Detroit mayoral hopeful Warren Evans focuses on public safety

Detroit mayoral candidate Warren Evans (photo: Minehaha Forman)

In his campaign appearances gearing up for the Feb. 24 Detroit mayoral special election, Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans has focused largely on public safety and policing –- to the extent that he often reminds voters that he is not running for police chief but for mayor.

At an event last Monday afternoon at Canaan Manor Senior Care Center on Detroit’s east side, Evans was true to form, attempting to relate almost all of the city’s problems back to crime.

When addressing the problems of the Detroit Public School system, for example, he overlooked the academic and budgetary crises DPS faces and zeroed in on school security.

“I don’t care what you do to the curriculum. If the kids aren’t comfortable in class and teachers aren’t comfortable teaching, [then] the biggest problem with DPS is public safety,” he told the group of 12 senior women.

“See, everything in my mind goes back to public safety,” he said.

But in an interview with Michigan Messenger, Evans described his plans to address the other issues Detroit faces, including urban blight, insurance redlining and selling city assets for quick revenue. When asked about these problems, Evans responded with some specifics but kept his focus on public safety and encouraging entrepreneurs to open small businesses in the city’s neighborhoods outside downtown.

When asked what his plans were for the city’s large blighted neighborhoods, Evans said he didn’t see blight as something the city was in a position to correct anytime soon. He said he would focus on demolishing abandoned houses in neighborhoods experiencing less decay.

“I will try to work on the neighborhoods that are stable,” he said. “And the one’s that aren’t, frankly I won’t spend a lot of money tearing down those houses. If that’s going to be Beirut, let it be Beirut, but don’t let Beirut grow.”

In a time when the city budget deficit keeps growing, Evans said his vision to bring revenue to the city will be based on a combination of tactics to attract small businesses, tapping into the Obama stimulus package to build infrastructure and develop “green technology.” He also said he saw the health-care industry developing over the next 10 years. “Hundreds of nurses come over from Canada to fill those jobs here,” he said. “So there are clear-cut jobs and job opportunities for Detroiters.”

Touching on another topic that has been prominent so far in the primary race, Evans said he was against selling city assets, especially any part of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department.

He suggested other ways for the city to create revenue, mainly by attracting small businesses.

“I’m hoping auto companies will rebound, but they will never be what they once were,” he said. “If we have safe neighborhoods, people will start those businesses.”

To attract these small businesses, he would have the city consolidate its bank accounts into one or two banks and then leverage the banks to loan to entrepreneurs in the city.

“[The banks with city money] would be obligated to make venture capital or entrepreneurial expansion funds available to people who qualify,” he said. “If they don’t, I’ll go to another bank.”

Another issue Detroiters feel strongly about is redlining. To insure a car in the city of Detroit costs hundreds of dollars more than it does in the suburbs. This problem has forced many Detroiters to drive without insurance, change their address to across Eight Mile road or simply move out of the city. Evans acknowledged this is a major problem and suggested self-insurance as a solution, meaning that city residents all contribute to an insurance pool and insure their own vehicles with the pooled money instead of relying on private insurance companies.

“The city and the county self-insure all their own people,” he said. “If you took Detroiters and created a contribution of folks there to start an insurance pool, I think it would obviously be cheaper.”

Ultimately, Evans’ plans on this matter returned to the issue of public safety. As sheriff, he said, he has worked on enforcement plans to reduce auto theft in the past and would keep working on ways to curb auto theft as mayor to help force insurance rates down. If elected, he said, Detroiters could see relief in car insurance in his first two years in office.