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

[garbon]

There must be other fast food joints that operate in Motown.  How do they handle crime?

I think the concern with Subway in particular is that they usually have a small staff, especially at late hours and they don't have a seating area.  Other restaurants will usually have larger staffs and customers around, so they don't go to such extreme measures.

Odd. I believe all the one's here in New York do.

[CountDeMoney]

The Manhattan Institute and Bratton Group signed a contract June to suggest ways to improve the department at a cost of $621,578. The three-month contract, which runs from July to October, calls for the consultants to be in Detroit until October, aiding with several initiatives, including restructuring the command staff, and an effort to prevent street crime through aggressive traffic enforcement.

Shit, I would've done it a hell of a lot cheaper.

■Reducing the number of bodyguards assigned to the mayor and City Council. There are 22 members assigned to guard Mayor Dave Bing, but Craig said that will change immediately.

"Effective Monday, we're reducing that number to one supervisor and five police officers," he said. "That's a significant reduction. The officers ... are being reassigned to operational assignments.
"In my judgment, every officer counts. We're talking about a time of fiscal crisis. This is not just about the mayor's EPU; this is about the larger picture."

Yup;  a supervisor to do scheduling and 5 officer slots is all you need for a 40+ hour work week.

The number of guards assigned to City Council will drop from five to 3, with one supervisor and two officers, Craig said.

That's just silly anyway. Axe it to two and only when the City Council is in session.

■Using civilians as dispatchers instead of officers who will return to patrol duty.

"For as long as I've known, dispatchers have been sworn officers," Craig said. "We're moving to civilianize that function."

"My message to the command staff is, take a look at your commands, start identifying police officers that are working in clerical positions and make a decision," he said. "Because there will come a time when I will make a decision for them, very soon, and we'll start pushing those officers into the field."

Imagine that.  Using civilians (who could be better trained and talented) in non-patrol and bureaucratic positions that could free up sworn personnel and put them on the street where they belong.  Welcome to the 1990s, Chief.  Now do it for other departments, like evidence control, media relations and other bureaucratic departments that don't require sworn officers--especially when civilians can do it better.

■Bringing back the Tactical Services Section that was disbanded under former chief Chester Chester Logan, which will, in part, put an emphasis on suppressing gang activity.

"We're looking at several platoons of officers involved in TSS," Craig said. "One platoon will consist of (Special Response Team) officers. Their mission will be directed to hot spots, where we're seeing spikes in violent crime.

"We are looking at bringing back, as part of that effort, a Gang Intelligence Unit. We're not certain there will be uniformed officers in a Gang Squad configuration, but we will have a gang intelligence function that will be married to our TSS officers, who will be deployed. If we have an active street gang that's involved in carjacking, then the mission of TSS for a period of time will be to disrupt that gang. Gang function will exist; just not in a gang squad format."

TSS/Task Force/Flex Teams/Special Ops/Organized Crime, whatever it's called, it never should've gone away.  And they haven't had Gang Intelligence Unit all this time?  You've got to be shitting me.

■Hiring more officers. Craig said the department is losing through retirement and attrition about 20 to 25 officers per month. He said there are about 20 trainees in the Police Academy now, but wants to hire 60 more. "We're in a big push to hire," he said. "We have the funding for it. It's city funding. It was already earmarked."

I bet they've always had the money, it's just easier--not cheaper but easier, as in lazier--to pay overtime than hire and train new cops.  Open it to laterals, make it competitive, and set the bar high.  Don't be Washington, DC.  Don't be that guy.

■Bringing detectives back to the precincts, a policy which was abandoned by former Chief Ralph Godbee, who moved them into a centralized location.

"I think there's a lot of value in that," Craig said. "We talk about community policing partnerships; it's important that community members know they can reach out and touch a detective.

"We will maintain a centralized investigative function for more serious crimes like homicides and sexual assaults ... but in terms of generalized investigations like home invasions not involving, say, serial home invasions, will probably be at the precinct level," Craig said.

That was a stupid move to begin with.  It's the detectives that know the neighborhoods the best.  The never should've left.  Dumbasses.

■Craig also said two officers from the Northeast District have been suspended without pay after they allegedly fired about 20 shots at a dog, killing it.

Good.  I hope his new implementations includes revamping the Internal Affairs/Internal Investigations as well.  Bringing in an outsider with IA experience would help in that endeavor.

I'm surprised they still had so many police officers assigned to the mayor.  From what I had read I assumed that was a patronage program for Kwame Kilpatrick's high school buddies.

Probably was.

[Eddie Teach]

There must be other fast food joints that operate in Motown.  How do they handle crime?

I think the concern with Subway in particular is that they usually have a small staff, especially at late hours and they don't have a seating area.  Other restaurants will usually have larger staffs and customers around, so they don't go to such extreme measures.

Odd. I believe all the one's here in New York do.

Only ones I've seen without have been inside gas stations.

[Savonarola]

Fire up the way-back machine for 1973:

Detroit's misplaced $1M check bares inefficiency

In late February, cash-strapped Detroit received a $1 million check from the local school system that wasn't deposited. The routine payment wound up in a city hall desk drawer, where it was found a month later.

This is the way Detroit did business as it slid toward its bankruptcy filing, which it entered July 18. The move exposed $18 billion of long-term obligations in a city plagued by unreliable buses, broken street lights and long waits for police and ambulances. Underlying poor service is a government that lacks modern technology and can't perform such basic functions as bill collecting, according to Kevyn Orr, Detroit's emergency manager.

"Nobody sends million-dollar checks anymore — they wire the money," said Orr spokesman Bill Nowling. Except in Detroit.

"We have financial systems that are three, four, five decades in the past," Nowling said. "If we can fix those issues, then we'll be able to provide services better, faster, more efficiently and cheaper."

Detroit doesn't have a central municipal computer system, and each department bought its own machinery — much of which never worked properly, according to Orr, 55, who took over in March. The last such acquisition, 15 years ago, was of a system based on Oracle Corp. technology that wasn't fully put to work.

The city is buying new software to improve income-tax collection, especially from suburban commuters who work in Detroit, said James Bonsall, the chief financial officer hired by Orr. The dysfunction extends beyond machinery, Nowling said.

Union rules have "bumped" workers into positions they aren't qualified for as departments make cuts, he said. The city has no training programs and doesn't evaluate employees in 2,500 job classifications.

"It has nothing to do with bad employees," Nowling said. "These employees in some instances are still following work rules that were created 40 years ago."

Detroit's operational flaws are pronounced, according to a June 14 report from Orr.

It costs the city $62 to process each paycheck, every pay period, for its 9,560 employees, compared with an average of $18 for U.S. public employers, Orr said in the report. The main reason for the high cost is that almost 150 full-time workers produce Detroit's payroll, including 51 uniformed officers.

The city's income-tax receipts are processed by hand, among the 70 percent of accounting entries done manually, according to Orr. He said in his report that the U.S. Internal Revenue Service described Detroit's tax-collection system as "catastrophic" in a July 2012 audit.

Detroit's antiquated accounting processes have meant some bills go uncollected for as long as six years, according to Orr, cutting funds that could buy new squad cars, emergency vehicles or computers. Victims of heart attacks in Detroit are likely to die because of slow responses to emergency calls since so few ambulances are running, Orr said in an interview.

City vehicles are old and their maintenance is poor, said Gary Brown, who left the City Council to help Orr improve municipal operations. A group of companies, including Detroit- based General Motors Co., have agreed to pay about $8 million to provide new vehicles for emergency medical services and police.

Brown said it's difficult to find 45 operable garbage trucks in a fleet of 180 to pick up trash five days a week.

"That's unconscionable," he said, citing too few mechanics, lax work rules and a lack of spare parts. He said there are plans to hire a hauling company to pick up trash.

Bankruptcy may pay for better services by reducing Detroit's daily costs as much as 40 percent, said John Mogk, a law professor specializing in urban policy at the city's Wayne State University. Orr has proposed giving holders of $11.5 billion in municipal debt pennies on the dollar to free up money for programs, including new equipment.

"You're talking about $300 million or $400 million that would not go toward past obligations, but could be put into new investments or services for the city," Mogk said. "It opens up new opportunities for the city to try to improve living conditions in the city and try to stimulate economic growth."

Orr has proposed spending $1.25 billion over 10 years to improve services — especially public safety — for a city that has lost a fourth of its population since 2000 and is riddled with blight. A neglected government infrastructure is partly to blame, Nowling said.

Police take an average of 58 minutes to respond to priority calls, compared with a national average of 11 minutes, Orr said in his June report. Besides too few officers — the department's roster has shrunk by 40 percent since 2003 — there's no computer system connecting precincts to let them quickly share information. Officers write tickets and reports by hand.

Police Commander Todd Bettison disputes the response times cited by Orr, saying it took an average 15 minutes for officers to get to 80 percent of the 277,800 calls received last year. The other 20 percent were mostly nonlife-threatening calls in which the response may have taken days, such as complaints about animals, Bettison said by telephone.

It isn't unusual for municipalities to use outdated technology, though Detroit is worse off than others, said Bill Brandt, chief executive officer of Development Specialists, Inc., a Chicago-based turnaround consultant. He said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks exposed communications-systems flaws that made it hard for New York police and firefighters to coordinate.

Brandt said Michigan's government could've helped Detroit acquire more up-to-date technology.

"Not enough has gone into reinventing government," Brandt said. "It'll get there, but taxpayers have never enthusiastically supported a Cadillac and only want to pay for a Chevy."

The biggest challenge for the Motor City is serving a shrinking, poorer population that needs jobs, and is spread across an area larger than Boston, San Francisco and Manhattan combined, Mogk said.

Brandt said Orr's plan didn't lay out a long-term strategy for boosting jobs based in Detroit, which he said is the key to attracting new residents.

"Improvement of services will help," Brandt said. Yet it is the promise of jobs that will lead more people to move into the city, he said.

Detroit resident Latisha Lee, 40, sees the result of fewer bulk trash pickups — more illegal dumping. In an alley two blocks away, mattresses, broken furniture, carpeting and other debris have piled up.

Lee lives near Eight Mile, which demarks the city line with its northern suburbs.

"I notice when I go across Eight Mile how much cleaner it is, how in the fall they can rake their leaves into the street and the city picks them up," Lee said in an interview on her porch. She said the property-tax bill is $4,200 a year for her 1,100 square-foot bungalow.

"For the amount of money we pay in taxes, we should have better city services," Lee said.

Brown agrees. He said curbing employee absenteeism and implementing worker-performance evaluations are among the ways the city can do a better job for residents.

"People want to see the street lights come on, they want to see more police officers out there, they expect to see the level of service increase under the emergency manager," Brown said. "We're fixing a lot of things people don't see that will absolutely affect the things they do see."

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130809/METRO01/308090083#ixzz2bUiKIBDz

The state of Michigan (and the Federal Government) did give the city money to update it's police equipment.  In true Detroit fashion they purchased incompatible equipment (presumably supplied by friends and family of Kwame Kilpatrick.) 

Any attempts to re-invent government from outside were met with hostility from the city; as this goes on it's obvious that bankruptcy was the only way forward.

[CountDeMoney]

The state of Michigan (and the Federal Government) did give the city money to update it's police equipment.  In true Detroit fashion they purchased incompatible equipment (presumably supplied by friends and family of Kwame Kilpatrick.)

Not so hasty, Mr. Presumably-supplied-by-friends-and-family-of-Kwame-Kilpatrick.  The RFP model used in government often dictates that the lowest bidder wins, and not all departments would issue RFPs to the same companies, or issue them during the same fiscal year, and not all the same companies would win the bids.  That's universal to municipal and state government, not just to Detroit.

Union rules have "bumped" workers into positions they aren't qualified for as departments make cuts, he said.

Does he have proof, or is this just his bullshit opinion?

It costs the city $62 to process each paycheck, every pay period, for its 9,560 employees, compared with an average of $18 for U.S. public employers, Orr said in the report. The main reason for the high cost is that almost 150 full-time workers produce Detroit's payroll, including 51 uniformed officers.

Either get their dumb asses on the street, and if they're on disability, retire them outright.

[derspiess]

Does he have proof, or is this just his bullshit opinion?

Would it matter to you?  You'd ignore or discount any proof anyway.

[CountDeMoney]

Does he have proof, or is this just his bullshit opinion?

Would it matter to you?  You'd ignore or discount any proof anyway.

There's gotta be proof to make such an assertion, isn't there?

[Admiral Yi]

It's easily verifiable.  Union rules are in the public domain.

[Sheilbh]

Why would you have any cops assigned to protect the mayor? 

Yeah, that's extraordinary. It sounded like even councillors had them too

[CountDeMoney]

Why would you have any cops assigned to protect the mayor? 

Yeah, that's extraordinary. It sounded like even councillors had them too

Meh, the only reason why they do that is that Mayors have a habit of going out amongst Teh Pipples at a moment's notice, in unseemly neighborhoods.  And besides, you never know when somebody wants to punch Hizzoner in the chops over a parking ticket.

But having 22 on the mayoral detail is a bit much.  Usually it's just his or her driver.

[Savonarola]

Why would you have any cops assigned to protect the mayor? 

Yeah, that's extraordinary. It sounded like even councillors had them too

Each councilor had his own staff or 4 to 8 assistants as well.  Some things like that are holdovers from more prosperous times; the city of Detroit once had over two million people.  As the city is now under 700,000 people, there's no reason to have a full time council; much less a full time council with a large staff.

Detroit is the only other city in the United States (in addition to New York City) with its own Mayoral Mansion.  The Manoogian Mansion:

[Barrister]

Why would you have any cops assigned to protect the mayor? 

Yeah, that's extraordinary. It sounded like even councillors had them too

Meh, the only reason why they do that is that Mayors have a habit of going out amongst Teh Pipples at a moment's notice, in unseemly neighborhoods.  And besides, you never know when somebody wants to punch Hizzoner in the chops over a parking ticket.

But having 22 on the mayoral detail is a bit much.  Usually it's just his or her driver.

Oh, I understand why a mayor may need protection from time to time.  But that's it - from time to time.  In that case you just get members assigned as necessary.

[MadImmortalMan]

Each councilor had his own staff or 4 to 8 assistants as well.  Some things like that are holdovers from more prosperous times; the city of Detroit once had over two million people.  As the city is now under 700,000 people, there's no reason to have a full time council; much less a full time council with a large staff.

Detroit is the only other city in the United States (in addition to New York City) with its own Mayoral Mansion.  The Manoogian Mansion:

Bing should have sold that off first thing.

[Admiral Yi]

Detroit real estate is not exactly piping hot right now.

[Sheilbh]

Each councilor had his own staff or 4 to 8 assistants as well. 

Here most MPs don't have a staff of more than 4. I'd be amazed if any councillor (outside London) had a staff, except maybe the council heads.

Edit: On the other hand from a British perspective it's really weird Detroit only has 9 councillors