Detroit interim Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr.

Fresh off of his State of the City address last Tuesday, Detroit interim Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. will now turn his attention to the primary election, which takes place on February 24.
Only the top two vote-getters in the election will move on to the May 5 final election for the position of mayor, but Cockrel appears to be in good shape, according to a recent poll.

Conducted by the firm Denno Noor and published in the Detroit Free Press on January 15, Cockrel was shown to be in second place, with Dave Bing first and Freman Hendrix third. The race is expected to be close, however.

Whether or not Cockrel is able to maintain that second spot or perhaps rise up to first place might depend on what the citizens of Detroit think of his recent address. In the address, Cockrel talked about familiar problems such as the economy and the safety of Detroit’s citizens.

He said that the U.S. government’s economic stimulus package should help create some opportunities but acknowledged that Detroit’s situation is indeed dire.

“Too many are still trying to recover from the shock of a layoff and are doing their best to rebound as quickly as possible. Too many Detroiters are fighting to avoid foreclosure.”

To help get people back to work, Cockrel plans to look into creating opportunities for Detroiters in the film industry, now that it has taken hold in southeast Michigan.

He also is hopeful that a new mass transit system will eventually be created to help make it easier for citizens to get to places of employment, and he has given deputy mayor Saul Green the task of fostering a merger between the SMART bus company and D-DOT, the Detroit Department of Transportation.

City worker staff cuts of 10% and a 20% personal pay cut, both part of Cockrel’s plan to slash the city budget by $2 million yearly, were also addressed in the speech.

On the safety front, Detroit has reopened four mini-stations recently and just last week reopened Detroit’s 10th Precinct. The re-openings are an example of Cockrel’s desire for the city’s leaders to form a “strong partnership against crime and vandalism,” as mentioned in his State of the City address.

Cockrel has served on the Detroit City Council since 1998, becoming President Pro Tem in 2001. He became the youngest councilman ever elected in 1997. He is also a former reporter for the Detroit Free Press, Grand Rapids Press, and the Cincinnati Enquirer. He graduated from Wayne State with a bachelor’s degree in print journalism.

The one perceived negative against Cockrel is that he has been around since the Kwame Kilpatrick days and some Detroiters feel that a total housecleaning is necessary, but those reservations don’t appear to be taking much of a toll on him yet. Cockrel still has as good a chance as anyone to make it to the final election on May 5.

Detroit mayoral candidate Dave Bing

Former basketball star Bing brings business savvy
In political races across the country, it has been proven time and time again that big-name candidates like former actors and athletes are almost always popular picks come election time.

Dave Bing is certainly no exception to that rule so far as he was the top vote-getter in a Denno Noor poll published in the Detroit Free Press on January 14.

Bing led second-place finisher and current acting Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. in that poll, garnering 28% of the vote to Cockrel’s 22% while Freman Hendrix finished third with 13%. The poll had a 5.8% margin of error which means that Cockrel and Bing could be considered even and Hendrix and Cockrel could be as well, according to the article.

Nevertheless, Bing is looking strong heading toward the Feb. 24 special primary election, which will cut the field for mayoral candidates down to two. The final election for the mayor of Detroit will be held on May 5.

Bing has Detroit voters intrigued because he is a well-known personality from his days as a Hall-of-Fame Detroit Pistons basketball star. He also is a successful business leader, something that counts a great deal in the face of the current economic issues facing the city. His mix of both star power and integrity is an alluring combo for Detroit voters.

Bing, who’s resided in Detroit for 42 years, calls himself more of a “statesman” than an active politician, which he says means that he will tell Detroiters the truth as opposed to what they want to hear like a traditional politician would do.

His Bing Group company is a multi-dimensional automotive supplier that offers a full range of services from flat rolled steel processing, to metal stamping, sequencing, and assembly.

Using that business as a platform and other relationships he has developed over the years, Bing has managed to raise the most money out of all the candidates for Detroit mayor, raising more than $500,000 for his campaign. He has already spent more than $430,000 of it according to The Detroit News.

Bing’s website, www.bingformayor.com, states that he will focus on creating jobs for Detroit citizens by using his experience to cut through red tape and to get results fast through things like alternative energy and green technologies. Bing also wants to get tough on crime in the city and to make public safety one of his biggest priorities.

Additionally, he wants to find creative ways to focus on the city’s youth by working to keep after-school programs and community centers open, to get parents more involved as community leaders, and to speak at schools and help mentor children as he has done in the past.

Whether or not Bing can fix those kinds of persistent Detroit problems remains to be seen, but he would love the opportunity to try.

While Bing’s advancement in the city’s primary is definitely not a sure thing, he has as good a chance as any of the candidates to become Detroit’s next mayor.

Other top Detroit mayoral campaigns will be detailed in upcoming editions of The Arab American News