Detroit Leader to Ask: What Can Suburbs do for Detroit?
Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh will be at The Community House in Birmingham on Thursday for one of two public forums to kick off a volunteer initiative led by WDET's Craig Fahle.
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What can residents of Detroit's suburbs do for the city, and how do they think the city can improve?
That's the question Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh will be asking Thursday at a public forum at The Community House, hosted by WDET-FM's radio talk show host Craig Fahle.
Thursday's session is a "listening session," allowing Oakland County residents to answer the question: "Even if you'd never move to Detroit, is there a way to get you involved in the city?"
"If you don't live in Detroit, you can't have a literal voice in Council chambers," Fahle writes on his the WDET website. "But that doesn't mean your opinion is irrelevant and that you cannot be heard."
In a blog post published on the Huffington Post on Monday, Fahle said Thursday's forum in Birmingham is ambitious and "potentially game changing."
"We know one night won't wipe away decades of of city-suburb discord and distrust, but now is the time to be bold and find ways to carry new ideas into the Detroit Council chambers," Fahle writes.
Meanwhile, Pugh will be at the Wayne State Community Arts Auditorium in Detroit on Friday afternoon, asking Detroiters not only how the city can improve, but to volunteer as well.
Fahle told the Detroit Free Press last week that he and his staff already volunteer every Thursday at the Frederick Douglass Academy in Detroit mentoring high school seniors.
"We want people to know they can have a measureable, practical impact (as volunteers)," Fahle said.
The program actually is part of Fahle's "Call to Action" series, in which he asks how his listeners can help transform Detroit — and then asks them to step up and get their hands dirty.
In his Huffington Post blog post, Fahle said he and his staff aim to kick off a 30-day drive that he hopes will generate 10,000 new volunteer hours for neighborhood-based nonprofits. Launching concurrently with the first public forum Wednesday will be the online tool, Why Don't We Own This, which seeks to match volunteers with nonprofits that need help.
"The site will be the region' largest, web-based collection of volunteer opportunities — and it'll be a work in progress," Fahle writes.
If you go
- When: 5-8 p.m. Thursday
- Where: The Community House, Birmingham
- Cost: Free
- RVSP: Visit www.wdet.org
In This article
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The Community House
380 S Bates St, Birmingham, MI -
A Conversation with Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh
February 23, 2012 at 5:00 pm–8:00 pm
Ferndale Resident
10:47 am on Thursday, February 23, 2012
Why should we do -anything- for Detroit? We already pay them for water, and we get their criminals seeping into our community in return. Detroit used to be a great place back in the day, but now it's too dangerous and too filthy to want to have anything to do with it.
Here's what they can do to get volunteers:
-Assure people that Detroit is worth reinvesting in. Show people exactly what needs to be done, where it needs to be done, and why it needs to be done. If they need volunteers to, say, spruce up a park, ensure that it won't be vandalized again the next day.
-Increase police presence on the streets which it seems like they're trying to do with this virtual precinct program. People aren't going to want to volunteer- especially people from the suburbs- if they don't feel safe.
It's a noble goal to want to revive and rejuvenate Detroit, and I'd like to see that happen some time in my lifetime. Unfortunately, Detroit's been plagued with a rash of corruption and crime that will continue until the actual in-city residents of Detroit take a stand. Luckily, this process has begun. Until this is cleaned up, I know I will likely never volunteer in Detroit, and I know several others who feel the same.