We're losing so many autoworkers to downsizing. Why can't the same apply to Detroit city councilmembers, and heads of various departments?
Now the latest story, reported in the Free Press, has councilmember Jo Ann Watson in a spite of trouble for underpaying her taxes. Perhaps not a blatant oversight on her part, since the property has been underassessed.
WAY underassessed.
All told, Watson paid $68 in taxes in her relatively modest east-side home. Detroit records go one step further into absurtity: They say the house doesn't exist, and hasn't for over a decade - even though the Free Press shows a photo of Watson exiting said house on a recent day!
First, when you think of council members there, you wonder what Oscar-winning stories you'll witness. And Watson proves she's as good as Martha Reeves, Monica Conyers and the rest. She said there was damage to the home from a tornado that hit, either in 1993 or 2002.
Um, for an incident as big as a tornado hitting your house, you would think you knew where you were at the exact moment, with a time and date stamped in your mind. You would think receipts exist that shows dates of needed repair work. No mention of this. Not even a question posed to the city in the years forthcoming, questioning why her assessment changed so drastically.
Okay, that last statement sounds foolish. Who would volunteer to pay more taxes in such a depressed economy? It does sound like a kiss-up label on the surface. But since honesty is in rare stock these days, it would be nice to show some. And I was about to shower the woman with complaints that she's hiding something, until I read at the bottom of the page that she is going to rectify the problem, after all.
My God, someone on the council actually earns brownie points from a candid observer!
But the points and honesty levels are both next to nil. This goes to show, more than ever, how tied up Detroit departments are with gross negligence. Whether the sheer size of the city is the issue or not, a competent department should be able to keep better records. A decade of misclassification is a farce at its best. Those at the assessment department probably saw the article and thought it was a fabrication. It wouldn't be a surprise if they continue to believe it as such, and not send a field worker down there to verify the existence of something that's been there since 1926.
It makes you wonder whether cities like Detroit, or neighboring Ecorse (fighting a deficit due to mismanagement for the second time in 15 years) will ever recover.
Perhaps the former Ecorse city controller said it best in a recent interview: Maybe the people don't want change.
And perhaps newspapers want to continue selling subscriptions.
