One way or another, district-based representation for Detroit’s city council gains steam

DETROIT — While many candidates running for the City Charter Revision Commission support a measure that would mandate city council candidates be elected by specific districts instead of the current all at-large representative structure, members of the coalition trying to get that proposal on the November ballot aren’t abandoning their current plans.

Photo by mrbula via Flickr

Michigan’s largest city is the only major U.S. city that elects all its council members citywide and not from specific wards or similar district divisions, something observers say makes Detroit’s city council members unaccountable to specific constituencies.

James Canning, a spokesman for Detroiters for Council by Districts, the coalition trying to eliminate at-large-only representation, said that just because many of the candidates running for the City Charter Revision Commission — a body that was authorized by voters in May but will not form until its members are formally elected this fall — are in support of reforming the structure of the city council, that doesn’t guarantee that the measure will be adopted.

“It’s not an effort to undermine the charter commission but in the 1990s when the last charter commission was put together, [council by districts] was a discussion topic. However it was never implemented,” Canning told Michigan Messenger in an interview.

Canning also noted that the coalition had been building momentum for the initiative before the May 5 special election when Detroiters overwhelmingly approved Proposal C, an initiative that created a nine-member City Charter Revision Commission. The commission, when in place, will have great power to reshape how Detroit’s municipal government is structured and operates.

Due to the upheaval in the mayor’s office in the past year with the dramatic departure of Kwame Kilpatrick and ongoing bickering among city council members, there is a strong sense in Detroit’s political circles that voters want something completely new from city government and are open to drastic changes in hopes of improving the city’s unstable political situation. And that climate for change will help propel support behind the council by districts proposal.

In fact, the idea of having seven city council members representing their own specific section of the city in addition to two at-large members has been popular among City Charter Revision Commission candidates surveyed by Michigan Messenger.

Jonathan Kinloch, a former Detroit school board member, said he believes that ridding Detroit of its at-large-only representation will be one of the commission’s top priorities this time around. “Districts is one of the biggest issues screaming loud throughout the city,” he said in an interview. “I listen to concerns of what people want from city government and districts is one.”

Kinloch said it is the responsibility of the commission to draft a city charter that spells out the logistical considerations to make council by districts work. One of the things Klinoch said he sees as a result of this measure would be a stronger Detroit City Council. “We have to talk about what powers the charter currently places upon the mayor — that power should be balanced with a council-by-districts form of government,” he said.

Kinloch isn’t alone. Perhaps one of the most well known candidates for the City Charter Revision Commission is former deputy mayor Freman Hendrix, who lost his bid for mayor in February’s primary. During his mayoral run, Hendrix said he was a firm supporter of council by districts with only two of the nine council members serving at-large.

Another candidate for the City Charter Revision Commission is Tonya Myers-Phillips, a lawyer who worked with the city’s Law Department to interpret the city charter’s instructions on how to remove Kilpatrick from office amid the text message scandal that brought down his administration. Myers-Phillips said she sees council by districts as something voters want as a change. Like Kinloch, she thinks assigning city council members to districts could mean taking some power from the mayor. “Detroit has a strong mayor system,” she said. “We need a balance of power with council by districts.”

But the idea of council by districts is so appealing to some that they don’t think it should be left up to the City Charter Revision Commission. Keenan Vince, director of the statewide voter information service Publius.org, is a firm supporter of the council-by-districts ballot initiative despite support for the measure among the commission candidates. He said the ballot initiative would help the grease the wheels of the City Charter Revision Commission when it’s up and running following the November elections. “Instead of asking ‘should we have council by districts?’, the commission will start off asking ‘how do we make this work?’,” he said. “It takes some layers out of what would have been a controversial question.”

Vince said one of his biggest challenges in running a voter information site for Detroit is creating a guide for the numerous candidates running for city council in the Aug. 4 primary.

“I’m working on a voter guide right now for 167 candidates. I’m just saying, from a practical standpoint, it’s very difficult,” he said. According to Vince, voters could be more informed if they could concentrate on candidates running in their neighborhood instead of trying to focus on candidates for the entire city.

There are those, however, who oppose the efforts to eliminate at-large-only representation. While some city council candidates have expressed support for the change in council structure, others have their doubts that this would institute changes that effectively addresses Detroit’s myriad problems.

Saunteel Jenkins, a candidate for city council, said she supports whatever voters want to see done, but personally isn’t sure if getting rid of at-large-only representation is the answer. “I think Detroiters are frustrated with the political situation and they’re eager to make some changes. I don’t think that council by districts will solve these problems unless other things are changed. We have to look at the larger issues,” Jenkins told Michigan Messenger in an interview.

She said certain city council members have given the rest a bad reputation without citing any names. Jenkins also noted that city council members representing districts could cause a disparity in leadership among various Detroit communities, where a collection of neighborhoods could suffer more than others depending if its council member is corrupt or ineffective.

Another candidate for city council, Jauron Winston, is staunchly opposed to council by districts. “It will increase the level of corruption and doesn’t provide the answers the citizens are looking for,” he told Michigan Messenger.

Calling council by districts a “Trojan horse,” he noted that in order to get anything approved for his or her district, each council member would still need a majority vote of the council. He said districts would lead to political favors between council members and “back-door deals” to push each council member’s agenda. Winston described the problems facing Detroit as at-large problems, not specific to any certain area. “Every area in Detroit is experiencing the same problems: the grass isn’t cut, the police don’t show up on time, people are breaking into houses,” he said.