Mike Duggan

Metro Detroit’s “Big Four” had their annual public gathering at Detroit’s auto show today.

The four leaders are the Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb county executives, and Detroit’s mayor. It’s usually a mostly feel-good conversation about regional cooperation.

And indeed, they did talk about that and a range of other issues. But the leaders also couldn’t avoid the topic of the hour: Warren Mayor Jim Fouts.

Leaked audio tapes seem to show Fouts making incredibly degrading comments about African-Americans and disabled people, among others.

Joe Biden made one of his final appearances as vice president at the Detroit School for Digital Technology on Tuesday.

Biden was the public face of the Obama administration’s limited efforts to help the city through its bankruptcy and aftermath.

Biden says that after eight years of slow but steady recovery, he’s confident the country remains a place that “will never bend, never break, and always go forward.”

“And Detroit is the single shining example, if you were to pick any one place in America, to demonstrate that’s who we are,” he said.

The world's largest global automotive seating supplier announced today it will establish its new headquarters in Detroit.

The Milwaukee-based company Adient chose Detroit to build its new headquarters because of the economic opportunity it sees in the downtown area.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said he's proud that companies want to move to the city.

“To move their global headquarters to Detroit is a message to every major company in America that Detroit is a place that you want to be,” Duggan said.

Detroit’s rapid-fire demolition campaign under Mayor Mike Duggan was rife with questionable bidding practices and lacked major internal controls, according to state and federal reviews of that program.

That revelation emerged Monday, as the city announced the U.S. Treasury had released another $42 million in federal funds for the program.

But that funding had been suspended for two months, as the treasury department reviewed a Michigan State Housing Development Authority investigation.

Detroit’s efforts to “re-industrialize” are getting a boost from the federal government.

The U.S. Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration is giving $4.1 million to the city of Detroit and its quasi-public economic development arm, the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation.

A little over $3 million will be used to build up infrastructure in and around the long-stalled I-94 Industrial Park.

That site has mostly been vacant for more than two decades, after the city cleared a large swath of land  on its east side for the project in the 1990s.

JP Morgan Chase is investing an additional $1.3 million to develop training programs for workers in Detroit. 

It's part of a  a $100 million commitment the financial services magnate has made to invest in Detroit's economic recovery.

Chauncey Lennon is the head of workforce initiatives at JP Morgan Chase. He says workers need to have so-called "soft skills", like teamwork and communication. But many of today's in-demand jobs also require greater technical expertise. 

Detroit is one of three U.S. cities getting what’s called a “Chief Service Officer.”

It’s part of an initiative led by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s non-profit, Cities of Service.

The goal is to “help improve citizen engagement,” according to a city press release.

Detroit’s new Chief Service Officer, Victoria Kovari, formerly headed up Mayor Mike Duggan’s Department of Neighborhoods.

In her later years, my wife's grandmother suffered from dementia. She was the same extraordinarily sweet, wonderful person she had always been, but her short-term memory faded and her filter disappeared. For a time she lived with my wife's family. Their formal dining room became her bedroom — it was easy to keep tabs on her from the adjacent kitchen. 

She would go to her room to watch the TV news, and as my wife did her homework in the kitchen, she could hear Nana talking to the news anchor or reporter as she watched.

Mayor Mike Duggan talked about Detroit’s recovery (and took a shot at Donald Trump) during last night’s Democratic National Convention.

Mayor Duggan used his time at the podium to tout Detroit’s recovery.

Detroit’s mayor says he plans to strike a very different tone in his speech to the Democratic National Convention this week than the tone at last week’s Republican National Convention.

Mayor Mike Duggan says he was surprised to be asked to speak to the Philadelphia convention.

Duggan says he was “horrified” by Donald Trump’s GOP presidential acceptance speech last week in Cleveland.  

A Detroit program focused on boosting small business in the city’s neighborhoods has a year under its belt.

The Motor City Match program has awarded $2 million in grants so far. It awarded another $500,000 to 11 new or expanding ventures on Wednesday.

They include food and restaurant businesses, two child care centers, a beauty supply store, and a music center.

Detroit’s sweeping campaign against blight under Mayor Mike Duggan marked a big milestone Tuesday, as the city demolished its 10,000th home in two-and-a-half years.

Duggan has dramatically sped up the pace and scale of demolitions, saying the city and its residents can’t afford to delay tackling neighborhood blight any longer.

Duggan says every time a blighted home goes down, it raises the quality of life for residents of that neighborhood.

An iconic spot in downtown Detroit is one step closer redevelopment.

The former Hudson’s department store has been a city-owned underground parking garage since the Hudson’s building was demolished in 1998.

But officials with Detroit’s Downtown Development Authority gave the tentative go-ahead for a new high-rise development there Wednesday.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said the deal still needs a few final approvals. The City Council still needs to OK elements of the deal, including the transfer of the parking garage to the developer for $15 million.

Mayor Mike Duggan announced today his plans to invest $11.7 million to renovate 40 neighborhood parks.

According to the City of Detroit, Duggan worked with City Parks & Recreation Department officials to identify the 40 locations based on several key criteria. This criteria included which parks had the highest concentrations of children and senior citizens living nearby, and the size of the parks. None of the chosen parks are larger than 5.5 acres. 

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan says the city’s budget is balanced for a third straight year.

Duggan laid that budget out for the Detroit City Council Thursday.

Right now, Detroit must stick within strict limits laid out in its post-bankruptcy financial plan when it comes to the just-over-$1 billion general fund budget.

But Duggan says if it can stay true to this next budget, state oversight should ease up.

Detroit is already facing an unexpectedly large shortfall in its pension fund.

That raises some red flags about assumptions baked into the city’s post-bankruptcy financial plan. The city exited bankruptcy in late 2014.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan revealed the shortfall in his annual state of the city address Tuesday.

He said the fund will be short around $490 million by 2024.

The size of the gap and its quick appearance surprised many.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan gave his annual state of the city address Tuesday night, and it was a mixed bag.

Duggan ticked off some notable successes of his administration: more working streetlights, a much-improved bus system, and a record-setting demolition effort that took down about 5,000 blighted homes as of last year.

But there’s also an unexpected, $491 million shortfall in the city’s pension system.

The city of Detroit and the Detroit Public Schools have signed a consent agreement.

It lays out timetables for fixing health and safety violations in some school buildings.

The agreement covers 26 schools right now. More schools could be added as city school inspections continue.

The agreement generally gives the district 30 days from the date of inspection to make repairs, sometimes less if there are health hazards.

The state of Michigan is getting tens of millions of dollars from the federal government to tear down blighted buildings.

Last year, Congress approved spending $2 billion to fund blight elimination programs nationwide. 

The U.S. Department of Treasury today says Michigan is eligible for more than $300 million from the Hardest Hit fund. Nearly $75 million is available immediately.

U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint, has been among those fighting for the blight money.

Metro Detroit’s “big four” leaders got together for their annual public chat before the Detroit Economic Club at the North American International Auto Show Tuesday.

This year, two big topics dominated the conversation: the Flint water crisis, and the impending financial collapse of Detroit Public Schools.

Each of the leaders — Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan — said Gov. Snyder had mishandled the state’s response to Flint’s drinking water contamination.

DETROIT (AP) - Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is hoping for peace between the city's casinos and thousands of workers.

  Contract talks are expected to resume Monday. Taxes from casinos account for about 16 percent of Detroit's revenue or roughly $170 million a year. Duggan tells the Detroit Free Press that he hopes labor and management "find a middle ground and work it out."

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has named Eric Jones as the city's interim fire commissioner.

Jones isn’t a firefighter himself. He came up through the ranks of the Detroit Police Department, rising to the rank of assistant chief.

Most recently, Jones led the city’s Buildings, Safety and Engineering Department.

Duggan says Jones has proven himself a capable administrator, and is the best person to fix the “basic process” problems still plaguing the fire department.

For the first time in five years, Detroit and its bus drivers have agreed to a new labor contract.

The four-year deal includes an immediate 4% base wage hike, gradually growing to 13.5% over the course of the contract.

It also introduces “fare box sharing.” If the Detroit Department of Transportation gains riders and grows revenues, 30% of that increase will go to drivers, up to a certain amount.

The Detroit City Council is expected to vote on a medical pot shop ordinance in the coming weeks.

It would create zoning, licensing, and inspection guidelines for marijuana dispensaries.

The ordinance has been introduced, and is going through the Council's committee process.

Detroit bus service is improving — but still has a long way to go.

That’s the message Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan carried to a group of 27 new city bus drivers Friday.

The Detroit Police Department says it's moving forward with plans to put body cameras on all officers. All marked police vehicles will have dashboard cameras too.

Last spring, the DPD announced a 90-day pilot program to test several body cameras in the field.

Mayor Mike Duggan said the 20 officers who volunteered to be part of the program concluded "the technology works."