Quote:
Dale Buss / Special to The Detroit News
When Larry Arreguin wakes up in the morning and goes to work, he can't avoid the sour stench from the composting facility in his southwest Detroit neighborhood. He often wishes that City Council members could smell it, too. Then they might take action.
But there's little chance of that. No council member lives in southwestern Detroit. Nor do they live in the city's most distressed areas. Their homes are all clustered in a few neighborhoods.
"They don't smell this every day like I do," says Arreguin, who chairs the Advocacy Committee of Greening of Detroit. "If they did, they probably would do something quickly."
This lack of representation in neighborhoods that activists call "forgotten Detroit" has revived the effort to restore a ward system to Detroit for the first time in 90 years. Both mayoral candidates support a change from at-large representation to districts, and some proponents believe momentum is building.
" Grassroots organizations have been supporting a ballot initiative on this for a year now, and they're about to pick up their efforts," says Steve Tobocman, a southwestern Detroit resident and former state House majority leader who remains active in city politics.
Ward supporters say they will improve city services by holding a single council person accountable for what happens within his or her district. Residents would know who to call if the garbage doesn't get picked up, if police patrols slack off or if the street lights don't come on when they should. And they could act on Election Day if their concerns aren't addressed.
"I just fundamentally believe the closer an elected official is to the constituents they serve, the better," says Freman Hendrix, the former Detroit deputy mayor who finished third in the mayoral primary. "I happen to think council members are the most inaccessible elected officials in this city."
Opponents -- including most of the current council members -- say wards wouldn't work in Detroit because the city has a strong mayor form of government. Residents would expect more of their council members than they have the power to deliver, they say.
"People would say, 'The roads aren't fixed,' and hold me accountable for it," Councilman Kwame Kenyatta says. "But the mayor determines what projects are going to be worked on. If he doesn't like me, he simply holds up the projects for my district."
Wards have also been synonymous with corruption in some cities where the ward boss exercises control over services.
But the corruption argument would seem moot in Detroit, where at least one council member is reportedly under federal investigation, former Councilman Alonzo Bates was convicted of fraud and jailed, and former Councilwoman Kay Everett died while under indictment.
The main complaint with the at-large council system is that council members live in clusters around a few neighborhoods: Palmer Woods, Rosedale Park, Sherwood Forest and downtown Detroit. As a result, many parts of the city, such as East English Village near the Grosse Pointe border and Brightmoor on the west side, have no council representative living nearby, despite having vibrant populations.
Kenyatta lived on the city's northwestern side before walking away from his home in March.
His neighbors included council members Sheila Cockrel, Brenda Jones and Monica Conyers. JoAnn Watson resides near the city center, while Barbara-Rose Collins, Martha Reeves and Alberta Tinsley-Talabi live in or near downtown.
Those areas where council members are concentrated don't necessarily get more representation, because the members aren't elected only by their neighbors. But at least someone in power sees the conditions in their neighborhoods.
A ward system would give a greater political voice to the city's growing minority populations, particularly in southwest Detroit. The population there is largely Hispanic and has one of the city's most successful small business districts.
"The priority of the council now is senior citizens, but in our community we have a much greater need to address issues around our youth, including gang violence that is very different than in the other communities in Detroit," says Angela Reyes, executive director of the Detroit Hispanic Development Council.
"We also have lots of industry here, so environmental justice issues tend to be different than in the rest of the city. And we have [[the Ambassador) bridge and truck-traffic concerns. We also have kids being left behind as parents are being deported over immigration issues."
Bing, Cockrel show support
Interim Mayor Ken Cockrel supports electing council members by district, but wonders if it would really change things. "What's broken?" Cockrel asked in a Detroit News editorial board interview. The mayor provides and is responsible for city services, not the council, he notes. Yet a ward system would be "a positive," he says, if it improves the accountability of council members.
Dave Bing, Cockrel's opponent in the May 5 special election, told the editorial board that he supports a district system for accountability.
"If you are in a certain area of the city," Bing says, "who do you call to get the support for whatever the problems are? If you were a council by district, you would know who to call."
Skeptics say the problems with any move to electoral districts are underestimated.
"The city should remain as a whole," says Reeves, who argues that a ward system could lead to unequal services, with more powerful council members cutting better deals for their residents. "We all get the same water rate and bulk-pickup charge, and that should remain equal as it stands."
Improving accountability makes more sense in a system like Chicago's, Kenyatta says, where each ward gets a certain amount of money "and the alderman is responsible for getting projects done."
Chicago's infamous ward system also has had its down sides. "They became little baronies, where council members have always had to do lots of horse-trading," says Michael Whitty, adjunct professor in the College of Business Administration at the University of Detroit-Mercy. "That can limit the vision of someone who might want to think city-wide or regionally."
Whitty is teaching at the University of San Francisco this semester, where he is studying that city's district-based system.
"Their neighborhoods get much more aggressive representation" than those in Detroit do, Whitty concludes. "They're much more niched down to small businesses and neighborhood associations. Both residents and business owners have a little closer proximity to city government."
Having lived in various parts of Detroit, Whitty argues that the city would benefit from a switch to districts. "It's about neighborhoods, and not only making those neighborhoods viable for low-income and working-class people but also making them attractive to the African-American middle class."
Of the 15 most populous cities in America, only Detroit and Columbus don't have a district or hybrid district and at-large council electoral system.
Going back to city's roots
If Detroiters should change their electoral scheme, they'll be going back to an aspect of their political heritage.
The first time Detroit elected its own government, in 1802, it used an at-large system, says Joel Stone, curator of the Detroit Historical Society. But by 1850, the city was divided into eight wards, each with two aldermen and an assessor.
After the use of some hybrid systems combining district and at-large representation, by 1910 Detroit had 18 wards "and everyone agreed there was too much dissension, too many opinions and, essentially, gridlock," Stone says. "There was too much logrolling, trading votes for services and alliances to vote."
But ward-system advocates note that horse-trading and graft are much more difficult for urban politicians to pull off these days, given open meetings and freedom of information laws.
Residents have two options for adopting a ward system. They could mount a petition drive to get a charter amendment on the ballot. Or they could support an initiative already on the May 5 ballot to establish a commission to consider revising the city charter.
Petitions are circulating for a hybrid council system of seven districts and two at-large seats.
"Detroiters need to make this happen," Tobocman says. "Representative democracy is better when you have someone representing your neighborhood."
</H2>