governmental purposes that serve the entire community, it also more than doubled the city's per person dinner limit of $23.

The report from the Detroit auditor general, obtained by the Free Press, covers activity in the department's petty cash funds between July 2006 and September 2008 - all during the time when former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was in office. Kilpatrick resigned in September 2008.

It details wide-ranging violations of city policy on the use of funds from petty cash, which is supposed to be used for infrequent or emergency purposes.

Among the audit's major findings:

• Purchases of regularly needed office supplies that should have been done through the requisition process or put up for bid were made from petty cash

• $51,050 from unspecified other departmental sources was improperly routed into one of the department's petty cash funds - $44,900 of which was used to pay for the retirement dinners.

• Lack of safeguards over the funds, including no training, custodians of the funds not having a copy of the city's imprest cash fund manual and failure to segregate duties to ensure separate authority over check signing and of the cash itself.

• Twelve of the department's 16 petty cash funds had unresolved shortages or overages at the end of the 2007-08 fiscal year.

• The department's main petty cash fund, at $12,000, is inappropriate and showed a nearly $3,000 shortage. Department officials responded the reason for the shortage was that "a former clerk did not keep a running balance" and the balance was "never reviewed and corrected." The audit called for reducing the size of the fund to reflect actual monthly activity.

In response, Department Director Pamela Turner, who was appointed by Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr., said officials would implement procedures to correct the problems.

The department also is seeking reimbursement of the $1,400 from the water department employee over the impoundment of the city truck.

Chief Financial Officer Joseph Harris, who also began his job under Cockrel, said the city would correct the problems. Harris said his department -- the Finance Department -- should not have approved the food purchases and has since rejected subsequent department food and refreshment requests that violated city policy.

[Savonarola]

Conyers, Karmanos wrangle over issues at political breakfast
Participants bemoan lack of cooperation among suburbs, city
BY KATHLEEN GRAY • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • April 23, 2009
The topic was "Economy, Regionalism and Race Relations," but in metro Detroit this morning, none was in very good shape.

The panelists at the Pancakes and Politics breakfast were an odd conglomeration of business and politics: Detroit City Council President Monica Conyers; Peter Karmanos, Compuware founder and new boss to Kwame Kilpatrick; think tank founder Phil Power and demographer Kurt Metzger.

There were all frustrated that better cooperation among regional leaders seems to be an elusive goal that is harming not only Detroit, but the rest of the region and the state.

"The Center for Michigan is holding a series of community conversations and we've talked to 3,500 people so far in the state," Power said. "Uniformly people tell us we have to recognize that this is an entire region. And if Detroit puts a moat around the city, it hurts everyone."

The dispute over ownership and operations of Cobo Hall was a tier one topic at the breakfast and Conyers said the blame for the death of the deal lies with Oakland County officials and Gov. Jennifer Granholm. She said the token $20-million payment a regional authority would have paid the city for the Cobo was unacceptable.

"We don't want any tokens, because I don't consider myself a token," she said. "Stimulus money is available for convention centers. The problem is the governor doesn't want to give us money to use for Cobo Hall."

Conyers also said she believes abandoned buildings in the city should be converted to outlet stores and that term limits should be instituted for the Detroit City Council, mayor and school board.


"If you continue to have the same people, you never get new people with creative ideas," she said.

Karmanos said the sorry state of the city's schools is one of the failures that is fueling the lack of regionalism in the metro region.

"When I went to school in Detroit, it was one of the best districts in the nation and the teachers weren't part of the union," he said. "Today, everyone is in the union and we uniformly have poor schools throughout the region."

The lack of progress being made on mass transit in metro Detroit is one of the biggest signs that regionalism has been unsuccessful, Metzger said.

"We've got to get light rail just up to West Grand Boulevard first," he said, but the economy is hampering many redevelopment efforts.

"Detroit can be the laboratory for radical redevelopment," he said. "But. we have suburbs against suburbs, nobody has any money and financially we're all suffering."

As for Kilpatrick, Karmanos said he's doing well and that coworkers have described him as "a breath of fresh air."

I don't consider Monica a token either.  She's more like a symptom of a broader problem.

[charliebear]

I'm hearing whispers that a Monica recall is in the works.

[DontSayBanana]

I'm hearing whispers that a Monica recall is in the works.

It's taken this much bad press and this many reports of bad behavior? We tried to petition to get our governor recalled for less.

[charliebear]

I'm hearing whispers that a Monica recall is in the works.

It's taken this much bad press and this many reports of bad behavior? We tried to petition to get our governor recalled for less.

Sad, eh?  Remember that the people of Detroit re-elected the Kwamster for a second term after they knew about many of his misdealings.  I'm not saying they're stupid, but I lack the appropriate term for them.

[Savonarola]

I'm hearing whispers that a Monica recall is in the works.

It's taken this much bad press and this many reports of bad behavior? We tried to petition to get our governor recalled for less.

She wasn't City Council Chair until last September.  Prior to that she was just another city council member; and she's hardly the only crazy person on the city council. 

Recalling her really isn't worth the effort.  The recall campaigns against Kwame Kilpatrick was delayed and blocked repeatedly by the courts.  This is an election year for the city; even if a recall effort could go through, it probably wouldn't before the elections were held.

[charliebear]

It's the thought that counts.  I'll sign that petition.  I live close enough to Detroit.

[DontSayBanana]

Recalling her really isn't worth the effort.  The recall campaigns against Kwame Kilpatrick was delayed and blocked repeatedly by the courts.  This is an election year for the city; even if a recall effort could go through, it probably wouldn't before the elections were held.

Well, if you're already into her election year, then no, it's not worth the effort. Can't you just set up and advertise some kind of repository of the bad press Conyers has gotten to ensure the public sees how bad she is for Detroit and votes her out?

[Savonarola]

Well, if you're already into her election year, then no, it's not worth the effort. Can't you just set up and advertise some kind of repository of the bad press Conyers has gotten to ensure the public sees how bad she is for Detroit and votes her out?

You would think so, but there are a couple problems with this idea.  First is that all 9 city councilmen are elected at large.  A negative campaign directed at her would generate publicity and probably keep her in office.  The second is that Detroiters, as a rule, are not overly fond of the suburbs.  A negative campaign against her funded in part by white suburbanites would guarantee her the most votes on the council slate and give her a second term as council president.