Getting re-elected was the easy part for Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan. Now comes doing the job for the next four years. That part will be hard.
Mayor Mike Duggan delivers his victory speech Tuesday night. (Photo: Michael Lucido)
The Detroit News lays the table for the mayor in a paywalled piece Thursday:
The city's second-longest-serving mayor, they say, must tackle Detroit's looming pension obligations and fulfill his promise to develop a long-term plan to end residential water shutoffs. That's on top of a troubling violent crime rate, public corruption and population losses.
... Duggan this week told The Detroit News he wants to focus on more reliable transportation, ensuring equitable neighborhood investment and expanding job training.
The city already has spent years preparing for massive pension obligations that will come due midway through Duggan's next term and "I'm very proud of that," he said.
Detroit's bankruptcy exit plan relieved Detroit from much of that responsibility through 2023. But in 2024, the city's general fund will be covering a substantial portion of those payments to the General Retirement System and Police and Fire Retirement System.
The Covid-19 pandemic put a big dent in the city's savings plan for amassing the $335 million needed for the Retiree Protection Fund, set up in 2017. But Duggan said the city would be "contributing a large amount" to the fund in the coming months.
As for water shutoffs, Duggan is hoping President Biden's Build Back Better infrastructure plan gets approval, which would allocate some funding for that purpose.
