Today in the notebook

Study examines assessment fairness
Council wants local bidders
Task force reviews links to slave trade

Welcome back. I’m still Malachi Barrett.

Detroit has settled a lawsuit with a former employee who claims she was fired for reporting allegations of misappropriated Motor City Match funds.

The $100,000 payout is small compared to what usually piques my interest for this newsletter, but it drew my attention for a few reasons.

The lawsuit was filed against Ryan Friedrichs, husband of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who is running for the 2026 Democratic gubernatorial nomination. It is also tied to an old scandal involving Mayor Mike Duggan, who is running for governor as an independent.

Kennedy Shannon filed the lawsuit in 2019 after she was fired from the city’s Office of Development and Grants. Shannon alleged that her firing was retaliation for being a whistleblower, but city officials said it was for falsifying her timecard and storing personal files on her work computer.

The lawsuit was filed against Friedrichs, who was serving as chief development officer at the time, and Katerli Bounds, who was the city’s director of grants. Friedrichs has since left to be vice president of development at the Related Companies, a partner on the District Detroit mega project.

“The City still maintains that the actions these employees (Friedrichs and Bounds) took with respect to Ms. Kennedy were fully appropriate and justified,” Corporation Counsel Conrad Mallett said in a statement. “However, the law department made a decision in the interest of taxpayers to enter into this settlement, rather than incur more significant costs in the form of ongoing litigation.”

Shannon said she accepted the settlement because she was “tired of fighting” and “just wanted to move on with my life.”

She feels vindicated by investigations into the Motor City Match program as well as reviews conducted by the Michigan Attorney General and Detroit Office of Inspector General that concluded Duggan gave preferential treatment by “unilaterally” directing city resources toward Make Your Date, a Wayne State University prenatal health program run by his now-wife.

“I wouldn’t change a thing, I think my actions made the MCM program a stronger and better program,” Shannon said. “It allows a lot of businesses to get the help it was designed for. I’m willing to accept this as a win.

“It took a lot out of me mentally to continue fighting this and I just wanted to go into 2025 without this on my mind.”

The council voted in 2023 to provide legal representation to Friedrichs and Bounds. They voted unanimously on Tuesday to settle the lawsuit.

Friedrichs has been a familiar face at District Detroit public meetings and was featured in Benson’s campaign launch video preparing breakfast for their children. They live in Detroit.

Motor City Match is mostly funded with federal grants used to help cash-strapped entrepreneurs start businesses. It provides small start ups with direct cash, training, site preparation, and other needs.

The program was launched in 2015 and was the subject of a federal probe that found Detroit didn’t maintain sufficient oversight of its spending. The Detroit Inspector General also found a lack of oversight, improper reporting of funds and a 77% failure rate of businesses that received funding.

Shannon’s lawsuit claims she was fired after reporting concerns to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Separately, she raised concerns about the deletion of emails to allegedly cover up how city resources were used to solicit donations for Make Your Date.

The Make Your Date program was run by Dr. Sonia Hassan, whom the mayor was publicly linked to at the time. Hassan later became Duggan’s second wife.

The Office of Inspector General determined that Friedrichs and Alexis Wiley, Duggan’s former chief of staff, directed city staff to delete emails related to Make Your Date. Wiley is now a strategist on Duggan’s gubernatorial campaign.

The OIG found Duggan “unilaterally” selected Hassan’s program for funding when it should have been picked through an open and transparent process. It also determined that Wiley abused her authority in ordering Friedrichs to ensure the emails were deleted.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel investigated allegations that the emails were deleted to hide Duggan’s relationship with Hassan. Duggan, Friedrichs and Wiley were cleared of criminal wrongdoing in 2021 by Nessel.

Shannon said she moved to Troy and has no interest in working in the city as long as Duggan is mayor.

What page are we on?

Today’s notebook covers the Feb. 4 formal session. Council Members Scott Benson and Mary Waters were absent. My sincere condolences to Benson, who lost his father-in-law.

Dig into the agenda, read Detroit Documenter notes or watch the recording for more details.

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Don’t miss this: Stephen Henderson and I partnered with Detroit Is Different to build a new platform for discussion of 2025 elections. We’re calling it “Detroit Next.”

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*Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield says the study will shed light on information “we all want to know.” Credit: City of Detroit Flickr*

Study could drive tax assessment fixes

A long-awaited study meant to determine whether homeowners are still being overtaxed could be released this week.

The International Association of Assessing Officers was hired in 2024 as part of reforms to Detroit’s assessment process in 2023.

The changes were a response to the broad overtaxation of homeowners, estimated to cost Detroiters at least $600 million from 2010 to 2016.

Overassessment fueled a wave of foreclosures, displacement and blight that residents still demand compensation for today.

Duggan’s administration has repeatedly argued assessment issues were fixed since he took office and there is no systemic overtaxation happening. Research from the University of Chicago suggests low-value homes are still being overassessed.

Advocates hope the audit will substantiate UC’s study and drive additional reforms.

Sheffield said the study will provide an impartial perspective, creating more transparency on assessments. The results are meant to help the council identify assessments that should be appealed.

“We’re excited for the opportunity to see what they find,” Sheffield said. “They come in and take a view of how the city and assessor’s office will assess properties in a way that is equitable, so the lowest-value homes are not overassessed.”

The appeal window for 2025 opened on Feb. 1 and ends Feb. 22.

Advocates were frustrated that a study wasn’t available in time for Detroiters to appeal their 2024 assessments. The council hired IAAO months after last year’s deadline passed.

“Even though it’s taking longer than expected this will shed light into information we all wanted to know,” Sheffield said.

Sheffield said IAAO was granted an extension last month and will provide the study on Feb. 5.

The independent analysis is a key part of an ordinance Sheffield pushed in collaboration with the Coalition for Property Tax Justice and other advocates.

Sheffield’s ordinance was approved in dramatic fashion in the final meeting of 2023. It passed 6-3 with support from Council Members Latisha Johnson, Gabriela Santiago-Romero, Coleman Young II, Waters and Whitfield-Calloway.

Council President Pro Tem James Tate voted against the ordinance along with Benson and Council Member Fred Durhal III.

A major point of contention revolved around objections from the Detroit Law Department.

Mallett, Detroit’s corporation counsel, said the ordinance illegally reduces the role of the Chief Financial Officer. Mallett also objected to the hiring of an independent auditor.

*Council Member Angela Whitfield-Calloway (City of Detroit photo)*

Local work for local businesses

Whitfield-Calloway has consistently objected to hiring non-Detroit companies for work that could be performed by local businesses, but solutions remain elusive.

City officials in the Office of Contracting and Procurement fielded questions about why contracts were recommended for an Eastpointe tailoring company and Grand Ledge auto mechanic instead of Detroit-based businesses.

Whitfield-Calloway argues the city is failing to support residents who should be getting the work, but city officials said local companies either aren’t interested or don’t have capacity to do the work.

Detroit companies had three opportunities to bid on a contract to tailor Detroit police uniforms, but Sonya DZines Custom Couture was the lone bidder. City officials said Detroit businesses like Hot Sam’s were among 330 contacted, but they weren’t interested.

Still, Whitfield-Calloway successfully convinced her colleagues to postpone the $100,000 contract for one week.

“If the officers have to walk around with baggy pants and shirts too big, they’ll survive,” she said.

Another $600,000 contract with MacQueen Equipment to repair fire trucks was approved, with Whitfield-Calloway as the lone no vote. Detroit-based Bob Maxey Ford was also awarded a $150,000 contract for fire vehicle repairs, but city officials said the company doesn’t have capacity to take on all the work by itself.

Procurement Specialist Jerrell Harris said the city is hiring more mechanics to fix city vehicles, but has to prioritize putting emergency vehicles on the street as soon as possible.

Sheffield said the city should dig deeper into barriers that prevent businesses from bidding on city contracts.

“While they’re invited to participate, they don’t because there’s too many barriers to entry and too difficult for Detroit-based businesses to navigate,” she said. “I would love for us to understand why Detroit-based businesses are not bidding and come up with some solutions to reform the process.”

*A reparations task force meeting from February 2023. (BridgeDetroit photo by Malachi Barrett)*

Slavery records reported

A new report provided to the council’s Reparations Task Force shows which companies hired by the city have historically benefitted from slavery.

City law requires companies contracted with Detroit to make this disclosure through a signed affidavit, kept on file by the Office of Contracting and Procurement.

A report produced by the council’s Legislative Policy Division investigated a handful of banks and insurance companies, but the full list of contractors is much larger.

LPD asked the contracting department to provide more information on whether businesses are complying with the slavery era records requirement, and how the data is collected.

Two banks with previous ties to the slave trade have active contracts with the city.

Bank of New York Mellon accepted a plantation and enslaved people as collateral in a loan issued. Detroit is doing business with a subsidiary of the bank.

JP Morgan Chase stated that its two Louisiana banks had received thousands of slaves as collateral before the Civil War. JP Morgan Chase established a scholarship fund for Black students in Louisiana as penance.

The task force also requested details on when developers broke promises to hire Detroiters in exchange for tax incentives.

LPD is still putting this information together, since it is held by the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation and Department of Civil Rights, Inclusion and Opportunity (CRIO).

The city keeps an online dashboard showing how publicly-subsidized projects meet a requirement to have 51% of construction hours performed by Detroit residents.

Compliance varies widely by the project. The Detroit Pistons Performance Center had 10% of construction hours worked by residents, while Michigan Central hit 31% and the Hudson’s Site sits at 40%.

Road upgrades aligned with Future of Health project

Detroit received $8.1 million in state transportation funds to improve road infrastructure near the new Henry Ford Health campus in New Center.

The city is providing $521,325, while another $1.5 million will be funded by the Michigan Department of Transportation. A city press release announced the funding will support two projects.

The Department of Public Works will use $2.4 million to add a third lane to West Grand Boulevard in both directions, improve crosswalks, and create a full-service intersection at Michigan outside the main campus.

The Michigan Department of Transportation will oversee the $7.8 million reconstruction of a pedestrian bridge over Holden Street, helping residents safely cross the Lodge Freeway.