BridgeDetroit is scheduling one-on-one interviews with all members of the City Council at the start of their new term to understand their priorities and governing philosophies.
Here’s some others you might have missed:
Detroit City Council Member Gabriela Santiago-Romero is headed to Mackinac Island this month with one ask top of mind: tax reform.
The city, in recent years, has commissioned studies on the feasibility of creating a local sales tax or a “ticket tax” for local sports and concert venues and arenas. A local tax could diversify Detroit’s revenue sources, drawing income from visitors while making the city less reliant on property taxes and state revenue sharing.
“It’s a constant, it’s a priority,” the District 6 Council Member told BridgeDetroit as she gears up for an annual trip to the Mackinac Policy Conference this month. “I deeply believe that we need to tax stadiums.”
Santiago-Romero said she’s promoting the concept and other revenue-generation strategies to better respond to the everyday needs of Detroiters.
In her Southwest Detroit district, there are many community benefits agreements tied to developments, she said, and “they are not yielding us what we all ultimately want, which is long-term benefits.”
The city’s downtown is home to numerous sports and concert venues, and Santiago-Romero noted a continued push across the state for tax reforms.
Last fall, a Citizens Research Council of Michigan analysis found an admissions tax on Detroit sports and entertainment venues could raise between $14 million and $47 million annually, depending on the tax rate. The report notes that events “are powerful economic engines,” and Detroit is a rare outlier among major cities not tapping into the resource.
In January, CRC released another report studying benefits and risks of local option taxes, which suggest Detroit could raise between $42 million and $71 million by creating a 1% sales tax that would cost households an additional $167 per year.
The reports are among the studies Detroit City Council has commissioned to explore ways to raise new revenue and reduce the property tax burden for residents.
The change, Santiago-Romero concedes, would be a heavy lift, requiring a constitutional amendment, voter support and a determination on which tax to pursue. The Michigan Constitution prevents municipalities from creating their own sales taxes, which are used by cities in other states to generate revenue from hotels, sporting events, concerts and other tourist activities.
“It’s going to be hard, it’s going to be long-term,” Santiago-Romero said. “We need to be having those conversations.
“I do believe this is something that the mayor (Mary Sheffield) is going to be pushing for. It’s something that I’m asking our lobbyists for support with as well. It’s a concentrated effort this time with the administration,” Santiago-Romero added. “I do feel hopeful. It also helps that Lansing likes Detroit right now; Michigan likes Detroit right now. Let’s take that. We do have a moment. We need to combine all the efforts, all the energy, so that we’re able to make those policy changes.”
The concepts have seen some support from Sheffield while she served as the council president and during her 2025 mayoral campaign. Sheffield has proposed pursuing tax reforms to reduce the burden on residents, possibly replacing a property tax cut with revenue from new taxes. On Friday, the mayor’s spokesman, John Roach, said in an email that while options are being studied, the mayor isn’t currently pushing any particular proposal. There would also be “significant community engagement” to get resident feedback on potential options, he said.
Santiago-Romero said that there’s “a very real need” and an understanding that “there’s money out there that we are not collecting.”
“We’re struggling. Detroiters are struggling. People that are working at these stadiums have to work two to three jobs. There’s just such a huge need. I also believe that the public would be supportive of this,” she said.
Truck traffic and transit
Another area of attention for Santiago-Romero are continued efforts to crack down on commercial truck traffic in neighborhoods after designated routes and truck traffic restrictions went into effect in the fall.
The City Council last month signed off on Sheffield’s first fiscal budget for the 2026-27 year. Following the budget adoption, Santiago-Romero touted commitments she helped secure for residents, including a $550,000 allocation for the Detroit Police Department to pilot a truck traffic enforcement unit in her district starting July 1.
“We want to make sure that we completely eliminate as many trucks as possible on our streets,” said Santiago-Romero, noting that while the effort is not yet citywide it will soon touch Districts 3, 4 and 7 as well.
In the latest budget plan, Santiago-Romero secured $200,000 toward a water feature in the park at Kemeny Recreation Center, $200,000 to support the city’s language access program, including hiring additional staff, and $50,000 for a bike rack pilot program.
She’s also resuming work from last term to revamp Detroit’s Human Rights Ordinance to ensure there’s a clear path to due process in the face of discrimination.
Housing and affordability and safe streets are other areas of focus and – as a resident who does not own a car – transportation is a major area of concern for the council member.
“I use a city vehicle, and when I leave this job, I don’t want to pay for a car. I want to be able to ride the bus. I want our transit system to work,” she said.
She also has hopes for better enforcement of the language access ordinance she spearheaded that was approved by the council last May.
The law, which requires city departments to provide translation services to residents who have limited English proficiency, was meant to codify an existing practice being carried out by the city’s Civil Rights Inclusion and Opportunity Department (CRIO). It also complies with a state law sponsored by state Sen. Stephanie Chang, D-Detroit, that requires state departments to help Michigan residents with limited English proficiency access state services.
Detroit’s law requires all public-facing city departments to provide translated documents and interpretation services at the request of residents. There are an estimated 7,655 households that speak a limited amount of English, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The council last year approved a $200,000 budget increase for CRIO to hire additional staff to help implement the language services. But Santiago-Romero said that much of the hiring did not take place. This year, Jade Mathis was appointed to serve as the city’s new CRIO director. Sheffield also named Elizabeth Orozco-Vasquez, as the city’s new Director of the Office of Immigrant Affairs and Economic Inclusion. The leadership changes inspire confidence, Santiago-Romero said.
Conversations are also taking place, she said, about the capacity of CRIO and the immigrant affairs office and where the language access responsibilities should be housed.
Handling ICE issues
At the onset of her second term in January, Santiago-Romero called for a legal path to ban or limit federal immigration operations in Detroit after an ICE agent fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis.
Santiago-Romero submitted a memo to the council’s Legislative Policy Division following the killing of Renee Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother of three seeking to define the city’s ability to keep federal agents away from “sensitive areas” like clinics, schools, places of worship or city property. She also pressed Detroit police on its relationship with ICE and backed a package of state-level bills that would limit ICE operations in Michigan.
Police Chief Todd Bettison has said that Detroit does not enforce federal immigration laws. DPD will, however, honor a detainer request by ICE if signed by a judge, which allows federal agents to apprehend people who are being held in the Detroit Detention Center for a local offense.
Santiago-Romero told BridgeDetroit Friday that she remains focused on police accountability and ensuring that proper procedures are followed.
“It doesn’t matter how many policy things that I do, if we have cops not following it, then it’s just going to be frustrating for everyone,” she said.
As chair of the council’s Public Health and Safety standing committee, she’s also been a loud voice on the council for welcoming spaces for Detroit youth.
Santiago-Romero has helped lead the charge for “teen care” amid the rollout of a new free bus service for Detroit students and an influx of young people gathering downtown during a recent warm stretch.
Around the same time, Sheffield unveiled plans for a Youth Advisory Committee to bring together a group of youth for monthly conversations about their needs for safe spaces.
“When I’m talking to young people, they just want safe, cute spaces to be in and be young and have fun and to be with their friends,” Santiago-Romero said. “I think we need to invest money into actual third spaces. So how do we do that? I really think that next year for the budget, I would like to see some money invested not just in youth programming, but in the environment that we’re building for our young people to be at and to be in.”
