October 16, 2001

Todd Everett

    On October 9th Gil Hill and Kwame Kilpatrick, the two Detroit candidates hoping to be the next mayor of Detroit attended a candidate's forum at the Redford Theatre. Given an hour to respond to questions that were mailed to each candidate on September seventeen the two told the audience snippets of their much talked about plans and some responses that are not part of their plans and gave the audience, full of potential voters and supporters, more information about each candidate than any commercial or web site could ever do.

    Each candidate responded to ten questions given two minutes each. There were some moments when things were not quite cordial and other moments when both candidates agreed. When asked about preparing our future leaders in terms of how the city deals with its parks, recreation and after school programs the candidates probably differed the most on this issue. Kilpatrick stated that there was not enough money in the parks and recreation department. He said that the city has not used money available from the public and private sector. He repeated his charge that the city has let grant money slide by even though city department heads have stated that Detroit did not meet the requirement for those grants and therefore were ineligible to receive any grants of which they did not apply. Kilpatrick repeated his message of partnering with the private sector in order to maximize resources although he did not go into details of how this would be accomplished. Gil Hill repeated his previous statements that Detroit has already proposed and implemented many after school programs that Kilpatrick is saying the city needs. He says that the city needs to maximize all philanthropic funds and those years of waste in the city departments would not easily be corrected.

    The subject of the Detroit Public Schools came up in a question that asked what power does the mayor have to improve the schools and how will they use that power if elected. Kilpatrick said that the mayor has tremendous power and that the city has to marry itself to the school administration. He says that to help the school system, and ultimately the taxpayers, the city should donate city land to the school system. Gil Hill also believes that the mayor has tremendous power to influence education. He believes that the city should work with trade skilled organizations to develop more apprentices for students who are unable to attend college. This would provide high paid skilled labor that is still needed in the modern world of the college degree and the high tech industry.

    How the candidates feel about mass transportation was the subject of the next question. The way to fund and oversee Detroit's transit needs was the specific topic. Gil said his main concern is what affects city residents. He was most emotional on this topic and stressed his concerns for the seniors and students that must use public transportation. He wants to coordinate bus routes with seniors and schools to better allocate the resources. He said the city must pursue more money from the state for public transportation. (In his tenure as governor John Engler has been against giving any more money to metro Detroit for any type of additional public transportation.) Gil also stated, in response to a statement by Kilpatrick who said that SMART would cancel a bus route that is not highly used, that Detroit must subsidize seniors out of necessity. He said that many people in Detroit don't have access to a car and therefore the DDOT must cover as much of the city as possible in order to get these people to the grocer or other places of business. Kwame started off by saying that in the city only forty five percent of people have a car and seventy five percent of jobs are outside the city. He stated that he is a sponsor of legislation in Lansing to create a regional transportation authority. He was not clear on what this authority would do or how it would improve public transportation over the current system but he added that a dedicated source of funding must be secured for the authority to operate. In a follow up or add on question about funding Gil stated that he "would not be part of a system that does not serve city residents". And that Lansing has yet to address differences like the pay gap between the SMART and DDOT employees. And how they fund and receive their pensions.

    On their plans for neighborhoods and the relative development both answered similar. Hill specified that he wants to make sure neighbors are notified about development in their community before it happens. Kilpatrick stated that he would treat downtown as a neighborhood so it could no longer be able to be treated differently from the rest of the city.

    Then they were asked about the incidents on September eleventh and how they would plan or alert the residents and in general make the people aware of the plan prior to its use. Kwame said that Detroit Firefighters are not trained as well in preparing for disasters or terrorism. He also made the statement that what happened in New York could not happen in Detroit. Gil stated that the city had to upgrade their plans in light of what happened in New York and DC and that prior to the attack, the city used to test the plan once per week and now would have to do so twice per day.

    Black business was the subject of the next question. The candidates were asked that how would they ensure that black business owners were not left out of the opportunities in the city. On this question Gil made a passionate remark that he has been working with black business since his first day on city council eight years ago. Kilpatrick stated that black business owners have not taken advantage of the recent economic opportunities because the current city administration has not been willing to work with all the businesses in the city. He added that city taxes were too high and that there were no incentives for investment within the city.

    The next question quizzed them on their long term plans for improving the cities infrastructure. Kilpatrick said that Mayor Dennis Archer was doing a good job. He says that the Public Lighting Department is more of a problem than the water department. The water department he says has met the goals set by the courts and is in compliance with the judge. He says that general funds cannot be used to pay for improvements at the water department because of the cost and lack of money. Gil countered that the water department was not in compliance with the discharge into the river. He favors selling bonds to pay for improvements. He also added with an emphasis that he would not get rid of the public lighting department because it is a solid power source. Also because of the problems recently experienced in California Detroit needs the department as a way to keep down the cost of energy.

    The topic of rental properties and absentee landlords sometimes referred to as slum lords came up with the candidates asked about how they would make rental property owners live up to their responsibility. Kilpatrick stated that the main problem is ordinance enforcement. He says he wants to re-deploy police officers from downtown back to the precincts to allow them to better enforce this problem. This would come in the form of writing citations and tickets. He also said he wants to remove ordinance enforcement from 36th District Court and create a separate court to eliminate the backlog and allow this portion of law enforcement to get more attention. Hill agreed with Kilpatrick on his statements, which was the only time the two completely agreed. He added that people who rent must adhere to the rules of the city in relation to their property.

    This lead into the subject of the privatization of city services, Hill said that privatization is last on his mind. He said that when you privatize, "you are privatizing Detroit residents". Defining that the city workers live in the city and when they loose their jobs the city and residents loose. He said that when you privatize its always the women who gets hurt. He favors more training, better supervision, and an increase in respect for the people who work for the city and a raise in pay. Only after these things have been met could the city talk about privatization. Hill said that it is unfair to talk about privatization when the city workers have not had the opportunity to perform the job because of problems outside of their control. Kwame said privatization should be avoided. He says it is fiscally irresponsible and that the mayor must provide dollars to train and assist city workers.

    The subject of city airport was one where the two challengers were most divided although they seem to want the same goals they differ widely on the problems, the past and the possible solutions to making City Airport a positive asset for the city. Kwame Kilpatrick stated that city airport is "a diamond in the rough". But he says the city needs a top notch director to run the airport. He says he will go after smaller airlines instead of trying to lure large commercial airliners. He says a big problem in the past was the city tried to lengthen the runway to attract the big jets where he would just attract the smaller jets that can use the existing runway. He criticized Detroit for trying too long to help ProAir when other airliners could have been lured to the airport. Gil Hill said he has been involved with city airport for eight years including hearings before council where he has fought for city airport. He also stated that he probably had been pushing for improvements since Kilpatrick was in high school. He said he has assisted ProAir to try and keep it afloat. He said he believed city airport would be a catalyst for the area on the east side.

    In their closings some of the remarks they made in their two minutes generated heated and generous responses from the audience which included many of their supporters. Kilpatrick went first and stated that many grandchildren did not live in the city and don't want to come back. He said the city is dirty and that the city airport has laid dormant. He said that if you want to move Detroit then vote for Kilpatrick. Gil Hill was more sedate in his closing. He said the audience listened to his answers to the questions and that his campaign was on target.