Sarah Cwiek

Governor Snyder was on hand in Detroit to wrap up his two-day Governor's Economic Summit Tuesday.

One of the summit's main goals was to start matching workforce talent and job skills with employers’ needs. There was a lot of talk about the need for better-trained employees in some sectors, particularly the skilled trades.

But Snyder says employers have to do their part, too—and treat potential employees like customers.

A Detroit-based technology firm says it has an elegant solution to the city's property tax-collection woes.

Loveland Technologies has been mapping the city’s tax-foreclosed properties online. And Loveland founder Jerry Paffendorf says they’ve come across some remarkable data along the way, like this: “The city of Detroit is nearly half a billion dollars behind on property tax collection, when you add in penalties and interest.”

Large piles of petroleum coke along the Detroit River have sparked concern from citizens and environmental groups.

The “petcoke” is a byproduct of the crude oil refinement process. This petcoke comes from the nearby Marathon oil refinery.

It’s really started piling up on two sites along the Detroit River only recently, as the nearby Marathon oil refinery has expanded to process more crude oil from the Alberta tar sands.

It’s official: Detroit has an emergency manager.

His name is Kevyn Orr. And it’s fair to say that he charmed even some skeptical observers when he was introduced to Detroit Thursday.

Orr isn’t exactly a household name. He was—until he quit his job Friday—a partner at the Jones Day law firm in Washington, DC. He’s a bankruptcy lawyer and turnaround expert who helped Chrysler through a successful managed bankruptcy.

Governor Snyder will name an emergency financial manager for Detroit today and groups that oppose the move are gearing up.

Some Detroiters fiercely believe that an emergency manager would be an illegal action that deprives them of local control.

Tom Barrow is a former Detroit mayoral candidate with the group Citizens for Detroit’s Future.

He says some people have vowed what sounds like an insurrection.

In a weird twist of fate, two remarkable events in Detroit’s recent history are happening at virtually the same time.

Former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was convicted of multiple federal corruption charges Monday. And Governor Snyder is expected to appoint an emergency financial manager within days.

The timing is a coincidence, but there’s some connection between the two events—and a lot of symbolism.

The Detroit City Council will press a challenge to Governor Snyder’s decision appointing an emergency financial manager—but they’ll do so without Mayor Dave Bing’s support.

The Council voted to approve that challenge Wednesday afternoon. Bing then held a late afternoon press conference declaring his opposition to the Council's tactics.

“I tried to figure out a way to support the Council in their efforts to appeal the Governor’s decision and to challenge the Financial Review Team’s assertion that we did not have a plan in place to fiscally stabilize the City,” Bing told reporters.

Detroit city officials are struggling to come up with a unified response to Governor Snyder’s decision to appoint an emergency financial manager.

They now have less than a week to decide if they want to challenge that. If they do, Governor Snyder has said a hearing will be held March 12.

Most members of the City Council want to at least pursue a public hearing challenging Snyder’s decision. But several say that’s difficult because Detroit mayor Dave Bing hasn’t publicly declared his position.

Governor Snyder announced last week that he’ll appoint an emergency manager for the city of Detroit.

That means an unelected person will have sweeping powers to try and stop Detroit’s financial hemorrhaging.

Of course, emergency managers are controversial. And though they don’t have a choice in the matter, Detroiters are very much divided about whether this is a good thing.

A Detroit mayoral candidate says a state financial review team vastly overstates the city’s debt burden—and their motives are political.

Lisa Howze, a former state representative and an accountant, says her own calculations show the city’s debt load is just a little over $2 billion.

In its report outlining Detroit’s financial emergency, the state review team put the number at closer to $15 billion. Their report is now in Governor Snyder’s hands as he decides whether to appoint an emergency manager for the city.

It’s not a surprise, but it is official: Mike Duggan wants to be Detroit’s next mayor.

Duggan was CEO of the Detroit Medical Center until recently. He’s spent the last few months laying the groundwork for a mayoral run.

At an official campaign kickoff Tuesday evening, Duggan touted his credentials as a turnaround artist in both the public and private sectors.

He told the crowd Governor Snyder shouldn’t appoint an emergency manager for Detroit, because that won't solve the city's financial problems.

And he says even if the Governor does appoint one, he'll be ready to challenge the appointment if he's elected mayor.

"We’re going to bring the talents of this community together," Duggan said. "And we’re going to put together such a powerful turnaround team, that we'll go to the Governor in a positive way and say, ‘We don’t need an emergency manager.'"

Duggan has been a longtime player in Detroit politics, though he only moved to the city recently. He’s lined up some influential supporters, including ministers, two former Detroit police chiefs, and business leaders.

Duggan’s run has drawn a lot of attention, in part because he’s the first white candidate for Detroit mayor in decades.

Duggan didn’t address that directly, though he--and some of his African-American supporters--said his candidacy "shouldn't be about color."

Duggan did say that Detroit should be open to anyone who wants to help rebuild the city: “Whether you were born in this city or you were born in another country, if you want to come to Detroit to be part of our future, you are just as welcome as anybody else.”

Despite the likely appointment of an emergency manager--and a very uncertain future for Detroit's elected officials--the mayor's race has gotten rather crowded.

In addition to Duggan, former State Representatives Lisa Howze and Fred Durhal are running, as is former Detroit corporation counsel Krystal Crittendon. Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon is also widely expected to jump in the race.

And Detroit mayor Dave Bing has so far refused to say whether he'll seek re-election.

A study by researchers at the University of Michigan links lead exposure in children to lower achievement on standardized tests.

It's published in the March issue of the American Journal of Public Health.  Click here to read the study. 

From the study:

Detroit has an extensive lead poisoning problem. Although only 20% of Michigan’s children younger than 5 years lived in Detroit in 2010, childhood lead poisoning in Detroit has consistently accounted for more than 50 percent of the state’s total lead burden.

Detroit Free Press reporter Keith Matheny's article explores the research further and the schools affected.

The greater the lead poisoning in a Detroit Public Schools student's blood, the higher the likelihood he or she will do poorly on achievement tests -- even after accounting for contributing factors such as poverty. That's the finding of a collaborative study that provides one of the most detailed assessments yet of the impact of lead poisoning on students' learning ability.

It appears that officials might be laying the groundwork for a so-called “managed bankruptcy” in Detroit—though it’s something they hope won’t actually happen.

A process for going through Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy is laid out in the state’s new emergency manager law that kicks in next month. And it could happen even if Governor Snyder appoints an emergency manager for Detroit.

Both state and city officials used to say that bankruptcy was completely off the table for Detroit.

The Education Achievement Authority says new data show students in that school district are making progress.

The EAA is a state-run district for the lowest-performing schools. It launched just this school year with 15 former Detroit public schools.

The district gave all students a Scantron Performance Series benchmark test at the start of the year, to establish baseline skill levels. Students in grades 2-9 were just tested again in late January and early February.

Results show that 27% of students have made what the district counts as one year’s worth of progress in just a few months. 22% have made the same level of progress in math.

Overall, the district says 48% of students are “on track” to achieve at least that much progress in reading, and 43% in math, by the end of the school year.

EAA Chancellor John Covington says in the district’s eyes, those numbers equal success.

“It takes time for all of us to learn this new way of doing things,” Covington said. “And so with that being true, we were thinking at least 50% [making grade-level progress] in the first year. And we’re getting pretty close to that.”

Covington says these results show the EAA computer-based curriculum of “student-centered learning”-- based on “meeting students where they are" at “instructional levels” rather than typical grades--can help even the lowest-performing students improve.

This is the first real batch of data to come out of the EAA.

MEAP tests for grades K-9, administered last fall, showed “minimal proficiency levels,” Covington said. High school students won’t be tested until March.

The state’s attempt to create a “recovery district” for Michigan’s lowest-performing has been controversial for various reasons.

Many are leery of the idea of the state seizing locally-controlled schools—especially Detroit Public Schools, which have a troubled history of state intervention.

The district isn’t currently operating under state law, but rather an interlocal agreement between the Detroit Public Schools and Eastern Michigan University.

Governor Snyder says codifying the district into state law—and expanding its reach statewide—is one of his priorities for this legislative term. An effort to do so in last year’s lame duck session failed.

Most Detroit residents and Detroit-watchers are resigned to the fact that it's likely a matter of when, not if, Governor Snyder will appoint an emergency manager for the city.

Nobody was surprised when a state financial review team found Detroit is in a “local government financial emergency” and that the city’s current leadership “lacks a plan” to deal with it.