Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan endorsed City Council president Mary Sheffield for Detroit mayor Wednesday outside of a woman’s home off Woodward Ave. he said is an example of the cooperation between the mayor’s office and council.
Supporters of Sheffield and her staff gathered outside the home of Geraldine Noble, who received a roof repair grant through a city program Duggan credited Sheffield with expanding.
Duggan said he knew he would vote for Sheffield the day she announced her campaign back in January.
Duggan said his endorsement isn’t against Triumph Church pastor Rev. Solomon Kinloch, Sheffield’s opponent, who he considers “a good friend of mine, and is a wonderful religious leader in our community.”
“You know what it takes to run a $2 billion city budget with the laws of the water department, the federal government, the state government the county government, the law enforcement side, and I’ve watched the council president for 12 years dig into every one of these issues,” Duggan said. “She is prepared for the job.”
“I believe it’s fitting that we’re here at Miss Geraldine’s home,” Sheffield said. “Her story represents the story of thousands of Detroiters whose lives have been impacted because of our collaborative work.”
Kinloch’s campaign after the endorsement released a statement declaring voters, not endorsements, decide elections.
“Mayor Mike Duggan doesn’t get the right to decide his successor,” Kinloch said. “The voters in Detroit will determine the next Mayor in November.”
“We don’t have coronations. A mayoral endorsement won’t stop the violence in our streets. It won’t ensure a better education or create more opportunities for our children. After 12 years on the Detroit City Council—and 4 more as Council President—if you haven’t fixed it by now, you’re not going to,” Kinloch said in a statement. “Detroit doesn’t need recycled ideas or the same politics that have left too many neighborhoods behind. Detroit needs fresh leadership, with the courage to do what career politicians couldn’t.”
Duggan, who is running for governor as an independent, said that despite his expectation that Sheffield will make different decisions as mayor, he trusts her leadership because “she will work to build this city up.”
“She’s got a different style than I do, she’s going to do different policies than I am — she’s going to make different decisions. But I am 100% behind her because I know three things, she will work to build this city up with unity, not division. She’ll take Detroit’s recovery farther into the neighborhoods and reach more people, and she will move this city forward and not backward. That’s why on Nov. 4 I will be voting for the next mayor of the city of Detroit, Mary Sheffield.”
Sheffield said she’s been intentional about pushing a positive environment on council in which the body works together with the mayor’s office instead of always fighting it. However, she wasn’t shy to point out the times she’s differed from the mayor’s agenda.
“We know Mike Duggan and myself have not always agreed on everything, and I think that is very normal and natural for the executive branch and legislative branch to not always agree on everything,” Sheffield said.
She pointed to a senior home repair program that was slated to be cut until “tough discussions” in the mayor’s office yielded an expansion of the program that helped the homeowner, Noble, repair her home on a fixed income.
Sheffield would become Detroit’s first woman mayor. She would also become the first person from council to be elected mayor since 1947, Duggan mentioned Wednesday.
About Post Author
