DETROIT – Look around the City of Detroit post-bankruptcy and it is starting to look like a real U.S. major city.
Look in the Downtown area in particular and all of a sudden there are large groups of young people walking around any time of day or night. The traffic is starting to snarl at any time but particularly on concert and big event nights.
You couldn't move behind the wheel the night a few weeks ago when there was a monster truck show at Ford Field simultaneous to Garth Brooks putting on multiple shows at Joe Louis Arena.
There's a new restaurant, trendy or otherwise, popping up on just about every corner. It requires an attitude adjustment and some patience. We are not used to this! It is evidence Detroit is morphing back into a big city that operates like others.
At the same time, Mayor Mike Duggan is attempting to turn Detroit city government operations into the same. Detroit in the years leading up to the bankruptcy didn't operate so much as stumble along. We learned during the bankruptcy Detroit's payroll computer system never worked from the start, but now it is so old it couldn't get any updates and payroll was largely accomplished by hand. The income tax department is so poorly staffed and ill-equipped that the state of Michigan will soon take over the job.
Collecting the city's life-blood -- fees and taxes -- became an afterthought. So much so, the Water and Sewerage Department allowed businesses and customers alike to go years without paying with impunity.
That is why it was a serious culture shock during the bankruptcy trial when then emergency manager Kevyn Orr and Mayor Duggan started to try collecting back bills or subject scofflaws to shutoff. The outcry was loud and created headlines around the globe. It was a black eye for the city and bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes was not particularly impressed with the headlines or the way the city went about this business. He spent long days hearing testimony about it and even forced Mayor Duggan and Chief of Staff Alexis Wiley to testify about the 10-point plan they implemented to accomplish the water shutoff program. The idea was to start running the system like other cities. That adjustment was a hard one. It is also a problem that fell silent over the winter months and is about to start up again.
This time, though, Duggan wants to try to keep the story and the protests from getting ahead of his drive toward running Detroit as any other city. He will, in the next week, start shutting water off to businesses that have large back bills. He will also turn off water to businesses that are outright stealing water.
Wiley said Tuesday business shutoffs have been ongoing but there is much work to do to bring them current. There are 8,000 businesses either way behind on bills or illegally attached to the system. It's a $30 million hole in the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department budget that needs to be filled. The city needs every dime it can get to perform fixes on its ancient and decrepit infrastructure it is now responsible for fixing under the new, post-bankruptcy Regional Water Authority.
We saw how bad it was Tuesday when a water main break at the Detroit Thermal building on Beaubien Street left the 36th District Court without water service much of the day.
Wiley said whether business or residential, when it comes to shutoffs it's better to set up payment plans and start money rolling in rather than going after anyone after the horse is out of the barn. Businesses can set up payment plans and even the illegal hook-ups can end trouble by paying a fine and getting on a plan. As the old saying goes: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, which applies here.
In the next week the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department will send its own crews out to start business shutoffs and that contingent will be bolstered by private contractors. The attention to this project now, and starting in earnest this way, is a move to deflect the impending criticism the city will no doubt face for resuming residential shutoffs in the weeks to come.
Last time, protesters asked "why aren't you going after businesses"? They were, just not publically.
We'll see how this goes this time. Yes, it is an adjustment as Detroit city government begins acting like the others on a regular basis.