Tagged: Dave Bing

The Changing Gears special program "Power and Performance" examines the roles of leadership and the economic fortunes of three Midwestern cities: Cleveland, Chicago and Detroit.

Can a strong mayor change a city by sheer will? Is quiet determination a better course of action? What difference has the quality of leadership made across the Great Lakes?

The show, hosted by Mike McIntyre, takes a look at how these cities are adapting to face new issues and also examine what problems they have that resist easy solutions.

Members of the Detroit City Council plan to sit down with their attorneys today to see if they can have any say in a new deal for managing the city’s water system. 

Mayor Dave Bing says there’s a lot the city of Detroit can learn from the way the city of New Orleans has tried to recover from Hurricane Katrina.  And, there’s much they can learn from Detroit.  

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing has rolled out a new incentives program for Detroit police officers.

“Project 14” aims to pull some officers living in the suburbs into city neighborhoods. The phrase refers to a Detroit police code that means things are “back to normal.”

Bing hopes to restore something like normality to Detroit neighborhoods by making more Detroit cops city residents. Fewer than half are right now.

The project’s pilot phase will give officers chance to get a tax-foreclosed home for up to a thousand dollars. They’ll also be eligible for federal funds to fix them up.

Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee calls moving to the city a “highly personal decision” for officers. But he thinks many will consider it.

“I’ve fielded a number of calls to my office wondering what the incentives were. So now that they’ve been laid out I think we’re going to see a lot of officers take advantage of it.”

Project 14 will initially offer 200 homes in two relatively stable Detroit neighborhoods.

Bing says the program also complements his Detroit Works Project, which aims to strengthen the city’s more viable communities.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing is expected to announce a program Monday to encourage more police officers to live in the city.

Detroit had a residency requirement until 1999, when the state Legislature outlawed it. Now more than half the officers on the police force live outside the city limits.

Mayor Bing has said he believes neighborhoods are safer when the cops who patrol them live there too. But Detroit Police Officer Carol Harris says she doesn’t agree.

"When I did live in that community that I did patrol, the people that I arrested also know who I was, where I lived and were to come after me, so… it’s just not a safe place."

Harris now lives in Wyandotte, and has an eight-year-old son. She says there’s “no way” she’d consider moving back to Detroit.

She says younger officers without families might be willing to entertain the idea. But Harris says cops who live elsewhere still have a vested interest the city, and care about its future.

The city of Detroit could soon lure more of its men in blue back within its borders. Detroit Mayor Dave Bing is expected to announce a program on Monday aimed at encouraging police officers to live in the city.

John Mogk is a law professor at Wayne State University. He says it makes sense to want to keep public safety workers in the city:

"They’re closer to where their responsibilities are, they provide a degree of security in the neighborhoods in which they live, the compensation they receive, more of it stays in the city and circulates within city businesses."

Mogk says police officers are also paid middle-class wages, which helps a high-poverty city like Detroit.

Detroit had a residency requirement until 1999, when the state Legislature outlawed it.