Wayne County Sheriff

Evans making headway
The special election for Detroit mayor is fast approaching, and so far, almost all of the attention has been on the perceived “big three” candidates.

But Warren Evans scored a big victory for his campaign recently that might give the Wayne County Sheriff enough publicity for a chance to make a run coming down the stretch as he faces tough competition from Dave Bing, Freman Hendrix, and Ken Cockrel, Jr.

The Detroit Free Press recently gave Evans their much sought-after endorsement, surprising many people who figured Michigan’s most-read newspaper would go with one of the more well-known candidates.

The paper cited Evans’ ability to keep the city safe as the top reason for people to vote for him, adding that “safety is the prerequisite for everything Detroit aspires to.” It also said that programs that Evans helped start most likely helped lead toward a drop in Detroit’s homicide rate over the last year.

There is a perception out there among some people that Evans is running to be a virtual second police chief of Detroit, but he asserts that he will still be able to handle the other duties that the mayor must focus on while also using his criminal justice knowledge to communicate with the police chief on what needs to be done to keep the city safe.

Evans plans to focus on preventing crimes rather than just solving them and to consolidate simple tasks as well as on fostering an environment that focuses on teamwork amongst officers and to increase the pool of potential new police hires in the city to fill vacant positions among other anti-crime initiatives.

As a lifelong Detroiter who attended Mackenzie High School and former civil rights activist, Evans has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Science, Master of Arts degree in Criminal Justice and Juris Doctor degree from the Detroit College of Law and has been sworn in to practice before the United States Supreme Court as a member of the Supreme Court Bar. He currently teaches at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

While he doesn’t have the kind of deep business background that Dave Bing has for instance, Evans still realizes that the local economy of Detroit is another issue of extreme importance.

Evans plans to focus on projects in alternative energy, healthcare, and more advanced forms of manufacturing as outlined by Michigan’s 21st Century Job Fund. He also plans to create access to capital for local businesses by working to leverage banking relationships and creating a private equity fund.

Evans’ economic plans also tie into his crime-fighting abilities as well, however, as he believes that less crime will beget more business investment due to lessened insurance and shrinkage-related costs.

While Evans has a lot of ground to make up in the race to win Detroit’s primary election, which will cut the field down to two candidates for the May 5 special election, his experience as Wayne County Sheriff and anti-crime platform make him an intriguing choice for Detroit residents who are tired of the same old problems getting in the way of the city’s revival.

Former general counsel for the City of Detroit Sharon McPhail

McPhail trailing but hanging on
Sharon McPhail finds herself trailing in the race for Detroit mayor heading into this upcoming Tuesday’s primary, but she does have one important thing to hang her hat on: she was the first woman to ever win a primary for Detroit mayor back in 1993.

She also came within just five points of eventual winner Dennis Archer. So it’s safe to say that McPhail knows her way around a campaign and will fight to the very end in her bid to make it among the final two candidates.

If elected, McPhail would bring a strong law background to the mayor’s post, having graduated from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor’s program and also having served as an assistant United States attorney as well as a corporate counsel with Ford Motor Company.

McPhail has also won multiple awards, including being named one of “Ebony Magazine’s” 100 Most Influential Black Americans, and receiving the Humanitarian of the Year Award from the March of Dimes.

One of the centerpieces of McPhail’s plan to rebuild Detroit is a plan to prevent population loss from the city, especially in regards to young students. McPhail says that one of the main problems with the city’s job market is its lack of a workforce comprised of college graduates, meaning that respected, job-creating industries are not attracted to Detroit. McPhail wants to create a Detroit Children’s Fund that will offer guaranteed four-year tuition to any accredited college or university to any high school student who graduates from a high school located in the city of Detroit and whose family has also been a resident of Detroit for at least 8 years. The fund is similar to an idea that McPhail says other cities have used to great effect.

McPhail also wants to change the city’s tax policy by immediately imposing a moratorium on any new property tax increases from any jurisdiction, implementing a fair and transparent system of assessments and appeals and working toward property tax parity between Detroiters and suburban taxpayers.

Finally, McPhail wants to create better relationships with other communities in southeast Michigan and to continue to bring big-time conventions and sporting events home.

It’s an ambitious wish list to be sure, but at the very least, McPhail provides an intriguing candidate with fresh ideas in a race that figures to be hotly contested.

This completes a series of profiles on several of the top candidates for Detroit mayor. Previous issues of The Arab American News have included breakdowns of the campaigns of Freman Hendrix, Kenneth Cockrel Jr. and Dave Bing.

A Feb. 24 primary election will decide which two of 15 candidates will go on to face off in a May 5 special election to replace disgraced former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.