Detroit police feel pain of city's financial collapse. Feb 23, 2014 By Sharon Cohen Associated Press DETROIT — It has come to this: Even some criminals sympathize with Detroit's cops. Baron Coleman thought he'd heard it all in his 17 years patrolling the streets. But then came the city's bankruptcy, a 10 percent cut in police salaries, followed by support from a most unlikely corner — the bad guys. "When they saw us take a pay cut they were in shock. Detroit police officers have long known adversity: They've worked in crumbling station houses with busted pipes, driven run-down cars, tangled with balky radios.
As Detroit tries to rebound — a plan to emerge from bankruptcy was filed Friday — few groups, if any, have been feeling the pain of the city's financial collapse more than the police. Baron Coleman knows it's hard being a police officer anywhere. Nearly a generation ago, when Coleman traded a factory job for a badge and crisp blue uniform, he had certain expectations: a good salary, great benefits and a pension. She was right. Financial Crisis Just a Symptom of Detroit’s Woes. The notion that assets like Coleman A. Young International Airport, Belle Isle Park and the collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts might be sold — either in a formal bankruptcy proceeding or in a huge city reorganization outside of the court system — has fueled outrage. “Bankruptcy scares me,” said LaTanya Boyce, a nurse practitioner. She urges her patients to treat health concerns before they become acute because, she said, “if they find themselves calling 911, it’s probably too late.”
But as with many here who have wrestled with the practical realities of living in this city, Ms. Photo “I would love to see it leased to the state,” she said of the park. Recent developments among Detroit’s elected leaders have only added to the sense that significant changes in the city are perhaps even preferable. “Where Is Charles Pugh?” Recently, Mr. While many who have been through municipal bankruptcies say such moves often mean more budget cuts to city services, Mr. “What can you do?” Detroit police response times down, but official numbers questioned. When state-appointed Emergency Financial Manager Kevyn Orr first pleaded with a federal bankruptcy court to help Detroit in July 2013, he made his case with sobering statistics: the city's high levels of poverty, blight and abandonment, its declining population and tax revenues, and its insane crime rate.
Orr pointed out how long it took police, on average, to get to the highest-priority crimes: Fifty-eight minutes, or nearly an hour. It was partial proof the city couldn't "meet obligations to its citizens," Orr told the court. It was a shocking number - and one repeated by Gov. Rick Snyder, the man who appointed Orr. And in December 2013 U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes used that revelation as one of many reasons he would allow the city to seek bankruptcy's cost-cutting protection. "You remember those days? But internal police records reviewed by Bridge contradict Orr's 2013 claim that Detroit Police ever took 58 minutes to answer the most urgent calls. A shaky benchmark. Cuts to pensions of Detroit retirees go into effect. By Thomas Gaist 3 March 2015 Retired Detroit city workers began receiving diminished pensions checks on Sunday, in accordance with the bankruptcy plan drawn up by former Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr and approved by the federal court system.
In all, some 32,000 active and retired city workers will be impacted by the cuts to constitutionally protected Detroit city worker pensions called for in Orr’s plan. Cuts to pensions were authorized in December 2013 by federal bankruptcy judge Steven Rhodes in defiance of clear language in Michigan’s state constitution stating that public pensions cannot be “diminished or impaired.” Most retirees will endure a 4.5 percent “base cut” in addition to the loss of their cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) payments and the “clawing back” by the city of nearly $240 million in annuity payments distributed to city workers over the past decade. “Syncora, the financial insurance guarantee corporation, they ended up getting assets. The author recommends: Detroit uncovers $50M in unspent bond funds. Detroit — The Duggan administration has uncovered millions in unspent bond funds for desperately needed capital upgrades. That revelation was unveiled as part of Mayor Mike Duggan’s proposed $1 billion balanced general fund budget for the 2016-17 fiscal year that he presented Thursday to the City Council.
The unspent bond funds that date back decades will be allocated for park and public safety improvements. The dollars were approved by voters as far back as 1987, Duggan said. The mayor noted that it’s “hard for me to believe” throughout the city’s financial struggles that “they would have left $50 million unspent.” Duggan says he’s proposing that $11.7 million of the bond dollars be allocated toward improvements at 40 city parks.
“I think what happened is that people forgot that it was there,” Detroit’s Chief Financial Officer John Hill said of the bond dollars after Thursday’s presentation, adding he sees how it may have been neglected since it wasn’t part of the original budget. The great scrap-metal scrap. New chief putting mark on Detroit fire dept. In his first months as the new head of Detroit’s beleaguered Fire Department, Eric Jones is building bridges with union leaders, touting improved response times and a decline in arson fires. But aging infrastructure, worker safety and wages are among the issues that remain on his hefty to-do list. Jones, 47, was appointed to the Detroit Fire Department’s top post in October.
That same day, two of the department’s emergency medical technicians suffered serious injuries in a vicious box cutter attack — the most violent among 17 assaults on city EMTs in a one-year span. In a wide-ranging interview with The Detroit News, the fire commissioner detailed the challenges facing the fire department and plans for boosting morale, pay and safety training for the city’s first responders. Outdated infrastructure and technology, Jones says, are getting a revamp. “When I wake up in the morning, it’s challenging. Detroit’s public safety workers are among the lowest paid in the country. Detroit led U.S. in murder, crime rates, FBI says. Detroit — Crime fell in Detroit last year, but not enough to prevent it from being the most dangerous big city in the nation, according to FBI crime statistics released Monday.
Detroit was tops in both murder rates and violent crime rates among cities with populations of more than 100,000. Two more Michigan cities, Flint and Saginaw, joined Detroit among the top five most dangerous cities with populations greater than 50,000. The release of data follows Detroit's emergence from bankruptcy Friday, and it underscores how much work remains to rebuild population and faith in the city, said Detroit Police Commission Chairman Willie Bell.
"Detroit definitely has a long way to go," he said. "People will not move into the city unless you can address this. There are realities we can't ignore. Police Chief James Craig stressed that murder, carjackings and robberies are trending down in 2014. "This just didn't happen overnight," said Craig, who became chief in July 2013. Cmacdonald@detroitnews.com. Detroit's infrastructure crumbling while city has trouble collecting cash. The radio version of this story. The plan to guide Detroit out of bankruptcy includes up to $150 million a year for ten years to repair neglected infrastructure. The city could go a long way in paying for that if it can find a way to collect money already owed to it. The Compuware World Headquarters building at Campus Martius is a gleaming example of a downtown revival. But last week, just down the block, the façade of revival was peeled back for a moment.
An old water pipe broke. Jeff Wattrick is a reporter for Deadline Detroit and works in the Compuware building. Standing out front, we talked about the water main break as we watched another construction crew at work. “There’s still a crumbling infrastructure underneath these streets and police cars patrolling this area that are not maybe in the best of shape. And a water main break is more than an inconvenience. Tommy Chang is the manager of Bangkok Crossing Thai Restaurant. "Yes, it does," said Chang.
"They're just not going to do it. Detroit pays high price for arson onslaught. Detroit — Arson is a raging epidemic in Detroit, destroying neighborhoods and lives as the city tries to emerge from bankruptcy. Even amid a historic demolition blitz, buildings burn faster than Detroit can raze them. Last year, the city had 3,839 suspicious fires and demolished 3,500 buildings, according to city records analyzed by The Detroit News. Burned homes scar neighborhoods for years: Two-thirds of those that caught fire from 2010-13 are still standing, records show. "Nothing burns like Detroit," said Lt. Joe Crandall, a Detroit Fire Department arson investigator, referring to the city's high rate of arson.
The Detroit News researched arson for more than three months and found that it remains a huge obstacle to renewal efforts following bankruptcy. The News reviewed records of more than 9,000 suspicious fires from 2010 to mid-2013 and found that arson has decimated the northeast, southwest and far west sides of Detroit. "People don't realize arson is a felony. The News found: Detroit police response times down, but official numbers questioned. Retired police, firefighters reach deal with Detroit. DETROIT — The City of Detroit reached a deal Tuesday with a retired police and firefighters group to preserve current pensions, according to mediators.
The deal, which Detroit bankruptcy mediator Gerald Rosen revealed, comes as the city also is close to reaching an agreement with its Official Committee of Retirees and two independently run pension fund boards. The Retired Detroit Police and Fire Fighters Association agreed to support a deal that would involve not cutting monthly pension checks and keeping almost half of annual cost-of-living increases, Rosen said in a statement.
The current cost-of-living adjustment is 2.25%. The latest deal, which comes after separate accords with two global banks and unsecured bondholders, could hasten the city's emergence from bankruptcy and speed the city's plans to reinvest in services. STORY: Detroit bankruptcy plan puts art above people, unions saySTORY: Detroit bond deal frees up $100 million for pensioners. For Detroit retirees, pension cuts become reality. Detroit — Pension and benefit reductions reached through the city's historic bankruptcy will begin showing up in the monthly checks of Detroit retirees beginning Sunday. The cuts affect an estimated 20,000 retirees in the city's two pension funds. They are outlined in a court-approved plan that allows the city to shed $7 billion in debt and invest $1.7 billion into restructuring and service improvements over the next decade.
"There have been a lot of accolades about the speedy exit from bankruptcy and applause for those involved in the settlements," Bruce Babiarz, a spokesman for the city's Police and Fire Retirement System, said in a statement Friday. "While the celebrations of the bankruptcy exit may be winding down, the reality of reduced pension checks will take effect in March. " In all, 32,000 active and retired city workers are affected by the pension cuts and reductions in health care. Babiarz said it may be a "harsh reality for many living on fixed incomes. " Retired U.S.
"Lack of accountability, poor management" source of Detroit Fire Dept. problems. Our conversation with Steve Neavling The news site Motor City Muckraker took it upon itself to track every fire in the city of Detroit for a year. When you take on a project like that, you begin to see and hear about the problems faced by one of the most overworked fire departments in the nation. Steve Neavling runs Motor City Muckraker. He tells us the Detroit Fire Department was “a bureaucracy that was literally in shambles.” Neavling found that fire hydrants across the city were broken, the firefighters didn’t have purified air in their tanks, their trucks were breaking down, the whole system was a mess.
“The city was literally burning down, and we had neighborhoods where houses were going up every night,” he says. Neavling tracked an estimated 3,600 fires in Detroit, which he says is about average for the city. Instead, Neavling says he found the problems stemmed more from “a lack of accountability [and] poor management.” “And he took it on like a calling,” Neavling says. How 10,000+ fires devoured Detroit neighborhoods over the past 3 years. By Steve Neavling Motor City Muckraker An arson epidemic, the closure of fire stations and failing hydrants have taken a heavy toll on Detroit’s neighborhoods. Between 2013 and 2015, fires broke out in more than 10,000 houses, apartments, businesses, churches, schools and other buildings in Detroit, claiming about 120 lives, devouring neighborhood cores and prompting record-high homeowner insurance rates.
During the same period, the city closed eight ladder companies and 11 engine companies, leaving many areas, including the mayor’s mansion, without adequate fire protection. Over the past 18 months, Motor City Muckraker examined every fire, interviewed dozens of firefighters, combed through tens of thousands of public records and listening to radio transmissions between firefighters and dispatchers for each fire run. The findings paint the clearest picture yet of the devastating impact of fires and budget cuts: Fires are nothing new in Detroit.
The consequences were brutal. Steve Neavling. Detroit has fewest police officers since the 1920’s. Fewer cops are patrolling Detroit’s streets than at any other time since the 1920s. According to police data obtained by the Detroit News, the city now employs only 1,590 officers, leaving the department understaffed in the most violent city in the U.S. That’s down from 3,139 in 2000, and closer to the number of officers the city had before it increased its ranks to fight Prohibition bootleggers. “This is a crisis, and the dam is going to break,” Mark Diaz, president of the Detroit Police Officers Association, told the News. “It’s a Catch-22: I know the city is broke, but we’re not going to be able to build up a tax base of residents and businesses until we can provide a safe environment for them.” Recent budget cuts in the formerly bankrupt city have forced the department to shed hundreds of officers. Meanwhile, some of the city’s finest have left to find better-paying jobs: After taxes and deductions for pensions and other benefits, most officers only take home $8/hour.