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

[Savonarola]

How do the voters of Detroit pick these people?  I would think at least the dead ones would have the wisdom of the afterlife:

Watson paid pittance for taxes on 'nonexistent' Detroit house
BY M.L. ELRICK and NAOMI R. PATTON • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS • May 24, 2009

Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson paid only $68 in property taxes this year because city records say her well-kept, brick Tudor-style home doesn't exist. Although the home has occupied its west-side plot since 1926, city records have classified the parcel as an empty lot for the past decade.

Watson said she was unaware of the discrepancy until the Free Press contacted her. She said the change came before she was elected to City Council -- and without her involvement.

"I pay the taxes. All I know is I had a big drop when my house got hit hard by a tornado," she said. "We had great damage."

Watson said she could not recall the specific date the tornado hit, saying it might have been 2002, or perhaps 1993.

She acknowledged, however, that she never reported the incident. National Weather Service meteorologists said the last tornadoes to hit Detroit occurred in 1996 and 1997 -- before Watson says her taxes were reduced because of what she called "the natural disaster."

Watson, who said she receives her property tax bill separate from her mortgage bill, said she never questioned why her taxes dropped -- or why they didn't increase after she repaired her home.

"If it's an amount that's been determined by the people who are in the business of assessing ... and you pay that, then what's the issue?" she asked.

Watson's neighbors in comparable homes pay $2,000 to $6,500 in taxes. "My house has always been there," she said.

On Friday morning, Watson entered the city tax assessor's office and asked for a review of her tax bill.

Neighbor: 'Wow! I'm shocked'
Since joining the City Council six years ago, insisting that Detroit get its fair share has been one of Watson's signature issues.

On Sept. 29, for example, Watson was the only council member to vote against a tax break for General Motors Corp. in return for building the Chevrolet Volt at its Poletown assembly plant.

As recently as Tuesday, Watson blasted state officials who she said have cut $130 million from the city's portion of revenue sharing over the years. "They owe us," she said during a City Council meeting, demanding that the state pay the money to help Detroit through its financial crisis and reduce its deficit.

Watson's failure to realize she was paying significantly less than she should is noteworthy because she occasionally admonishes city officials for not being more diligent in collecting outstanding property taxes. She says the city needs that money to reduce its deficit, which recent estimates put at close to $300 million.

Watson, who is paid $81,000 a year and gets a city-owned Ford Crown Victoria, said her taxes are paid in full. She said it never occurred to her that her tax bill was a fraction of what it should have been.

"I am paying what the assessor assessed," Watson said, expressing dismay when the Free Press informed her Thursday of the discrepancy.

She blamed the error on a tornado that she said struck her home several years ago. Just when is not exactly clear. She has guessed that it hit as recently as 2002 or as long ago as 1993. The National Weather Service says the last tornadoes to hit Detroit came in 1996 and 1997.


Watson bought the home on a land contract in 1990. She agreed to pay $40,000. A year earlier, city assessors pegged the home's value at about $37,000.

Currently, assessors calculate the property's value at $1,658 because they consider it a vacant lot.

Watson said she noticed the drop in her property tax bill, which she handles herself, but assumed it was because the tornado left a hole in her roof and damaged the home's foundation.

How assessors would have known that is unclear.

Linda Bade, the city's chief assessor, did not return messages Friday.

Watson said she did not call city officials or file an insurance claim. She also said she did not seek a reduction in her property taxes. Watson said that when the lower bill arrived, she simply paid it and did not ask any questions.

"I came to the natural conclusion my house isn't worth much any more," she said. "This assessment dropped because of something that had nothing to do with me."

Watson, who was elected to the City Council in 2003, said she was not a city official at the time the taxes dropped.

She said she did not rejoice in the tax break.

"In fact, I was kind of insulted," she said, adding that she feared the value of her home had plummeted.

However, in 2002, as she prepared to run for City Council, Watson obtained a $60,000 mortgage.


To obtain the loan, Watson acknowledged that her property was appraised. But she said that appraisal did not prompt her to think that her home had regained value and, consequently, would merit an increase in her property tax bill.

She said she assumed the appraisers "used their financial wizardry" to help her get the loan on her home.

When Free Press reporters questioned Watson about her property taxes, she said she would go to the assessor's office Tuesday and say: "Are you aware you're charging me for a lot and I live in a house?"

If correcting the error generates a bill for back taxes, Watson said she will be "happy to pay it. I pay my bills."

Watson instead went to the assessor's office Friday morning, arriving just after 9.

A clerk confirmed that the property was listed as vacant.

The councilwoman said, no, there was a home on the lot, and told her about the tornado.

Watson asked how soon her property could be reassessed.

"I don't want special treatment," she said. "I want someone to look at it."

The exchange was completed in about 10 minutes. The clerk reviewed her 2002 mortgage. And she gave Watson a form to request an assessment.


"I'll bring it back," Watson said, smiling.

One of Watson's neighbors, informed Friday of Watson's tax bill, was incredulous.

"Wow! I'm shocked," Natalie Solomon told the Free Press.

Solomon, who lives across the street from Watson, said, "I know my property taxes.

"That's not fair."

[Savonarola]

Surprise!  It was just the media out to get her all along:

Councilwoman Watson defends low tax payments
ASSOCIATED PRESS • May 25, 2009

City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson defended her low property taxes in recent years, repeating in a Sunday news conference that she paid everything the city told her she owed.

The Free Press reported Sunday that Watson paid only $68 in property taxes on her home this year because city records indicate the property is a vacant lot. Owners of comparable nearby homes paid $2,000 to $6,500 in property taxes.

Watson told the Free Press she thought damage from a tornado caused her property value to drop several years ago and said she had nothing to do with the reduced taxes. She also said she never questioned the change in assessment, nor did she wonder why it did not increase after she repaired the home.

"I've been a target of a smear campaign," Watson told reporters from other news media outlets gathered outside her west-side home Sunday.

When asked why anyone would want to smear her, Watson replied: "I don't smoke, I don't drink and I don't sleep around. It's an election year. I'll let you figure it out."

Well that clears that up.   

[jimmy olsen]

  How could you not remember when a tornado damaged you house more accurately than that?

[Malthus]

We aren't in Kansas anymore, Toto.

[alfred russel]

This is a big assumption--that she didn't exert influence over her assessment to get it so low. But if we make that assumption, did she do anything wrong? Would you fight an assessment that was too low?

[Savonarola]

This is a big assumption--that she didn't exert influence over her assessment to get it so low. But if we make that assumption, did she do anything wrong? Would you fight an assessment that was too low?

That is a big assumption; even if the change in assessment occurred before 2003, when she was appointed to the council,  Watson was still well connected politically.  She had served on Congressman John Conyers' staff and on city commissions for twenty years prior.  It's an amazing coincidence that it was her property that was assessed wrong and that the assessment was never corrected in the seven to sixteen years since it was changed.

If she didn't use her own political influence then what she did wasn't all that terrible; but I would say it is wrong.  By paying only a fraction of the taxes she should have owed she knowingly forced an unfair tax burden onto the people she represents.  Also as a member of the city council she could have easily had it corrected; while an ordinary citizen would have to navigate the Detroit city bureaucracy to do the same.

[alfred russel]

This is a big assumption--that she didn't exert influence over her assessment to get it so low. But if we make that assumption, did she do anything wrong? Would you fight an assessment that was too low?

That is a big assumption; even if the change in assessment occurred before 2003, when she was appointed to the council,  Watson was still well connected politically.  She had served on Congressman John Conyers' staff and on city commissions for twenty years prior.  It's an amazing coincidence that it was her property that was assessed wrong and that the assessment was never corrected in the seven to sixteen years since it was changed.

If she didn't use her own political influence then what she did wasn't all that terrible; but I would say it is wrong.  By paying only a fraction of the taxes she should have owed she knowingly forced an unfair tax burden onto the people she represents.  Also as a member of the city council she could have easily had it corrected; while an ordinary citizen would have to navigate the Detroit city bureaucracy to do the same.

Yeah--if the homes in that neighborhood were ever assessed after the "tornado" severely damaged her home, I am not sure how she can explain away that her assessment never went up.

It has to be fun to be at the Free Press (at least once you get past the dying nature of your city and your industry). Everywhere you look there is corruption. I wouldn't be suprised if someone in a newsroom decided, "lets just google the property tax assessments of connected people" and voila--a new scandal.

[Berkut]

This is a big assumption--that she didn't exert influence over her assessment to get it so low. But if we make that assumption, did she do anything wrong? Would you fight an assessment that was too low?

*I* would not, but then I am not a politician charged with a higher degree of public trust, disclosure, and integrity. If the state tax assessor screwed up, I would happily enjoy my good fortune.

Actually, I would probably say something just because I wouldn't want to get hit with the giant tax bill later when they figured out what was wrong.

[DontSayBanana]

We're missing a big piece of the puzzle here; they posted what her tax bill actually was. It was almost nothing- while she's not an assessor, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that that was a HUGE error in the tax bill. My willing suspension of disbelief falls short of the point where I could imagine her seeing that number and not wondering why it was so low.

[Scipio]

If my tax bill dropped that far, I would keep my fucking mouth shut until they figured it out.

[Neil]

This is a big assumption--that she didn't exert influence over her assessment to get it so low. But if we make that assumption, did she do anything wrong? Would you fight an assessment that was too low?

*I* would not, but then I am not a politician charged with a higher degree of public trust, disclosure, and integrity. If the state tax assessor screwed up, I would happily enjoy my good fortune.

It's not unusual to hold elected officials to a higher standard than regular people.

[DontSayBanana]

If my tax bill dropped that far, I would keep my fucking mouth shut until they figured it out.

See, the difference between us and politicians is that we know the tax collectors would charge HUGE penalties once they found out, and figure it's not worth it.

[Savonarola]

Here's some good news for people who fret about the size of the US prison population 

Why are the jail cells empty?
Sheriff, prosecutor say crime isn't dropping but arrests by police are
BY JEFF GERRITT • FREE PRESS EDITORIAL WRITER • May 28, 2009

Empty jail cells are normally something to celebrate, but Wayne County's top law enforcement officials say the hundreds of vacant jail beds are not because of a drop in crime or more reasonable sentencing. Floors of the downtown Detroit jail are empty because police are arresting fewer people accused of those crimes.

Altogether, three county jails that held about 2,500 prisoners a year ago now house 400 fewer inmates.

Sheriff Warren Evans said police are so slow to respond to some calls that the crimes never get reported. Prosecutor Kym Worthy was more blunt:

"We don't tell the truth about crime," she said.

Detroit has lost hundreds of sworn officers in recent years. The Police Department didn't respond to repeated requests for interviews with its top leaders, but it released preliminary statistics showing an overall decline in criminal activity this year, despite a 24% increase in homicides.

East-sider Joyce Betty, 56, isn't buying it.

Last February, a young assailant snatched Betty's purse, which contained $300 in cash, while she pumped gas at a Mack Avenue filling station. Surveillance cameras captured the crime on videotape, but police never responded.

Said Betty: "I have little faith in the Detroit Police Department."

Empty cells point to police breakdown

It's an incredible sight: In a city riddled with crime, entire floors of the Wayne County Jail in downtown Detroit are empty.

The seventh floor of the Baird Detention Facility, normally home to 128 newly arrested prisoners, is vacant. So are the ninth floor and half of the 12th floor. Another 128 beds at the Dickerson Detention Facility in Hamtramck are also closed. That adds up to more than 400 empty beds in Wayne County jails that, up to about a year ago, were filled with roughly 2,500 prisoners.


The main explanation is simple, according to the county's top two law enforcement officials: Detroit police are making fewer arrests, a dereliction so obvious it has led some Detroiters to conclude there's no point in even calling the cops.

"I've talked to dozens, probably hundreds, of people in the community who are telling me they never made a report because the police never came," Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans said Tuesday. "The delay in response time is such that many, many, many crimes don't get reported."

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy agrees, echoing Evan's assertion that decreases in reported crimes are misleading.

"We tell the press that crime is going down," Worthy said. "It's not going down; it's going up, exponentially, and we have many fewer officers on the street. We need to acknowledge the problem."

The Detroit Police Department did not respond to several requests for comment last week. Instead, a department spokeswoman, citing preliminary police statistics, said overall crime in the city so far this year is down 9.1%, excluding a 24% increase in homicides -- a trend that, if true, would partly explain the jail's decreasing census, especially for those awaiting trial.

In 2007, the Wayne County Sheriff's Department recorded 20,423 felony bookings. Last year, there were just 18,261 -- a drop of more than 10% in a single year. So far this year, bookings have continued to drop roughly 10%, said Undersheriff Daniel Pfannes.

But few city residents think a drop in crime is the reason. Ask east-sider Joyce Betty, 56. A young man snatched her purse, with $300 in it, out of her car while she pumped gas at Mack and Gratiot in February. Betty called 911 on her cell. Police never responded. "They made no attempt to contact me," Betty said, even though the gas station has surveillance tapes of the incident. "It's water over the dam, but I have little faith in the Detroit Police Department."

Neither Oakland nor Macomb Counties report comparable declines in their own jail populations. Both counties' cells remain full, despite innovative efforts to manage the population, Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackel and Oakland County Undersheriff Michael McCabe say.

Pontiac, however, is experiencing a trend similar to Detroit's: Arrests have declined as the number of sworn officers has dropped from 170 to 65 in the last three years.

The Detroit Police Department deploys about half the number of sworn officers it did in the 1990s, and has lost roughly 1,000 officers over the last five years.

Even serious crimes aren't getting solved. Arrests are made in only 37% of Detroit homicides, compared to more than 60% nationwide. Officers have too little time to investigate, and they work with a community that often does not trust them. Detroit's shuttered police crime lab has raised more troubling questions about homicide investigations.

Another reason arrests are down is the closing -- for good cause -- of many decrepit, pre-arraignment holding cells under a federal consent decree that is mandating reforms. Six years ago, police held 350 in such lockups, compared to about 130 today. Shift supervisors, and probably officers, know when the lockups are full.


Evans said he offered to lease county jail cells for police lockups five years ago. Negotiations continue, but a deal should have been struck long before this.

Privately, some law enforcement officials also say Detroit police are frustrated by the added paperwork required for arrests under the federal consent decree. But that's no excuse for failing to perform. The consent decree, signed in 2003, might be a headache, but it's one the department earned by abusing the citizens it was supposed to protect, including mistreatment of prisoners in lockups and dragnet arrests of homicide witnesses. The department also had the highest rate of fatal shootings by officers among America's big cities.

Fundamental breakdowns in other basic services also decrease public safety. Copper thieves have made land-line phone service in parts of the city, especially on the east side, unreliable and sporadic. It's not unusual for phone lines to be dead when crime victims try to call 911.

No one is questioning the integrity or competence of underpaid Detroit police officers. They work hard and, in many cases, risk their lives daily. But the department continues to do 1970s-style policing, reacting to crime rather than using data-driven policing efforts. The Michigan Department of Corrections and other criminal justice agencies have information that would enable the department to focus its resources on people most likely to commit crimes.

"In dealing with crime, particularly violent crime, a data-driven surgical approach is the direction we need to go," said former U.S. Attorney Saul Green, group executive for public safety under new Mayor Dave Bing. "I do believe we have some improvements to make in that area."

Until then, floors of empty Wayne County jail cells -- normally a reason to celebrate -- should comfort no one.

[Savonarola]

Don't gut D's core to save GM
BY TOM WALSH • FREE PRESS COLUMNIST • May 28, 2009

MACKINAC ISLAND -- On this island 300 miles from Detroit, where automobiles are not even allowed, it's still impossible to escape the shadow of General Motors Corp.

As the Detroit Regional Chamber's annual Mackinac Policy Conference began here Wednesday, the loudest buzz was about GM in general, and its Renaissance Center headquarters in particular.

As the White House presses GM to keep slashing costs on the eve of an expected bankruptcy filing, GM is believed to be preparing a new round of white-collar job cuts, which could create still more vacant space in the RenCen, where GM's head count has already shrunk from 6,000 to 4,400 in recent years.

The specter of a half-empty RenCen has fueled renewed speculation about GM consolidating office workers.

And Jim Fouts, mayor of Warren, home to GM's sprawling tech center complex -- which also has surplus space due to cuts in the automaker's engineering and design staffs -- is making a bold play to lure GM's headquarters out to his suburb.

Forget about it, says Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, who delayed his departure to the Mackinac shindig by a day in order to make another round of calls to cajole and plead with GM and government officials not to forsake downtown Detroit.

Bad idea, agrees Gov. Jennifer Granholm, about GM's home base leaving Detroit.

Imagine a vacant RenCen
Rip Rapson, president of the Troy-based Kresge Foundation, puts it apocalyptically.

"We are dead," he said, "if the region decentralizes into the Warrens and the Southfields."

Moving GM's headquarters out of Detroit is "an indescribably bad idea," said Rapson, whose foundation has pledged $50 million to the massive Detroit riverfront redevelopment and is a major backer of a proposed light-rail line along Woodward Avenue downtown.

"This is a time to assemble critical mass in the city core, not disassemble," he added.

Rapson's right.

Whatever GM would gain from more efficient utilization of office space by vacating the RenCen would be far outweighed by the damage to Detroit's core -- symbolically and otherwise -- by turning the 73-story RenCen into an empty white elephant.

Would there be any point in building a Detroit light-rail line if the giant RenCen, built as a symbol of hope in the wake of the 1967 riots, sits deserted?

Why bother to expand Cobo Center on the riverfront if GM abandons the river's most dramatic structure?

Why not just let the convention center migrate out to Novi, if GM is in Warren and Fiat-Chrysler is in Auburn Hills?

While we're at it, why not just excavate the old Motown Museum on West Grand Boulevard, put it on wheels and roll it out to Brighton!

There are other ways for GM to find savings as it downsizes, without gutting Detroit. GM has 1,000 or so people at a service and parts operations center in Grand Blanc, for starters, who could move downtown.

President Barack Obama's auto industry overseers can't really want to gut downtown Detroit.

Can they?

This editorial is a good example of how Detroiters still live in the past.  Even if GM survives bankruptcy it will never again have its former prominence nor will it employ so many people.    A GM headquartered in Warren is better for Detroit than no GM at all.  Abandoning all civic projects because a former major employer has left downtown is not a good idea.

[Savonarola]

Tough times in the 3-1-3; GM files for bankruptcy and the pimpest of the pimp struggles to pay restitution:

Kilpatrick's restitution payment late, $3,500 short
By M.L. ELRICK and JIM SCHAEFER • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS • June 2, 2009

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's latest restitution payment arrived three days late and $3,500 short, the Free Press has learned.

A judge in March ordered Kilpatrick to pay $6,000 a month in restitution toward the $1 million he agreed to pay the City of Detroit when he pleaded guilty last year to two perjury-related felonies. His lawyer argued that Kilpatrick could afford to pay only $6 a month.

After mustering $6,000 for his April restitution payment, Kilpatrick sent only $2,500 last month. The payment, due on the 15th of each month, came on May 18, said Russ Marlan, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections.

Failing to make full restitution payments could lead to Kilpatrick being found in violation of his probation.

In another complication for the former mayor, Compuware officials contradicted Kilpatrick's explanation for why he wanted to go on a congressional trip last month to the Middle East.

He said it was for work. They said it was not.

Mideast trip said to be business; company disagrees
Kilpatrick told probation officials he wanted to make a business trip to the Middle East in May, a state corrections official said.
But a spokeswoman for Compuware, which hired Kilpatrick, told the Free Press on Tuesday that the ex-Detroit mayor's planned trip was not for the company.

Kilpatrick could face sanctions if he misled probation officials about the reason for his proposed trip.


On May 18, Kilpatrick sought permission to go Dubai, Qatar and Iraq to assess the health care system of the military overseas, Marlan told the Free Press on Tuesday.

Although it was a congressional trip, Kilpatrick said he would be going as a representative of his employer, Marlan said. Marlan added that Kilpatrick said he would be able to provide documentation to support that.

Kilpatrick works in Texas for Covisint, a subsidiary of Compuware.

But Compuware spokeswoman Lisa Elkin said Tuesday that Kilpatrick was not scheduled to go to the Middle East on business.

"The trip you're referring to, I believe, is the Congress trip that the mother was supposed to go on," she said, referring to Kilpatrick's mother, U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich.

"There was not a business trip," Elkin added.

Because Kilpatrick is on probation, he needs permission to travel outside of Texas.

Marlan said Michigan corrections officials opposed allowing Kilpatrick to go on the trip, which was scheduled for May 24-30. He said Kilpatrick had not been on probation long enough to show he can abide by the probation terms. Kilpatrick also failed to make a full restitution payment last month, he added.

Marlan said Texas officials, who supervise Kilpatrick, did not issue a travel permit. Kilpatrick apparently never took the trip.

Probation officials in Michigan and Texas considered Kilpatrick's request an unusual one, he said. "We don't have many probationers ... ask to engage in international travel," Marlan explained.

Of more immediate concern to officials is Kilpatrick's payment of only $2,500 of the $6,000 monthly restitution he was to pay in May.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said her office will ask Wayne County Circuit Judge David Groner to look into the matter. "Judge Groner was extremely clear in his order that defendant Kilpatrick was to pay $6,000 per month in restitution," Worthy said in a statement. "$6,000 is not $2,500."

Worthy also criticized his proposed trip to Dubai.

"I'm curious to know how he would even be able to travel when we are in possession of his passport," she said.

Attorney Michael Alan Schwartz, who in March sought unsuccessfully to reduce Kilpatrick's restitution payments, did not return calls for comment.

Stay strong, Kwame.