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2011 State of the County Address
2011 State of the County Address
Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome.
Wayne County Commission members, Wayne County elected officials, Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel, Mayor Dave Bing, citizens...
Thank for you for joining us in our new home, the historic Guardian Building. We’re very proud of what we’ve done with the building, which is now the most occupied multi-tenant building in Detroit. In our first year in the building, we saved more than $3 million dollars in rent and incidentals, and these numbers will only get better.
Before I begin, let’s take a moment to recognize our men and women in uniform, abroad and at home; the men and women who put their lives on the line for us every day; with special recognition to the four police officers in Taylor, Livonia and Detroit who recently died in the line of duty.
Thank you.
Tonight I’m going to talk to you about our challenges, our solutions, our results and our future, all of which depend on a concept I call “leveraged collaboration.”
The concept is simple – take a great idea, develop it, share it, and impact as many people as you possibly can.
A lot of people talk about it, but we’ve been doing it for years.
We did it with this building and with many other projects such as our demolition effort with the City of Detroit, our trade missions, Aerotropolis, our new jail, our Mortgage Foreclosure Prevention Program, our Autism Program, and all of our record-setting $5 Billion dollars in economic development in the last two years.
It all comes down to my team, which is capable not only of generating incredible ideas, but, more importantly, implementing those ideas and finding a way to maximize their potential.
This team is incredibly creative and effective, and I attribute this to something else that many talk about, but few act upon – diversity.
I have assembled the brightest and most diverse team in the country. They are black, white, Asian, Arab, Indian, Latino, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and many other creeds and colors.
Led by my Deputy CEO Azzam Elder, my Chief of Staff Matt Schenk, my CFO Carla Sledge, and a melting pot of Directors, Division Heads and staff, my team is implementing my vision for a county that thrives on leveraged collaboration.
Team, please stand and be recognized.
Government in general has been at a crossroads. Some have taken the path of least resistance. Others, like us, have taken the other path...the one that requires tough choices but brings results.
Our transformation started about 6 years ago. We began right-sizing our staff, cutting costs, reducing spending, and making smart investments, such as purchasing this building and designing it to be environmentally friendly and cost-efficient.
We’re operating with 1.8 employees for every thousand residents (a much smaller ratio than any of our peers); we’re saving $3 million per year by being in this building; and our health care cost-sharing program is saving taxpayers $24 million annually. And these are just a few examples.
These decisions have positioned us for success, but we have a lot more work ahead, and we need full participation.
Unfortunately, not everyone has been willing to share the sacrifice, and I’ve been put in a position where I’ve had to make some very tough calls. But when our future hangs in the balance, there can be no sacred cows.
For example, past administrations set it up so that retirees would get not only their regular monthly retirement checks, but also a 13th “bonus” check, even if there wasn’t enough money in the retirement fund to cover it. We have already saved $29 million by significantly cutting such bonus checks, and we expect to save approximately $34 million dollars annually.
I also had to impose pay cuts – the same cuts we’ve all taken – on our largest union after our two-year, good faith negotiations reached an impasse.
And when the Third Circuit Court sued the County for more money, I stood my ground to protect the public's budget and make sure that its money is carefully and wisely spent, and that all branches of government tighten their belts in these lean times.
Unfortunately, the court had the home court advantage in round one. The trial was presided over by another circuit judge, and the result was potentially devastating for taxpayers. Depending on how the judge’s very vague ruling is read, it could mean that taxpayers will be stuck with what amounts to an open check book to build a new courthouse, at a cost that could reach hundreds of millions of dollars.
I will continue to fight this outrageous ruling, but I need Lansing’s help, and I need your help ladies and gentlemen. You need to understand what’s going on here and hold court leadership accountable. I can’t manage through litigation. And we simply cannot spend money we don’t have.
I don't often see things the same way politically as new Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Young, but we certainly see eye to eye when he says the high court needs to consider budget cuts for courthouses statewide, particularly where population and dockets have declined and savings are necessary.
Meanwhile, we will continue to manage costs, make smart investments and innovate.
One example that embodies all three of these goals, as well as the concept of leveraged collaboration, is our plan for a new jail.
For 40 years a judge has been overseeing jail operations pursuant to a court order. But with the cooperation of Sheriff Benny Napoleon, the Commission and Judge Michael Sapala, we have figured out a way to build a new jail by using stimulus funds and selling bonds – which is indicative of Wall Street’s continued confidence in Wayne County.
Public safety is a priority. This plan allows us to consolidate old and inefficient facilities while simultaneously saving taxpayers $26 million dollars annually, which is exactly what we did with the Guardian building.
Moreover, all parties have agreed that, once the new jail is built, the court order will no longer apply and court supervision will terminate.
This is truly historic.
Meanwhile, we continue to embrace technology as a way to streamline operations, control costs and increase efficiency and accountability.
Over the last four years we have evaluated our processes and aligned our resources using a system we call Managing for Results, and we’ve taken our technology from the Stone Age to the cutting edge.
Thanks to my Chief Information Officer, Tahir Kazmi, and our Department of Technology, our new eGovernment system is changing the way government is done. Our move toward paperless Wayne continues, and our automated workflow has greatly increased accountability and improved performance.
In fact, our transformation has been so significant that we won the prestigious GlobalStar Enterprise Award, given to organizations that optimize technology.
And our technology team never slows down. The day before the blizzard last week, we unveiled a new system that allows us to monitor, from our computers, the location and progress of county snow and maintenance vehicles. Now we can see exactly which roads have been plowed, and when.
We are currently piloting this technology in one fifth of our trucks. But our goal is to use it in all of our trucks, and make this system available to residents on our website.
This new technology takes our already nationally recognized road crew to yet another level. It increases efficiency, safety and peace of mind.
Congratulations to Tahir and his team. Their work is a strong example of our commitment to a better, faster, more efficient Wayne County.
Meanwhile, our health department, led by Edith Killins, is taking paperless to the next level, implementing a new program that will consolidate patient information from all County health divisions in one place. With this program, county residents and their doctors will have access to all of their medical records with just one click.
This initiative will promote standardization of patient records, secure patient information, reduce errors in medical records, and simply improve the quality of care for patients in Wayne County.
Thanks to strong vision and smart planning on the financial side, we can continue to provide hope for the people of Wayne County.
We’re providing hope in the form of award-winning programs like our homegrown Mortgage Foreclosure Prevention Program, which has helped more than 4,000 Wayne County families and saved more than 1,100 homes to date.
My team created this program, which quickly became a national model, and we eventually shared it with the United Way. Now, families all over Southeastern Michigan can simply dial 211 to get the best help available, at no cost.
This is what my team does. This is leveraged collaboration.
We’re also providing hope with our groundbreaking autism initiative.
Last year I announced that we had partnered with the Autism Alliance of Michigan with a goal of making life better for the growing number of Wayne County families dealing with autism. One in every 100 children born in Wayne County this year will have autism.
That’s why my team and the Alliance joined forces to form a task force that got to work and changed the way these families get service.
They created a comprehensive, interactive tool that guides families from the first signs of autism to diagnosis to finding appropriate care.
This tool – accessible from our home page at waynecounty.com - walks families through the process, providing key information, contacts, phone numbers, and websites.
Much like our mortgage foreclosure program, now that we’ve made it a reality, we will make it available to anyone who wants it. Again, leveraged collaboration.
Many thanks to our task force for all its hard work.
Our mortgage foreclosure and autism programs are perfect examples of what can be accomplished when you take smart ideas and let passionate people work together to make them a reality.
It’s the desire to succeed and a willingness to help one another that allows us to make progress.
And it is with that desire that I reached out to Mayor Bing last summer and offered to help knock down abandoned homes and rid the city of blight, which the Mayor has said is his biggest challenge.
Mayor Bing accepted my offer and together with the faith-based community we set out to knock down 450 abandoned structures in 45 business days. We knocked down 453.
But perhaps more importantly we gained knowledge. We figured out how to demolish a structure in 6 weeks instead of 6 months. And we figured out how to do it for $5,000 per structure instead of $10,000. But we can do it even faster and cheaper.
Tonight I want to introduce a concept that will take leveraged collaboration to yet another level – and that’s the concept of “cross designation.”
Everyone here can appreciate how frustrating it is when you have to deal with multiple departments at multiple levels of government. “Bureaucracy” and “red tape” are some of the words that get thrown around.
We felt the same frustration in our demolition project. Every time we slowed down it was because there were simply too many cooks in the kitchen.
But cross designation allows the lead government to take on all the responsibility, and all the liability, and handle everything from inspections to permitting and everything in between.
If we’re truly serious about government reform, we need to be able to give each other full cross designation on projects so that we can cut through the red tape and get things done.
In the coming weeks I will be proposing a memorandum of understanding for all of our partner municipalities, including the city of Detroit and the state of Michigan, which will empower governments to streamline the development process and preserve much-needed resources.
With this kind of cooperation, we can accomplish bigger things, including eliminating blight in the City of Detroit. Mayor Bing, together we can do this.
Cooperation is a must at all levels, and there are some great examples of leveraged collaboration with local municipalities throughout Wayne County.
Our local parks partnering initiative has already created or improved dozens of local parks throughout the county. One great example is the ongoing remediation and restoration of Westland Central City Park, the jewel of that city, in partnership with Mayor Bill Wild.
We need to support each other and create unity, not division. Collaboration is powerful, and it spills over into everything we do.
That’s certainly the case when it comes to investment and job creation - which has been my number one priority – and the numbers bear this out
.
Since we reorganized, renamed and reenergized our economic development department two years ago, Chief Development Officer Turkia Awada Mullin and her EDGE team have brought $5 BILLION dollars in new investment commitments to Wayne County.
This two-year total is record setting. What’s even more impressive is the fact that we did it with a staff of less than 20 and a budget of less than $5 million dollars.
To give you an idea of how significant this is, just look at a recent study conducted by the Brookings Institute and the London School of Economics.
In 2008, the year we reorganized our team, the Detroit area ranked 147th in “economic activity” among the world’s largest metropolitan areas.
But in the last two years we have moved up an astounding 100 spots, to number 47.
And this $5 billion dollars in new investment will retain or create almost 45,000 jobs.
Our hard work is paying off, but we still have a lot of work to do.
By working together with the state, the city, and our regional partners in Washtenaw, Macomb and Oakland, we will continue our global resurgence.
EDGE Team, please stand and be recognized. Thank you for your hard work and dedication.
My economic development team’s success is a direct result of its positive attitude and strong vision. They exhibit a sense of urgency; they provide CEO’s with the predictability they need; they welcome business to Wayne County; and they never quit.
A perfect example is my vision for the Aerotropolis. I made this a mission of mine when I first became County Executive, and I never let up. My team, led by my Deputy, Azzam Elder, who chairs the Aerotropolis board, spearheaded this effort, bringing government leaders and their communities to the table and leading the charge. They overcame multiple obstacles and worked tirelessly, and it finally paid off.
This past December, the Michigan Legislature passed the Next Michigan Development Act, a series of bills that will give our Aerotropolis partners the tools they need to create thousands of jobs in our region.
An independent report by Jones Lang LaSalle predicts Aerotropolis will bring in more than $10 BILLION dollars in economic impact, and create more than 65,000 new jobs!
I am proud of Democrats like Doug Geiss and Tupac Hunter, and Republicans like John Walsh and Randy Richardville, who put politics aside to do the right thing, and I’m proud of my team for its vision and tenacity in getting this done.
Meanwhile, we’ve been laying the groundwork and bringing foreign investment to Wayne County for years. But this year we went a step further...we really thought outside the box.
We started by inviting the top corporate relocation consultants in the country to come see Wayne County for themselves.
They met with the Detroit Regional Chamber, Business Leaders for Michigan, and major local CEOs.
They met with the presidents of the major labor unions, including the UAW’s Bob King, the Carpenters’ Mike Jackson, and the Teamsters.
They listened as business and labor came to the table for the first time and had a frank discussion about the challenges and perceptions we’ve faced for years.
They heard testimonials of the benefits of living and working in Wayne County. Here is just a small taste of what they said:
We took them to see and hear things for themselves...and their beliefs were transformed. They left Wayne County with a whole new outlook, which is exactly what we need.
Then we took it further.
I asked Bob King and business leaders like John Rakolta of Walbridge and Sandy Baruah of the Detroit Regional Chamber, among others, to join me on a trade mission to Italy in an effort to drive auto supplier business to the region by dispelling these same myths and showing the world that business, government and labor working together is extremely powerful.
I want to thank these leaders for believing in my vision and for helping bring investment and jobs to Wayne County. This is leveraged collaboration at its best.
I also went on my sixth trade mission to China, where we have opened doors to trade and business opportunities for more than 120 business leaders and government officials.
These missions have brought millions of dollars of investment and hundreds of jobs to Wayne County.
Most recently, my November trade mission brought ChangAn Automotive (one of China’s “Big Three”) to Plymouth, where it will open a new research and development center. This center will create 200 new engineering jobs, and if their 284% growth over the last two decades is any indication, we can expect a lot more.
Friends, our plan is working. We are bringing business and labor together and changing the world’s preconceived notions.
They are coming here to join the growing number of businesses bringing their investment and creating new jobs in Wayne County.
In the last two years we have seen record investment in the high growth sectors.
Our Wayne County Film Office, led by Mike Mosallam, continues to work hand-in- hand with the film, tv, and digital media industries to bring investment and excitement to Wayne County.
Blockbuster films like Transformers 3, Scream 4 and Real Steel with Hugh Jackman were shot right here in Wayne County.
And of course ABC's Detroit 1-8-7 became the first prime-time drama fully-shot in Detroit. The show filmed all over the area, converting unused space and employing Michigan residents. We certainly hope the show and its stars will stick around for a good long time.
In fact, one of the show's stars, Erin Cummings, originally from Los Angeles, has decided to make metro-Detroit her permanent home, and we couldn't be more thrilled to welcome her.
Erin, will you please stand. Thank you for being here.
The state's film incentive program has been the topic of discussion since its inception nearly 3 years ago.
And the numbers don't lie.
With $648 million in statewide production expenditures since the incentives took effect, and less than 100 million paid to production companies to date, it doesn't take a math major to realize the incentives are working - and creating jobs.
Reducing the film incentive and pulling the rug out from under this booming industry would be premature, and send the wrong message. Let’s maintain our status as the new film capital of the world, and keep the films and jobs coming.
Meanwhile, in the area of advanced manufacturing:
- GEhasbeensosuccessfulinPhaseIthatitannouncedPhaseII,anew$20 million dollar aviation center, and 200 new jobs;
- Detroit Diesel is investing almost $200 million dollars to retain 1,900 employees; and Mercedes Benz, in the same facility, is investing $10 million dollars and hiring 200 new engineers;
- and the Ford Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne is investing $1.2 billion dollars in its facility.
Research and development facilities like these popped up all over Wayne County over the last year, showing that, as expected, the next generation of automotive remains right here in southeast Michigan.
- In the area of advanced battery technology:
- A123Systems,whichanticipatedreachingfullcapacityatitsLivoniaCenterfor Energy Excellence in 5 years, has been so successful that it got there in just 14 months;
- Andtonight,I’mproudtoreportthatPistonAutomotive,whichmanufactures chassis and electric batteries, just committed $15 million to expand in Redford and Detroit instead of Kentucky, which will create 135 new jobs.
Companies like A123 and Piston Automotive are dynamic companies that could go anywhere in the world.
But they’re choosing to locate and expand in Wayne County because they see the positive momentum and they know my team is there for them every step of the way.
We have Piston Automotive CEO Steve Hayworth, CFO Dan Rose, and entrepreneur and local hero Vinnie “The Microwave” Johnson with us tonight.
- Gentlemen, please stand and be recognized. In the area of health care and life sciences:
- DMC/Vanguardisinvesting$1.4billiondollarstobuildstateoftheart facilities for not only the patients the DMC serves, but for its world-class physicians and staff who deliver life-saving services each and every day;
- And scientists like Dr. David Humes are changing the medical world right here in Wayne County with inventions like the bioartificial kidney. This incredible device, which he is creating in Plymouth Township, is about the size of your blackberry, and will attach to a belt and perform like an adult kidney. Dialysis patients will be freed from the tether of a machine, which is incredible news for the millions of people around the world suffering from kidney failure.
Dr. Humes, would you please stand up. Welcome to Wayne County.
Ladies and gentlemen, companies like GE, A123, Piston Automotive and Vanguard, and innovators like Dr. Humes have told us, and will tell anyone who asks, that my team made a huge difference in helping their deals come to fruition.
Speaking of helping innovators, I have even more exciting news tonight. Just last week, my team met with a young entrepreneur by the name of Josh Linkner. Josh is the founder of e-Prize and now the CEO of Detroit Venture Partners, a new company dedicated to rebuilding Detroit.
Josh and his partners, Dan Gilbert and Brian Hermelin, already acquired the Madison building on Woodward and filled it with high-tech, start-up companies.
Their vision is to acquire buildings between Campus Martius and Comerica Park and all over Detroit and fill them with new high-tech businesses. They are here because they love the city, they want to make a difference, and they see this as an incredible opportunity.
We share this vision and look forward to our new partnership.
As I mentioned, my team is talented and creative, and they have the tools needed to get the job done.
One tool that will remain in our arsenal is our homegrown TURBO program...a tax incentive program that helps small businesses get huge tax breaks in their first five years, and sometimes beyond.
Some felt it gave us an unfair advantage, but the Attorney General ruled in December that the program is 100% valid and 100% legal.
Over the last two years we have proceeded somewhat cautiously with TURBO, and it was still responsible for $2 billion dollars in new investment.
But with this ruling behind us, I’m now challenging my team to put it in Overdrive, and I’m offering it to everyone who wants to use it, even those who opposed it.
I’m also challenging the Commission to make economic development and jobs their number one priority this year. The numbers I’ve laid out tonight - $5 billion dollars in economic activity on an annual investment of less than $5 million dollars – show a Return on Investment of $1,000 for every dollar spent. This would make Warren Buffet proud. And as I’ve said all night, leveraged collaboration is the only way we are going to thrive.
I’m also confident that new Commission Chairman Woronchak will join me in implementing a multi-year budget. I look forward to a fresh start this year with the Chairman and the new commission. With their cooperation, we can continue to make progress, implement new programs, and maximize potential.
Ladies and gentlemen, the tide is turning. Together we’ve withstood the economic tsunami that has rocked this region.
We still have many challenges, but thanks to excellent foresight and leveraged collaboration, Wayne County government has evolved and we’re designed for the future.
We’ve already seen the impact from our savings here in the Guardian, to the demolition project with the City, to the expansion of the mortgage foreclosure prevention program, to the bringing together of business and labor.
And we’re already seeing the impact on our future, from the new jail, to autism, to the Aerotropolis, to the ruling on TURBO.
My friends, there is resiliency, creativity, innovation and energy in Wayne County – I can feel it. I feel a great sense of hope for the future – not only for us, but more importantly for our children.
It is their right to have better opportunities and our duty to give them a better life than we had. Let’s work together to get this done.
Thank you for electing me to a third term in November. I look forward to working with all of you and keeping our momentum going for at least another four years.
And thank you for letting me speak to you tonight. God bless America, and God bless Wayne County. Good night.
