Politics

After 100 Days, Duggan Gets Rep as a 'Hands-on Mayor'

April 10, 2014, 5:42 AM

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Mayor Mike Duggan

Mayor Mike Duggan is still enjoying the honeymoon with the media.

Matt Helms of the Detroit Free Press writes a rather complimentary piece on Duggan's first 100 days in office, describing him as a "hands-on mayor even as the limitations on his power in office open him up to vulnerabilities."

Helms writes: 

The latest example of the can-do Duggan came with Wednesday’s announcement that he’s honoring a campaign pledge to take negligent property owners to court to force them to fix up and occupy vacant homes or lose them to the Detroit Land Bank, reinforcing the tone he’s set in his first 100 days in office.

While establishing a strong working relationship with emergency manager Kevyn Orr and moving in cooperation with the City Council, Duggan’s first steps have focused on the nitty-gritty: getting streets plowed and buses running on time, reorganizing the public lighting authority with an aggressive new timetable to relight the city and, now, attacking blight in a systematic way. He’s done so with open support of a new City Council markedly less in conflict with the mayor than under Duggan’s predecessor, Dave Bing.

Duggan has had his limitations. Orr still oversees the police department, a critical area in a city where crime is a big issue, and the city's finances. And Helms notes that he's been silent on the Red Wing development and the demolition of Joe Louis, issues that folks have plenty opinions about.

“He has always been, with everything he’s done, just a very hard-charging, aggressive, ‘don’t take no for an answer’ kind of leader, which is precisely what Detroit needs at this time,”  Steve Mitchell, a longtime Michigan political analyst and pollster, told the Freep. “And I think that as well as he’s been able to work with Kevyn Orr is indicative of his ability to get things done no matter what the circumstances are.”  


Read more:  Detroit Free Press


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