DETROIT – Without a teleorompter or notes, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan spoke for an hour Tuesday about achievements and goals during the State of the City address.
Watch the State of the City here.
“We’re not going to spend a lot of time talking about 2018, but these are things that in past years would have been the focus of the speech,” he said.
That’s true. In prior years, the smallest victory was enough to sustain a speech. Now, the list of achievements is long: a balanced budget, no state oversight, credit upgrades and more Detroiters working than there have been in 10 years, as well as huge development and job projects, including FCA committing to building and bringing jobs to its Detroit facility and Ford renovating and building a campus in Corktown.
A huge focus of the address was the need to help Detroiters gain the skills to qualify for the new jobs coming to the city. Money will be expended on training programs and education.
Duggan has been pushing for auto insurance reform for years and it has gone nowhere in Lansing. Now, he says he’s hopeful. Duggan has bipartisan support for his auto insurance reform quest.
Another major focus was assessing crime. Project Greenlight will, by 2020, be expanded to 1,000 cameras in the city.
“We’re going to make people make different decisions on what they want to do," Duggan said,
Both Duggan and Police Chief James Craig see the expansion as a strong deterrent to crime and an excellent tool for solving violent crime.