District-based Detroit City Council now in charter commission’s hands

DETROIT — Hundreds of hours collecting signatures, months of fundraising and battling a last-minute legal roadblock finally paid off for those who believe residents would be better served by a city council elected from districts when the results came in from the election last week.

An overwhelming 72 percent of voters supported Proposal D in last week’s election, which amended the city charter to eliminate the city council’s at-large-only system of representation. The current amendment to the charter states that two council members will run at-large and the remaining seven will be elected from a designated district drawn by the city’s election commission.

Even with the amendment approved, questions still remain as to how the council-by-districts plan will be implemented: How many residents will be represented per district? How will the districts be geographically split up? Will council members be required to live in the districts they serve?

Vince Keenan, election analyst and director of the voter information service Publius.org, said in an interview that all those details are left to the city’s newly elected Charter Revision Commission to decide. “The charter commission can look at the number of council members; they can look at all these other variables,” Keenan said.

Election lawyer Mary Ellen Gurewitz echoed Keenan. “Now it’s in the hands of the charter commission,” Gurewitz told Michigan Messenger.

But as Gurewitz and Keenan pointed out, nothing is going to happen on the matter anytime soon. The charter commission can decide some things in the upcoming year, such as who should draw the districts and whether council members are required to live in the district they represent. But they will have to wait until new census numbers come out before districts are drawn. And those figures won’t be available for use until summer 2011, according to Keenan.

“Nobody would draw anything until we have the new census track data,” Keenan said. “Right now we’re in a little bit of a limbo phase until mid 2011.”

Despite the wait, charter commissioners seem excited about districts. All but one of the commissioners strongly supports electing council members by districts and most commissioners already have had ideas lined up months ahead of their first meeting.

Cara Bount

One charter commissioner, Cara Blount, has some ideas ready to present to her eight colleagues when they gather for the first time as a board in January. Her first idea is to shrink the number of council members from nine to seven.

“One of the things I said when I was running is that I’d like to see the council smaller,” Blount told Michigan Messenger. “That’s an idea I’ll bring up at the table and if the citizens like it, then I would like to see us with five districts and two council members at large,” Blount said.

While some think that the council should be smaller to reflect the drop in population since the 1960s, others, like Keenan, think otherwise. He explained that the number of Detroit city council members has not changed since 1918 when the population was comparable to what it is today. When the city’s population boomed in the early 1950s at the peak of the auto industry, the size of the council didn’t change to reflect the population growth. “The truth is, did we need more council members in 1951?” Keenan asked.

For districts to work smoothly, there are other things that Blount says need to change in the charter to allow for districts. One of them is how the city council president and president pro-tempore are elected.

Currently, the two council candidates with the most votes lead the council, but with districts that could be troublesome. “The way districts are set up right now, the two people who run at large would likely get the most votes,” Blount said. She suggested that the council president and president pro-tem be elected by a vote within the council. “The leader can be chosen by the people who sit at the table with them, who know whether or not they’re really good leaders,” she said. “That is basically what the charter commission will do once we’re seated.”

Also under districts, Blount, like many of her fellow commissioners, thinks the mayor-strong system used today won’t work once single council members are left in charge of his or her district. “Once you go to council by districts you have to talk about whether council has enough power to operate,” she explained. “If it stays the way it is now, you’ll have seven people sitting in districts with the power to do nothing.”

Ultimately, the passage of Proposal D last week secured one thing: The Detroit City Council elected in 2013 will represent districts. Beyond that lies much speculation relying heavily on what the charter commission decides.

But most people, including Keenan, are optimistic that the charter commission will do a good job. “We’re looking at a new day,” he said. “We have the best charter commission ever because they have clarity on the districts issue.”