Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Flooding at the Southfield Freeway


A portion of the Southfield Freeway flooded recently because of the tremendous amount of rain that Detroit has received over the past couple of days.


Lance Rosol of Pixel Perfect Photography managed to snap this photograph of what is now the Southfield River. It shows the Southfield Freeway, near Outer Drive, which is approximately 4 miles south of the Warrendale neighborhood.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Detroit Police Response Time: Now 113% Worse

Warren Evans
A little over a year ago, when Warren Evans was chief of police, the Detroit Police Department had a 24 minute response time for priority one calls. More importantly, their response time had improved by 29% from where it was a year earlier.

Now, however, things are different.

Warren Evans has been replaced as chief of police by Ralph Godbee. Chief Godbee is a fine individual, but he is someone who has spent almost his entire career in administrative posts within the department as opposed to being on the front lines fighting crime on a daily basis.

I tried not to hold Chief Godbee's lack of operational experience against him. However, it is becoming clear that he is simply not up to the task of leading one of the largest police departments in the nation.

Even though the department's budget is just as large, the Detroit Police Department's response time has now climbed to an average of almost 52 minutes, according to statistics released by the City of Detroit.

52 minutes.

Protecting and Serving - in 52 Minutes
The national average for police response time in major cities, by the way, is only 7 minutes. A review of police statistics shows that the Detroit Police Department currently has the largest budget of any police department in North America on a per resident basis as well as the worst response time of any urban police department in the industrialized world.

At 52 minutes, this means that the Detroit Police Department's response time is 113% worse than it was when Warren Evans was chief of police. That is a dramatic change for the worse in such a short time period.

To say that this is unacceptable does a disservice to the word "unacceptable." If the safety of Detroiters were truly a priority for Mayor Dave Bing, he would demand immediate changes within the leadership of the Detroit Police Department.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Warren Avenue Community Organization


Please join the Warren Avenue Community Organization on Thursday, November 17 6 - 7:30 p.m. at NFL YET Boy's and Girls Club (16500 Tireman). Please enter via the east entrance to the building.

This is a very important meeting. They will nominate and elect officers for the 2012 - 2014 term.

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Obama Gas Station + Henry Ford's Grave






I was do some field research for a client today and took my camera along with me to show a few off the beaten path things about the Warrendale area of Detroit.
  • Brennan Pools;
  • Henry Ford's grave; and
  • The Barack Obama gas station.
Detroit is always full of surprises. This collection of oddities from around the neighborhood is your Cool Warrendale Thing of the Week.