Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan on Re-Election, Fixing Auto Insurance and Soccer in the City
Rasheed Alnozili – The Yemeni American News
Fixing Detroit’s auto insurance
“We are still trying to get the state legislators to pass it and we are optimistic to do it this fall. The only way to change the car insurance is to get state legislators to act; the state law says that in order to drive a car in Michigan you have to buy a no-fault insurance.
We have the most expensive car insurance coverage in America. We have very specific plans. We have a partnership; I think now with Speaker of the House Tom Leonard, we’re going to push a plan through this fall.
We have an agreement right now, spending a lot of time with insurance companies executives, and a lot of time with hospital executives. We are going to see what we can pull through.”
Relationship with Arab Americans
“You have to ask the individual groups, but the community has been very supportive of me over the years.”
Major League Soccer and the Wayne County Jail site
“The jail won’t have anything to do with the soccer, so I don’t think that soccer will run near a jail site under any circumstance, but you may have seen that Tom Gores and Dan Gilbert are moving forward on requesting a franchise. A franchise could get awarded by Major League Soccer in 2020 or for 2022.
We have some alternative sites that we think will work. Detroit is one of the largest markets in America that does not have an MLS team so we feel like we have a good ownership so we feel like we’re going to have a good market.”
Attending the AS Roma vs. Paris Saint-Germain F.C. game at Comerica Park
“I got to sit next to some young men from Haiti that I happened to be at the game with. I was very much into it and that was an exciting game. We are a good crowd. If you can draw 30 or 35,000 from a team from Rome and a team from Paris, then I think we can draw a very good crowd from Detroit.”
His first term as mayor and his re-election campaign
“We have a lot of issues to deal with. Streetlights are on in the city, we have 65,000 done, and the buses are running on schedule. I have added 1,500 trips a week. The police and ambulance response times are cut in half. The grass is cut it in all the parks, so we made significant progress but we have a long way to go.
The first three years we were here, we just had to get services that things other cities take for granted and now we are moving beyond that. We are attracting new businesses and new jobs. We are also spending a lot of time on job training programs to make sure when the new jobs come to Detroit, Detroiters get to feel those jobs. Most of my day is spent either on job training programs or on bringing more jobs to the city.
If people think that we have made progress over the last four years then I hope they will support me again. I am working very hard and if people want to keep me around then I will keep working hard.”
Life after politics
“Mr. O’Reilly is staying in Dearborn, how about you? No, this is the last job I will do! I think Jack O’Reilly and I are very similar in that regard.”
