We need Smart talk

You know there's been a lot of buzz about the field of candidates for this year's Detroit city Council election. In all honesty I have seen very little difference from past election cycles. The field of candidates still have no idea of what they're talking about. It boggles my mind because many of these folks have worked has graduated from very good schools and have worked in industries for good number of years. Yet they still do not know how city government works. Take for example former Fox 2 Detroit news reporter Charles Pugh who was interviewed on May 3, 2009 on the PBS talk show American black journal. He spoke about how is Council was to be placed in the district they should have more control over city services in their area. It is very difficult for a legislator to have specific control over what type of city services take place in your specific area. Even a congressman or a US senator would have very much trouble trying to convince the military to open or close a base in their state or community. But as part of the lawmaking body of the city you can legislate how most city services are conducted. It's just like what the Congress of the United States does, if they want access to row build and their legislation is passed through both houses and signed into law by the president then you can best believe that is going to happen. The city Council has the same authority, the only thing that they need to do is pass an ordinance saying what is going to happen with a certain city services.

With the fact that many of these candidates for city Council not understanding how city government works many of them don't even have on what they would do if they got elected. Now has to admit I'm person who looks for actual policy proposals, and other words what are you going to do about the issues facing Detroit. Now in my quest for information I ran across a piece of campaign literature from Lawanda Harrison who is running for city Council. I some time to read through her website and she talks about her background and has had some very general statements about jobs and a variety of other issues. The problem is that she had no specific ideas about what she would do to bring jobs in Detroit. And it continues to please me scratching my head and wondering why would you run for office and not know what you want to do when you get there? Certainly if it was me running for office and someone asked me a hey Donald would are you going to do to bring jobs into Detroit? Well my response would be maybe we should think about cutting local income, property, and small business taxes so that businesses will be attracted to move into Detroit. Secondly, work with our partners in the state and federal government to get our workers into training and education programs so that Detroit will have a highly skilled workforce. Now I'm a college student and I came up with that all by myself. Candidate should not be afraid to offer specific policy ideas while they're out campaigning. I can tell you from experience it works. In 2008 now state representative Fred Durhal Jr. D-Detroit offer specific policy ideas. He talked about them on the campaign trail now he's in a position to try and get them past through the state legislature.

Now my goal is not to set up and badmouth candidates who are running for city Council. I'm simply asking that you give the voters specific ideas on what it is that you want to do to address some of Detroit's toughest issues such as public safety, and job creation. We don't need candidates telling us what the problem is we have but to look at our pocketbooks and the evening news and understand clearly what is going on in our city. Now I'm going to be fair I'm going to post this same article on my blog page and if any candidate for Detroit city Council would like to respond I'll be more than happy to read your comments. That will be an excellent time to tell me exactly what it is you would like to see done in this city. All are welcome to post their comments. My blog is Don’ Views Go to dlstucke.blogspot.com.