(L-R) School administrator Nawal Hamade; State Sen. David Knezek; AACC executive director Fay Baydoun; Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan; Imam Mohamad Ali Elahi, and Dearborn Mayor Jack O’Reilly Jr. among others, pose for a group photo at the Islamic House of Wisdom, Jan. 9.

DEARBORN HEIGHTS — In a town hall meeting at the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights on Friday, Jan. 9, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan invited Arab Americans to live in the city and open businesses there. He also highlighted Detroit’s progress since he took office last year.

Dearborn mayor Jack O’Reilly Jr., Muslim scholars, community activists and state legislators attended the event, which was organized by the American Arab Chamber of Commerce (AACC) and the Detroit Department of Neighborhoods.

AACC Executive Director Fay Beydoun said Duggan chose to hold the meeting at a mosque after witnessing the roles of churches in involving the community in Detroit.

In a brief speech, Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi, the spiritual leader of the House of Wisdom, welcomed the crowd and condemned the Paris terrorist attacks that took place a few days earlier. He thanked Duggan for reaching out to the Arab and Muslim community by coming to the mosque and described him as “the savior of Detroit.”

O’Reilly also heaped praise on Duggan. He said the Detroit mayor had consulted him on how to engage the Arab American community. O’Reilly said he told Duggan that the chamber of commerce is a great place to start.

“We have agreed that we are going to work together,” O’Reilly said of his relationship with Duggan. “We are going to show that Detroit and Dearborn can form a partnership that can be an example to all the communities in the greater Detroit area.”

Welcoming city

Duggan said his election proves that Detroit is a welcoming place for everybody, regardless of ethnicity, culture or religion. In 2013, the predominantly African American city elected Duggan as its first White mayor since Roman Gribbs left office in 1974.

“When I started off in this campaign, there were an awful lot of people who said that there’s no way I could be elected mayor of Detroit,” Duggan said. “People assumed that Detroiters would only see race and wouldn’t vote for me. Except that I spent enough time in the city to know that it was a different city and that people would vote for me.” 

Duggan added that Detroit is open to everybody, highlighting efforts in the City Council to make Detroit a more welcoming place for immigrants.

He said his relationship with the Arab American community goes back to the early days of his political career and discussed his efforts to protect local Arabs and Muslims in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, when he was Wayne County prosecutor.  

“I wanted to send a strong message that it is really important that we are not going to attribute the actions of a handful of terrorists to an entire community,” Duggan said.

Duggan recalled that ACCESS had received online threats a few months after Sept. 11, 2001 and that he was adamant about prosecuting the person responsible for the threats. The offender turned out to be in Sacramento, Calif. 

Duggan said he brought a criminal charge of felony threat against the suspect and called the governor of California to extradite him. The governor agreed to Duggan’s request. The then-prosecutor ended up offering the sender of the threats a plea deal that required him to serve 90 days of community service at ACCESS. 

According to Duggan, the defendant became friends with Arab American activists by the end of the 90 days. 

Improved services

Duggan discussed programs he implemented to improve the services and quality of life in Detroit’s neighborhoods. 

He said the city is mapping entire neighborhoods to locate vacant homes, then suing the owners of those homes to fix them or hand them over to the city. The acquired homes are then sold by the Detroit Land Bank to the highest bidder on BuildingDetroit.org, an auction website like eBay. 

The new owners have to bring the house up to code within six months of the purchase.

Duggan added that some of the abandoned homes in the city were still valuable, but the problem is that people had lost confidence in the neighborhoods. 

He said addressing entire neighborhoods solved that problem because home-buyers knew that others will buy the remaining vacant properties on the block. 

The program is targeting neighborhoods that border Dearborn and Dearborn Heights and Duggan invited the crowd to check it out. 

“We are saying to folks in this community, if you ever had a belief that you are not welcomed in the city of Detroit that belief is not true,” he said. “I want everybody in the Arab American community to know you are welcomed in the city of Detroit and you can buy a beautiful house for not a whole lot of money.”

Duggan also urged people in the community to do business in the city. The mayor boasted about improvements in the Buildings Safety Engineering & Environmental Department, where he brought in former deputy police chief Eric Jones to make the process of permits more efficient. 

“He has transformed that organization with discipline and military precision and they’re doing a great job,” Duggan said of Jones’ work. “You’re going to see a much more rigorous code enforcement; but the other thing you are going to see if you open a business is that you are going to get a prompt response, a fair response, a final response. It’s actually going to be a pleasure.”

Asked about efforts to improve safety in the city, Duggan said Police Chief James Craig has done an “outstanding” job.

According to Duggan, the police response time in Detroit has been reduced from 45 minutes a year ago to 19 minutes today— “a little bit higher than the national average, but not nearly what it was.”

Duggan said he and Craig reached an agreement with the police union to hire 150 retired officers to handle minor duties, which frees more officers to be in patrol cars and handle emergency situations. The same agreement also allowed the city to hire civilians as dispatchers, which will transfer 200 officers from behind the desks to the streets.