A prescription for the City of Detroit, a diagnosis to help cure the pain from “Dr. Cush”

Quit Lying! Elected officials at all levels should be serving with care and compassion for the people. Because of them speaking up for you, they made it possible for you to represent their needs and issues. Even though we disagree sometimes, we share a common bond to help the other man live in a peaceful land.

Reward long time (25 years or more) homeowners in the City of Detroit with tax rebates on their property ending the injustice on first time homeowners in the payment of their property taxes. And my proposal to end this will be to allow the “Headlee Amendment” rule (limiting property tax to %5 or the rate of inflation) to be applied to assessments notwithstanding to the Proposal A on all home dwellings in the City of Detroit. By doing this, it would end the pop-up syndrome that socks the new home buyer with a large property tax bill because of the quirks in the State Equalized Value rule in assessing homeowner property.


An example is a homeowner who purchased a home in 1978 as a HUD home for $18,000 is assessed at %50 of its value. The home is sold in 2005 for $200,000 and assessed at %50 of its value. The bill for the 2nd sale of the home comes due in the 2nd year to the NEW homeowner. This is referred to as the POP-UP effect on property taxes. The new home owner is also stuck with an adjustable rate mortgage and is left with few choices but to leave the property abandoned and give it back to the bank.

Education in the City of Detroit is a mission required because we can no longer afford to be ignorant. The lack of knowledge and compassion is a threat to national security of our citizens. Until the parents and the children realize the value of continued education is the key to the uplifting of an entire community. And the collateral effects on a community will carryover to the entire world. We must take those iPods and integrate them into the educational curriculum. Over %90 of children in grades K-9 have a MySpace or some other web based account.

The city needs its citizens who work for the city to live in the city. Teachers, Police, Fire, Information Technology workers, and others should have a stake in its survival. In order to accomplish this, property tax incentives and other discounts on utilities would be proposed by me when I am in the right position to do so. We can no longer afford to be ignorant. Students need to know that education is the ticket and that their teachers do care about them. They may be stressed out, burnt out, paid low, disrespected and dogged by parents and students. But they return every year because they have love for the community and deep concern for the future of our world.