As you probably know, the Cass-Henry vote was delayed till this Tuesday. Since the hearing last week, we've done some outreach to council members to try to encourage them to think more critically about the situation. Other than the personal attention from Olympia, it's unclear to me why they decided to postpone. I'm still not sure whether we have the votes, but hopefully there's been some more effective outreach over the last week.
Today I spent much of the morning and afternoon with Councilmember Castaneda-Lopez. There was a district wide bus tour followed by visits to both the Berwin and Bretton Arms on Henry Street. Prior to the apartment visit, Raquel said she had met with ODM on Friday, who said that they would be submitting a letter touting jobs and opposing the historic designation. Apparently, they're holding out for the whole block to do a single commercial project that would see all of those apartments bulldozed. However, they would not make any promises in writing.
At Berwin and Bretton met dozens of residents and explained the situation in terms of the upcoming hearing and vote. The vast majority of residents want to stay in the apartments. And while several voiced concerns about maintenance, bugs, etc., most seemed pretty happy with their living situation. We had connections to two residents who let us in. They will be circulating the attached flyer to residents over the next couple of days. Please feel free to forward if you'd like.
I plan to be there again on Tuesday (7/10) at 10 a.m. If any of you can make it for public comment, I'd be grateful. If you do make a statement, make sure you say that you are a Detroit resident, and what District you live in. And/or, if you'd be able to reach out the council members in the meantime, either via email, call, or text to encourage them to vote in favor of the proposed Cass-Henry District, I'd be grateful.
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