Detroit oversight board adopts schedule. Detroit — The oversight board charged with ensuring Detroit follows its post-bankruptcy plan convened Friday for its second public meeting since a judge confirmed the city’s plan to restructure and slash its debt.
Among its actions, the new Financial Review Commission adopted a regular monthly meeting schedule, but delayed immediate adoption of bylaws during the session at Cadillac Place on West Grand in Detroit. The commission doesn’t officially start work until the effective date of the bankruptcy, which Mayor Mike Duggan on Friday said is anticipated early in December. “I do expect we will be out of bankruptcy in the first half of December,” said Duggan, noting the date is fluid but should be before Dec. 15. “Kevyn Orr said all along he hoped to be out by Thanksgiving but for sure he’d be out before Christmas.
I don’t think that time table has changed.” The bankruptcy plan was formally approved by U.S. “We have a lot of work coming to us,” she said. CFerretti@detroitnews.com. Study finds grant oversight problems in Detroit during financial crisis. WASHINGTON – A government report today concluded that inconsistent internal policies, outdated technology and massive layoffs during financial crises in Detroit, Flint and two other cities severely hampered their abilities to manage hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants.
The study, released today by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, also urged the Obama administration to share lessons learned by its Detroit working group — which was created as the city plunged into bankruptcy and remains in place — with other agencies and governments in the future. U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, and former U.S. They documented dozens of deficiencies in compliance reports among eight federal grant programs. In another case, the U.S. In total, the study looked at grant award programs under HUD, the U.S. All of the cities studied suffered severe cutbacks in personnel from 2009-2013, for instance, with Detroit losing 34% of its full-time equivalent positions. Judge orders end to federal oversight of Detroit police.
More than a decade of federal oversight of Detroit's police will come to an end in 2016 following a series of reforms to the department's use of force and a decline in officer-involved shootings, a federal judge ruled Monday.
The U.S. Department of Justice and the city of Detroit had agreed that the complaints that brought about the consent judgment issued in 2003 had been largely, though not entirely, resolved. U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn's ruling said the police department had complied with about 90% of the federal consent decree's stipulations, and set the end of oversight for March 2, 2016.
"This is truly an exciting day in the history of the Detroit Police Department," Police Chief James E. Citing the civil unrest that had befallen the police department in Ferguson, Mo., after a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed black 18-year-old man, Craig said, "We have learned so much about the importance of relationships. ...
Detroit mayor presents budget with eye on easing oversight. Judge lifts federal oversight of Detroit police. Aug 25, 2014 By Robert Allen Detroit Free Press DETROIT — A federal judge Monday morning ended an 11-year-old agreement that kept a federal monitor watching over the Detroit Police Department.
U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn accepted the request filed jointly by the city and the U.S. Justice Department to end the federal oversight, entering an 18-month transitional period. Detroit Police Chief James Craig, who was appointed July 2013, said after the court hearing that it's a "great day" for the department, he applauds the work of his police and will continue making improvements. The consent agreement was started in 2003 after the Justice Department said it found constitutional violations.
On Monday, Melvin Butch Hollowell, Detroit's corporation counsel, told Cohn that the city has substantially improved accountability, with an "early warning system" that flags an officer who's involved in a police chase or has a complaint filed, among other criteria. Copyright 2014 Detroit Free Press.