{"id":1622,"date":"2018-04-07T23:08:30","date_gmt":"2018-04-07T20:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/?p=1622"},"modified":"2018-05-15T23:49:24","modified_gmt":"2018-05-15T20:49:24","slug":"treasurer-eric-sabree-great-things-happening-in-wayne-county-and-i-take-my-job-very-seriously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/treasurer-eric-sabree-great-things-happening-in-wayne-county-and-i-take-my-job-very-seriously\/","title":{"rendered":"Treasurer Eric Sabree: \u201cGreat things happening in Wayne County and I take my job very seriously\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<h6><strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">As residents of Wayne County we all have a stake in our community, we care. The government is there to work with us and serve us as a community and we need to be as informed and connected as possible with our government and officials.\u00a0 It was in that spirit that we invited Wayne County Treasurer Eric Sabree, father of three successful adult children, to the conversion table, here is what he shared with us.<\/span><\/strong><\/h6>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>being interviewed by the Publisher of the Yemeni American News. Photo by Abbas Shehab<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Treasurer Eric Sabree: \u201cGreat things happening at Wayne County\u201d\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DMPYlTmFmfc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s hard to talk about myself but I can tell you that I\u2019m basically the same type of person that I\u2019ve been for a long time. It\u2019s amazing how much you stay the same from childhood to adulthood. I had a good family I had a good mother and father. That\u2019s one good thing we had a good foundation.\u00a0 Our parents made sure we went to school and learned, they were very serious about education.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Education is truly a key pillar in the life of Treasurer Sabree, from the Catholic schools of this childhood in New York to the public middle schools of Metro Detroit then back to a Christian infused education at Catholic Central in Detroit and finally ending up with a Building Construction Management degree from Michigan State University.<\/p>\n<p>Another key quality of Treasurer Sabree is his passion for sports, service and good old-fashioned hard work. He started working at a drugstore at age 9 making $3 a day, took on some paper routes soon after and even sold souvenirs at the old Tiger Stadium. \u00a0\u201cI started studying plumbing in high school. A friend\u2019s father was a plumber so I worked with him part-time in high school and then when I got up to Michigan State I started working in the plumbing shop and taking classes in the apprenticeship program.\u201d\u00a0Not easy to balance a difficult collegiate class schedule, work part-time plumbing 28 hours per week and pursuing a plumbing career all at once. \u201cAnd lifting weights, so my grades were OK but I had less than a 3.0. So it wasn\u2019t good, I could\u2019ve done much better. Nevertheless, I was doing plumbing work because I wanted to get my plumbing license.\u00a0 I worked all the holidays.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Treasurer Sabree is clear-headed and decisive as one can see when he was confronted with a choice in High School when his competitive wrestling coach heard that he was weightlifting and asked him, \u201cYou got to make up your mind, weightlifting or wrestling which is it? What you gonna do?\u201d As Eric recalls, \u201cSo I just said, \u2018I like weightlifting!\u2019 I stuck with the weightlifting. If you\u2019re going to give me an ultimatum.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While driving an ice cream delivery truck for Melody Farms delivering ice cream to grocery and drug stores he met a man named Jeff who would change his life forever introducing him to Islam for the first time. \u201cHe started talking to me about Islam.\u00a0 He invited me out to a meeting and I go out and listened and I got more interested.\u00a0 I started studying more and that\u2019s how I got involved with being a Muslim because I had a coworker who was talking to me all the time. I was an altar boy in the Catholic Church. I would say the main difference to me is the Trinitarian doctrine, Jesus being the Son of God versus Jesus being a prophet. Sometimes people feel confused when they see me they say, \u2018How can you be a Muslim?\u2019 They feel almost like you\u2019re a traitor. I just tell them, \u2018you know I benefited from much of the knowledge I received in the Catholic Church because it was good teaching, some of the messages are good. But I found in the study of Islam that my relationship with Almighty God became more secure.\u00a0 I feel closer I feel more comfortable with my relationship with Almighty God.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1623\" src=\"http:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/04\/13-300x161.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"161\" srcset=\"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/04\/13-300x161.jpg 300w, https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/04\/13-768x412.jpg 768w, https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/04\/13-1024x550.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This sense was deepened reading Malcolm X and spending an unlikely day with the world-famous Muhammad Ali back in the 80s, \u201cI asked him about the religion, \u2018What do you really think about religion? He said, \u2018Look, believe in what you would believe in if you were on an island all by yourself.\u2019 That\u2019s really good advice because then you really know what you believe in because there\u2019s nobody there to influence you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His career and qualifications are varied and extensive and could be characterized by a persistent look into the future and serving others. \u201cI started working with nonprofit housing programs, renovating homes and being a project manager for home renovations. I worked with them doing the estimates helping people with energy conservation.\u00a0 This is really where I started my public service work because I liked helping people. I was working for the city for 18 years. I went to work for the city building department and I was an inspector and I became a supervisor and went to the housing commission.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Adding a stint in the insurance business and owning his own law firm working immigration and asylum cases, Treasurer Sabree really knows his way around the county. \u201cWhen I came to Wayne County it was as an attorney over the nuisance abatement program.\u00a0 We were trying to remove nuisance properties, get them repaired. I got familiar with the property taxes in the treasurer\u2019s office.\u00a0 I went to work for the treasurer because I was familiar with it and one of the deputies left and he asked me to come over there as deputy.\u00a0 That was a good opportunity. Richard Hathaway came in as the treasurer and I was his Chief Deputy. After 4 months he decided to resign. I got appointed first and then immediately I had to file for election.\u00a0 I was successful. I\u2019ve been the treasurer for two years, elected in 2016 and would run again in 2020 for another four-year term.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some good things are happening under his leadership, \u201cWe\u2019ve been able to look at our policies and procedures.\u00a0 We brought in the Plante Moran firm to look at all the policies and procedures.\u00a0 They just finished the audit of how we should improve. We\u2019ve been doing more training for the staff.\u00a0 We instituted the kiosk program where people could pay at over 40 remote locations with cash, checks or credit cards. We have 92 employees in the office.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On the challenges that he\u2019s facing, he says \u201cthe challenge is you can\u2019t help everyone. That\u2019s what makes it difficult.\u00a0 Some people you\u2019re just not gonna be able to help them because they have no money at all. Some people they get very angry.\u00a0 They come ready for a fight but after I talk to them for a while then usually we can resolve the issue. The other challenge is the internal training and being consistent in the staff making sure they\u2019re doing everything consistently and efficiently.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On the programs, the County has been offering to help the residents. He adds \u201cWe give people as much time as we can to help keep them in their homes.\u00a0 It\u2019s critical, especially the owner occupants. With the tenants, we have programs that allow them even if the house is in foreclosure the city is getting money through Quicken loans and others to buy these properties before the auction so that the tenant get the chance to become an owner through the program. Come down to the office, call and make sure you get the information that you need.\u00a0 Even if you need $2000 to save your house or get back into the payment plan which is 6% interest per year we\u2019re going to handle every case by case before we foreclose to see if there\u2019s anything we can do to help them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the interview, Treasurer Sabree said \u201cthere\u2019s a lot of good things happening in Wayne County right now.\u00a0 Don\u2019t give up now because things are getting better! The government is supposed to help you and I believe in the people. Do whatever you can to save your property that\u2019s the biggest asset that you have most likely. It\u2019s an honor to serve as treasurer. I take the job very seriously\u201d<\/p>\n<div class='clear '><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As residents of Wayne County we all have a stake in our community, we care. The government is there to work with us and serve us as a community and we need to be as informed and connected as possible with our government and officials.\u00a0 It was in that spirit that we invited Wayne County [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1622"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1629,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1622\/revisions\/1629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}