Detroit City General Election:11/5/13 - Vote doesn't mean a damn thing but...

[downtownguy]

For the folks living in District 5, could you tell me a bit more about Adam Hollier? Other than the fact that he was an Executive Liasion to the Mayor's Office during City Council meetings, what else qualifies him to be a City Council member? I don't know much else about him.

I already shared my fears about Mary Sheffield earlier. The fact that she's connected to the Kwame/McNamara machine via Horace Sheffield suggests she may be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

While none of us want to repeat the Kilpatrick years, the fact is there are political machines in most cities, and sometimes you can't throw a stone far enough to miss one them. I prefer to use that as but one of the criterion in judging a candidate's qualifications. After all, Mike Duggan also came from the same McNamara machine that churned out so many of our current and past leaders, including Kilpatrick.

That said, I will repeat what I said earlier. Hollier [[he pronounces his name with a French twist: "Oye-yea") sounded like he was leaning mostly on his prior employment, and not necessarily on specific credentials or a grasp of the issues and wishes of his constituency. He took a lot of credit for getting M-1 Rail in place. Really? I wonder if his boss at the time, State Senator Bert Johnson might have played a role, too?

In the end, it was a gut reaction to the fact that Sheffield was not parroting campaign-speak that stood out to me. While I don't doubt either one of them has political aspirations beyond City Council, Shefflield seemed to have a more genuine interest in her community, while Hollier came of as self-aggrandizing.

[brizee]

The new council gets ready to be seated in a few weeks.

Hopefully Brenda Jones gets selected over Saunteel Jenkins for president.

I'm reasonably optimistic about this group, but again the GOP is running this city at least until the gubernatorial election next November.