Detroit, think about it for your next vacation (S4E23)

Detroit may not be on the top of vacation bucket list, but there’s a lot there. The Lions are on top of the NFL and County Commission Chair Alisha Bell tells you why Detroit is a city on the move.

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Transcription

David Martin: This is the good government show.

Alisha Bell: I don’t mind giving tax breaks to corporations if they’re going to do their part, which is to employ Detroiters and Wayne County people. So if they do that part, I’m okay with giving them some breaks to make sure that they have a viable business. Detroit Land Base can fit to Manhattan, Boston and San Francisco. You can fit all three of those cities in Detroit.

Not Wayne County, just Detroit. We are working collaboratively with the sheriff, chief of Police of Detroit, the prosecutor’s office and the courts, all working together to make sure there are preventative programs put in place, program to deter people. But in a place community policing is big. We have great community policing programs. All of those things working together has brought us down to one of the best Crime Stoppers we’ve had in many, many years.

Hope springs eternal.

David Martin: Welcome to the Good Government show. I’m your host, Steve Martin. On this episode, we’re going to Detroit, to Wayne County, Michigan, and talking with the chair of the Wayne County Commissioner, Alicia Bell. So, first, a production note when I talked to Commissioner Ballard was before this football season got underway. And this is important because we started the conversation talking about the Detroit Lions.

Hey, last year they had a very good season. but we did talk about a tough loss in the NFC Championships this year. No doubt is bringing joy to both Commissioner Bell and Lions fans because as the show is being released, the Lions might be the best team in the NFL. So we started talking about Detroit sports, but there’s a lot more happening in Detroit.

Start with this statistic. At one point, Detroit was the fourth most populated city in the U.S. there were some 1.8 million people living in the city of Detroit. Today, there are only 600,000 residents. That means a lot of vacant land, a lot of vacant houses, a major loss of manufacturing. You know, remember, this was the Motor City. But as the city looks forward, there’s a lot of opportunity for growth and development and trees.

And we talked about that. Commissioner Bell says this all starts with making opportunities for the people of Detroit to stay there. A lively downtown with a new sports arena, a winning football team and a busy central city helped make Detroit a modern, forward looking city. As you will hear, I’ve been to Detroit a few times and I have to say I like Detroit.

There’s a spirit there and there’s new stuff there, and now there’s something new around every corner. So when you listen to Alicia Bell, you’re going to hear her enthusiasm for her hometown. So let’s go to Wayne County, Michigan and hear what’s going on. I’ll have that right after this.

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Welcome to the good government show. My guest is Alisha Bell and you are the chairman of the Wayne County Commission. And Wayne County is Detroit, Michigan.

Alisha Bell: Yes it is.

David Martin: lots to talk about in Detroit.

Alisha Bell: Lots to talk about. Go, Lions.

David Martin: Go! Well.

Alisha Bell: Okay. We’re start there. Start there.

David Martin: Are you okay?

Alisha Bell: I’m trying to be.

David Martin: Was it. Were you at the games?

Alisha Bell: No.

David Martin: Do you go?

Alisha Bell: Sometimes. Okay. I should have went this year, but I don’t want to jinx it. I didn’t go to early on. I thought if I go that one, that they lose. I just didn’t go to the city. Going on, going on.

David Martin: Do they still get the key to the city? I mean, you know, we’re told that they have keys to the city. They’ve, you know.

Alisha Bell: Don’t have any keys to the county, but, they’re doing well. We’re so proud of what they did this year.

David Martin: All right. And how are you feeling about next year?

Alisha Bell: Good. Optimistic.

David Martin: Hope springs eternal, Springs eternal.

Alisha Bell: They’re the best they’ve done in my lifetime, so I’m just grateful for that.

David Martin: Are you are you are you a Lions fan?

Alisha Bell: Normally I’m a homie fan. Okay. So Pistons. Redwings. Lions you have them MSU I only have you know dog in that hunt but I’ll take and go to their homies.

David Martin: Okay. Fair enough.

So I mentioned that I’ve actually been to Detroit a few times, and, I went the last season at the Joe Louis Arena. for hockey? Yes, the Red wings. It was a great game. Yes. how how are how is the new stadium?

Alisha Bell: Great. Yeah. Little Caesars Arena is great. Is is fantastic. We have all of our, Red Wings Pistons concerts. Wonderful.

David Martin: And that’s what I noticed when I was in Detroit was just an incredible amount of regeneration, building renewal. I went to the Shinola watch company just to have a have a look. Yes. so it looks like there’s a lot of determination and a lot of determination to improve on what was once not a great place.

Alisha Bell: Yeah, well, that’s what people say. Since I’m born and raised there, I’m going to say it was always great. we just had a couple of bumps in the road. Okay. So. But we are doing, better. You’re a good booster. We’re we’re. Thank you. That’s my job. So, so we’re doing a lot better than we had.

And we had a few bumps. As I indicated right now, to have, all of our four major sports team playing downtown Detroit is awesome. You know, we have two, football teams in Pontiac at one time. But to have everyone downtown is amazing.

David Martin: And it’s all right in the same area.

Alisha Bell: All right? In the same area that that rejuvenates that area. Sure. we were working on getting retail downtown because at one point and I mean, 1.30, 40, 50 years ago, retail was heavily in the downtown area. Then, of course it was not, but now it’s coming back as well. So there’s a lot of great things going on.

David Martin: How do you, as president of the county commission, manage the, regeneration of the downtown area while keeping some character and flavor and, you know, the feeling like you’re in Detroit?

Alisha Bell: No, we want to make sure that we’re, honoring the people who have stayed there and have lived there and want to do business there. So we make sure that we’re doing, things, little things, as tax breaks for the big guys, the Gilbertson villages of the world. We have given them some tax tax breaks to help them come in and do their business.

And that’s, you know, pros and cons on both sides of that. People agree with that. They don’t agree with that. My philosophy is I don’t mind giving tax breaks to corporations if they’re going to do their part, which is to employ Detroiters and Wayne County people. So if they do that part, I’m okay with giving them some breaks to make sure that they have a viable business.

That being said, we have neighborhoods that are going through, a lot of, regenerative gentrification a little bit, but we know all as well. And that’s important. Remember, Detroit Land base can fit Manhattan, Boston and San Francisco. You can fit all three of those cities in Detroit, not Wayne County, just Detroit. Okay. So we have a very large, space.

And then with that being said, we had over a million and a half people in Detroit. Now we have 600,000 people in Detroit. So you have all that land that we’ve had with all those homes that we’ve had condensed down to 600,000 people or so. So it’s interesting managing that even though the county has 1.7 million people, the city of Detroit has about 600,000.

So just managing, making sure that we’re, rejuvenating all of the county and all of the city.

David Martin: Now, I remember driving around two blocks in Detroit that were abandoned homes or vacant lands in the city center.

Alisha Bell: yes.

David Martin: Not not downtown, not.

Alisha Bell: Downtown, but not far from downtown.

David Martin: not far from downtown. how is that being handled now? I think I read at one point wasn’t like part of the city of Detroit and the county as well, I guess, declared, like open space land because there were so few residents in certain blocks.

Alisha Bell: We tried to do that a little bit. So let’s say over by the bridge ambassador bridge that goes from Detroit to, Canada. Yeah. We build a new bridge as being built right now. The, Gordie Howe Bridge is being built right now, but we did have to.

David Martin: See how it gets a bridge.

Alisha Bell: Yeah, he gets he gets they want people get bridges. so so we had to clear some land over there in that area to make way for the new span for the new bridge. But unfortunately, as I just stated with the fact that we had 1.7 million people now, we had 60,000 people, we had houses for those people.

We were one of the few cities in the country that had individual houses. Not a lot of apartments, not a lot of projects. Everybody had a house. So we go from you lose a million people use a million houses. So yes, we’re clearing it out for developers to come in and to rejuvenate those areas. So yes, we have a lot of land because we had houses which we had to tear down because they were abandoned and they were criminal and eyesores.

David Martin: So what’s the plan for those?

Alisha Bell: Be attractive to a developers?

David Martin: Okay, we did.

Alisha Bell: Plant a lot of trees.

David Martin: Okay.

Alisha Bell: So there’s a lot of trees. Yeah I’m sorry. Which was controversial in and of itself as well because there’s acres of acres of trees.

David Martin: How long have you been a witch hunters?

Alisha Bell: For 20 years.

David Martin: Oh, my.

Alisha Bell: Yeah.

David Martin: So you’ve seen a lot of this?

Alisha Bell: I’ve seen a lot of that. And I’ve lived in Detroit all my life. Oh, my 55 years. I was moved to Detroit.

David Martin: So to tell a story.

Alisha Bell: well, I look good. So, you know, I know, but, yeah. So there’s a lot has changed and a lot of plans. We’re never going to be a million people again. Okay? I don’t think that’s in our cards, but we have to embrace what we are and embrace will be, have and try to get that number up as close to we can to 700, 700, 50,000.

David Martin: To other parts of the world that aren’t your part. Detroit doesn’t have a great reputation. How about that?

Alisha Bell: I tell them all the great things that we’re doing, and we have people like yourself come out and say, this place is great, and you go back and you tell your friends. So two instances and do.

David Martin: That out of a vacation. You have to in Detroit.

Alisha Bell: But we in two travel magazine listed us as the number one place to a tourist in 2024.

David Martin: Really?

Alisha Bell: So there. So well, you have to be in my place. So in 2013 I had a conference association of Black County officials. So these are black county officials from across the country came to Detroit and they yes. Thinking it was going to be doom and gloom, I was amazed on how wonderful it was and how wonderful a time was.

That was in 2013. Fast forward, we had another conference in 2019 and again, they’re like, oh my God, we love Detroit is amazing. And they go back and they dispelled those rumors. That is a death trap.

David Martin: So one by.

Alisha Bell: One, one by one where everybody is.

David Martin: Image of Detroit. Yes. But but you have a lot of challenges. And this I mean it’s the Rust Belt if this is. Yeah. Detroit is not unique.

Alisha Bell: No.

David Martin: yeah. You know, the other day on the paper, I read a front page story about, you know, Gary, Indiana, similar problem, you know, other Rust Belt cities. Cleveland went to the mayor of Cleveland the other day. Similar problems. How do you deal with that? What do you do? We have because you have to you have, as I understand it, you have two problems.

First, you have dilapidated parts of the city and the region. But you you’re trying to find a way to reinvent yourself in a way that you weren’t because the, you know, the industry that was there is no longer.

Alisha Bell: So manufacturing obviously. Yeah. Was our bread and butter right. Cars. We are looking at tech now okay. And different fields to go into the next century with automated vehicles with everything that that entails. So we have a large tech community forming in Wayne County and in Detroit. Okay. That’s going to be one path. a governor just announced free community college for, students if they want two years of community college.

I think education is the key to any viable community. Sure. And she agrees with that as well. We have to do a lot of things, be creative by getting young people, because that’s been an issue. Young people leaving and not coming. So we have a task force on what we can do. When I say we, I mean.

David Martin: I grew up in Detroit. She moved to California. Now she’s back in Detroit.

Alisha Bell: Because the cost of living is horrible in California. So and so much more reasonable in Detroit. And I wish people knew that because they will see as she knows it is so much better. Cost of living, right? Housing prices, gas, insurance, the whole gamut of all the expenses that you would have in other parts of the country. And our weather isn’t terrible either.

So it was 60 degrees on Friday. On February 9th when I came to DC, that was an anomaly. But still we have okay, whether you get off four seasons at some point, sometimes in the same day, but we are doing things to draw people to the city.

David Martin: Not going to get into it with you, but I could just show you that every once in a while I got a text every Friday says, boy, do I miss Los Angeles.

Alisha Bell: Well, I sometimes miss Las Vegas, but yeah, but yeah, we’re doing doing things to make sure that we’re attracting people.

David Martin: We should do full disclosure. Yes, we are both from Tallahassee.

Alisha Bell: Yeah, yeah. And I want to say that I went to Florida A&M and that was a wonderful time for my undergraduate degree. And then I went to get my graduate degree at Unlv. So I spent time in Las Vegas as well.

David Martin: Good spots. Yes.

Alisha Bell: Well, I guess I wanted to get a little warm weather for a minute. Okay. But I always come back home.

David Martin: what are the biggest challenges that you’re dealing with? What did you talk about? I brought up some. What are the things that you’re bringing that you’re dealing with.

Alisha Bell: Again, keeping our population growing. Our population growing, our educated population and making sure opportunities are there for people to get a college degree or in the trades because trades are still viable career paths.

David Martin: making sport is still a big player in Detroit.

Alisha Bell: Oh, absolutely. In Dearborn, that’s where they’re still headquartered. They, the train station, they purchased the old train station. And that is a beautiful they, reinvented it and it’s to wonderful.

David Martin: I’ve since I’ve seen this. Yeah. You know, I still describe it. This is like a 20 or 30 story. A former grand hotel, on the sort of the edge of downtown.

Alisha Bell: Yes.

David Martin: absolutely. The facade is beautiful. and it’s there’s nothing around it for a few blocks, and it is just totally abandoned. What’s the plan for that?

Alisha Bell: Oh, no. My God, you have been there in a while, so that’s not a company. Oh my goodness. So it is cold. Is are they refreshed? It’s a little beautiful. Suffered during the Lions. But a couple weeks ago we had blue lights on it. Oh I had a droned and shape of lie in it was just beautiful display.

There’s a beautiful park that the mayor, the city council put together. So the beautiful park in front of it, there’s buildings and there are restaurants anchor it. So it’s it’s wonderful. That’s Corktown. So in Corktown, there restaurants, there’s parks. There’s a lot going on. There’s a southwest Greenway path where you can get to the riverfront. So there’s a lot going on on that side.

That part of town with the train station, the train station will now be an anchor, as opposed to being the I saw that it was for 30, 40 years. And that’s all Ford is.

David Martin: Are they going to turn that into a hotel? It’ll be.

Alisha Bell: A hotel. It was it was a it was never a hotel. But it was. It would it will be a hotel. Yes, it’ll be hotel apartments. And, Ford.

David Martin: What about the old Packard plant?

Alisha Bell: Well, that’s still, under development.

David Martin: The old the old Packard plant is an abandoned plant, kind of downtown Detroit. Right.

Alisha Bell: East is Detroit. Yeah, east of downtown. But it’s.

David Martin: A you can’t drive through Detroit without seeing.

Alisha Bell: It. Yeah, and there were a lot of plans and a lot developers had great plans. Nothing has come to fruition. It’s huge. It probably just needs to be torn down. because I don’t think.

David Martin: Is it is a historic landmark.

Alisha Bell: It. Yeah. And the historic landmark, people don’t want it and but we can’t get developers to do anything with it. So the plan is for it to eventually be an apartments, and we can get a developer to get it to the finish line.

David Martin: Is that is that hard? Yes, it’s going to be hard.

Alisha Bell: It’s going to be hard because it’s so large. It’s not store. It’s huge. I mean, it takes a lot of money to do whatever.

David Martin: The Packers were the most beautiful.

Alisha Bell: Absolutely. So I’m hopeful that that will one day get to the finish line like the beautiful train station has.

David Martin: And I know, Quicken Loans is a large employer. what other jobs are you’re trying to bring in? What’s the focus?

Alisha Bell: Tech is our main theme right now was due to a manufacturing. Manufacturing at the technical level. Education, of course. we teach.

David Martin: The watches and.

Alisha Bell: Bicycle shuttles. Oh, well, that’s very small. I mean, that’s right, but we’ll take all of that. We’ll take all of that because is is a viable city, is the cost of living is great. The housing stock is great. Older but historic in many areas of town. Right. we want to make sure that our young people are coming back.

I have two teenagers. When they leave to go to college, I wanna make sure that they come back to a place that’s cool and hip. And so, interestingly enough, a lot of the suburban children are now, young adults. And they’re moving to the city now because they, they grew up in suburbs, but now they want to be with the action is right and the actions of the city.

So I’m glad that they’re seeing the value. And a lot of other people are seeing the value. We have a great immigrant population, in Wayne County, we have one city in Wayne County, which is right off of Detroit. There’s a weird Highland Park in Hamtramck. 40 languages are spoken in Hamtramck, so we have a large immigrant population throughout the county of Wayne.

We have 1.7 million people in Wayne County, with its core Detroit being the largest city. But we have so many assets throughout the entire county, and.

David Martin: You have a unique situation in that one of your border counties is cannabis.

Alisha Bell: Yes. I’m just I was just want to say, if you look at my office looks out into Canada, the Detroit River, and then Canada, Canada from my office is closer to my house. But it’s beautiful. And people don’t know that. They don’t realize how close we have the international border. Just, the Port Authority that we have in Detroit, where we have cruise ships come through this summer.

Yeah, several. We have.

David Martin: 70. Are there any challenges to having another country as your border county?

Alisha Bell: not Canada, that you work with.

David Martin: I mean, do you meet up regularly at work together?

Alisha Bell: We work together on the new bridge span. We had to work collaboratively to get that deal going. So when the opportunity presents itself, we work together. We have no problems with Canada. Canada has no problem with us. We interchangeably go amongst each other before we build our casinos. The first casino was in Windsor, and I think the city government saw all that money going across the water and out of the tunnel.

And then we have now three casinos in in Detroit. Now we want to get, you know, that.

David Martin: Are there things you go to Canada for and are there other things?

Alisha Bell: I mean, you can go to different Canada, okay. I mean, my husband, like you want to go to Canada for sure. We you take our children out and until parks over Canada just as a different.

David Martin: Just to go somewhere different.

Alisha Bell: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is.

David Martin: Like the poutine better in Canada.

Alisha Bell: Is the same. Yes. All right. So this is a lot of great things going on in Detroit. And I wish people would, witnessed it themselves to see it because two people, two people one from Miami, one from North Carolina, they’re full critics. They have come to Detroit and they’re doing a big expo on black, restaurants. They love Detroit.

They absolutely love Detroit. All right. They love it. and people. Who else? I love Detroit, people in Detroit. We have to be, we have to do a better job of selling it. But when folks come into the city like yourself, they love it. All right, I’ve.

David Martin: Got I’ve got to make some.

Alisha Bell: Calls. Yes.

David Martin: I’m stopping by your office.

Alisha Bell: The NFL draft is coming up. Yeah. So the NFL saw some value in us. So we’ll we’ll have the draft and, April 20th to the 24th.

David Martin: All right. And I sell. So, you know you got it. You got the big lake right there. Yeah. let’s go next to the other. It’s that’s the Great Lakes.

Alisha Bell: The Great Lakes. Absolutely.

David Martin: After you get done with this episode, hear more good government stories with our friends at How to Really Run a City. Former Mayors Kazeem Reed of Atlanta and Michael Nutter of Seattle. Delphia and their co-host, journalist and author Larry Platt talk with guests and other mayors about how to really get stuff done in cities around the nation. Check them out where you’re listening now or through their nonprofit news site, The Philadelphia Citizen.

Dot org slash podcasts.

So now that we’ve discussed all that, let’s get into the meat of this of our, it’s our good government show questionnaire. We finally get to the philosophy. We’re going to find out your philosophy of government.

Alisha Bell: Okay.

David Martin: All right. See if you can get another 22 years. It.

Alisha Bell: Okay. I don’t want another 20 years.

David Martin: 22 years as a county commissioner in Wayne County. 2121 sorry. define good government.

Alisha Bell: Good government, to me, is making sure that you are delivering services to the people, in a quality manner and economical manner that they have a good view and opinion of the services that they’re getting offered. that you say Wayne County people. Oh, I love Wayne County. I love my commissioner, I love my county executive. But we want to make sure they’re saying that because they’re getting good services.

That’s what government does. It provides great services to our constituents.

David Martin: How do you judge your success? How do you know if you’re doing a good job.

Alisha Bell: As people keep reelected?

David Martin: Me what else?

Alisha Bell: Showing up and doing the job and being innovative and creative in the job. So point example, wanting to make sure that we, offered services to people, particularly women. So I created the Wayne County Commission, Women’s Commission. Those women are tasked to make sure that the county’s services are addressing the needs of women in our county. We also establish a Wayne County Commission, youth council, understanding that government starts with the young people.

This is for high school students. They have to see it, to believe it and to know that they can be a part of government and for most of civil service. So those are some innovative things that has happened under my leadership as chairperson. But the fact that one, my constituents vote for me every two years for the last 20 years.

David Martin: Every two years.

Alisha Bell: Yes. and then my colleagues voted for me to be chair the last five years, I think says that I’m doing something right, making sure that I prioritize services and prioritize collaboration, amongst my colleagues to the citizens of Wayne County.

David Martin: But when you when you’re when you’re home at night and you’re, you know, got your shoes off, how do you say, did I have a good day? Did I have a good week?

Alisha Bell: When I got accomplished, where was I? Was I able to do the things and accomplish the things to move our county forward? Such as? we have something called the tri county summit, Wayne County, Oakland County and Macomb County, which are the three largest counties in Southeast in Michigan. And we’re all in Southeast Michigan. We have a summit that we’ve been doing for the last three years, getting together with the chairs of those three counties and our boards on issues that are similar to all of us mental health, electric cars, a water roll.

Those are the things that we tackled the first three years. And I it makes me feel good. And my well, I can say we accomplished, mental health program that’s going to benefit our citizens.

David Martin: How should the people other than voting for you or not voting for you every two years? If people don’t feel like they’re getting good government, how should they hold you accountable? What should they do?

Alisha Bell: They should call me, call me, email, let me know. I am open, so open to constituents. I get a lot of of of of policy from citizens. Yeah. They say, you know, we should do x, Y and Z. Sounds good. We should do x, y and z. So I get though I appreciate feedback, I get feedback and they can always call me.

I’ll, respond. So everyone in my district knows where my house is. Luckily they have the mast on it, but they know where I live. So,

David Martin: You don’t have to give out your address, but the people, like the people have your cell phone number.

Alisha Bell: Yeah, I go cell phone and I answer my own email, so I, I personally guess my email.

David Martin: So you your you are approachable as you could do that.

Alisha Bell: And I think that’s one reason while I’ve been in office allow me to because I’m approachable now, people know me long enough that they saw me when I was single and they saw me get married and they saw me have two kids. So I’m their daughter. They feel proud that they raised me up in the community, and they have me in this position.

David Martin: Is it a challenge for you to go out in the community and like, you know, put on sweatpants and a t shirt and run to the store or you just do it.

Alisha Bell: I just do it wrong, okay? I am human. And they understand that. Okay. Does it does.

David Martin: Shopping sometimes take me twice as long as it should?

Alisha Bell: I put on a hat and glasses. So no matter.

David Martin: Well, sometimes, you know, getting milk and eggs, it should take five minutes, you.

Alisha Bell: To get a little bit longer. But, hey, I kind of issue. I need you to solve this baby. Yeah. Other. So. Yeah. But I love it. I wouldn’t be doing it this long. I didn’t love it.

David Martin: You’ve been in for 21 years. What would you like people to know as an insider about government that they probably don’t know?

Alisha Bell: There are so many resources available. People come. People have issues and concerns and challenges about things, but they don’t know. There’s almost always a resource to address that. So I’ve spent a lot of my time letting people know what the resources are, if they’re going to foreclosure for their home. We have programs to help them. So they don’t lose their home if they have a child who, is delinquent.

We have preventive programs for our young people. So there’s so many programs out there that people don’t know about. And I guess when you’re doing that, you’re day to day life living. You’re not thinking about government programs. You just live your day to day life. But there’s so many resources available to address, most issue that people have.

David Martin: So, running for political office, was that something you always thought about? Did you grow up wanting to be president?

Alisha Bell: No. So my mother was a school board member.

David Martin: Okay.

Alisha Bell: And she parlayed from school board to the commission. Okay. And she sends on a commission for ten years through the 90s, she resigned from the commission. She appointed me.

David Martin: Over.

Alisha Bell: In.

David Martin: Was that controversial?

Alisha Bell: She appointed me in April of 2000. The election was in August of 2000. I lost the election in August of 2000. I ran again two years later and I won. And I’ve been in ever since.

David Martin: When you when she appointed you was there were there are people who said, oh, this is wrong.

Alisha Bell: Yes.

David Martin: I guess.

Alisha Bell: That’s the.

David Martin: Reason not allowed to the first time.

Alisha Bell: Around. But they saw my perseverance, my grit, my concern, and they put me there. And I’ve been ever since. Since 2002.

David Martin: Who is your mother, your political hero? Or are there other people that inspired you?

Alisha Bell: Oh, my mom for sure. We we are, one of the few city that had great African-American women leaders. And we have so many for our city council president, Mayor Henderson, to countless congresswomen, so many African-American women leaders through all parts of government in Detroit. So that inspired me. And I hope my leadership inspires other young people who will hopefully eventually be a commissioner one day.

David Martin: Was it always commission? Was that always just like, I want to be a commissioner to like mom? Or did you want to be president? United States?

Alisha Bell: I wanted to be a schoolteacher, really? And I taught for a bit and opened up a Sylvan Learning Center in Detroit with a director there. Okay. And then went to the commission.

David Martin: All right. Do you want to go back to teaching?

Alisha Bell: I’m about ready to retire. Okay. And I’m sure Wayne State could.

David Martin: Use, person.

Alisha Bell: Like Lake Wayne. They would work three. Yeah. So what do commemorate? we are, for the first time, going to four year terms this year. Oh, so four years. And prayerfully, if I’m reelected, I will probably.

David Martin: You’re far too young to retire.

Alisha Bell: All right.

David Martin: Now I have been to Detroit. Okay.

Alisha Bell: However, however.

David Martin: I want to know. I’m meeting you. You’re going to take me out? We’re going out. We’re going out for a meal or two. Okay. What do we have and where are we going? And if you had if you talked about Cody’s this. We’re done. So nobody saw that face.

Alisha Bell: I really is I have a county maybe once every other year. Okay. All right. I’m not a big county dog person. were you.

David Martin: A product to be the the official food of Detroit?

Alisha Bell: I don’t know, I mean, they’re good. They have their place, I suppose. I suppose, but there’s not. That’s where I’m not where I’m taking you. Good. Taking you to probably Sloan’s barbecue on Michigan Avenue. Okay. Yeah. Great. Great. barbecue and macaroni and cheese is really good.

David Martin: You said that because you are from Tallahassee and you from.

Alisha Bell: Okay. Right. And then we’re probably going to take a walk down the Riverwalk. All right? I’m on the river. Walk aboard. So. Well. And then that if you’ve ever 20 years ago, there was silo Siemens silos. And now we were voted on the best Riverwalk by USA today three years in a row. Wow. So we to walk down the riverfront, you can wave over to Canada.

And then at evening we could go to Cliff Mills and you can see a jazz show, which is what you said about to see at Cliff Bill. All right. Okay. Or Maker’s Keyboard Lounge, which is one of our historic African-American and jazz, facilities also on the avenue a fashion.

David Martin: So barbecue is the official is the best food to get in Detroit.

Alisha Bell: I like barbecue.

David Martin: Hey, you don’t have to sell me, all right? It’s your town. Well, we are the good government show, and we always like to bring it back to good government. Yes. So tell me about a good government project you’re working on right now. You’re proud of?

Alisha Bell: Oh, gosh. the the that I mentioned, the the young people in the women, those were good.

David Martin: Young people program you mentioned. Does that any of that bring in the kids into the city hall or county? Yeah.

Alisha Bell: Oh, absolutely. They the the commissioner who’s over that program. She takes him to Lansing to meet with the state government. Okay. Come to us at the end of the program year because they work on an issue that we then make a resolution. First year was gun violence, second year was mental health in, in, in the schools. So they come up with the issue and then they bring that assembly to do a resolution on it.

So they are, working with us for sure. program that we’re working on right now is spending our Arpa dollars, one good program. And I’m piggybacking on because we have a county executive form of government. So we have a countywide okay, executive. And then we have commissioners. So like president, Congress relationship. Yep. So, the very thing that the county executive brings has to be approved by the commission before it go to fruition, before it’s a thing and we have the vote up or down.

So he brought to us, adjust er project, which is awesome. It is a young African American inventor in, Detroit who had invented a monitoring system for air quality. So unfortunately, I spoke earlier in the Rust Belt. We have polluted air.

David Martin: Yep.

Alisha Bell: So he invented a device that would, decide or figure out what the air quality is. We’re going to put it on young people’s backpacks. And then that would to help their parent determine if it’s good air quality, their bad air quality. They because we have a high incidence of asthma in our county. So that’s something that we have approved.

We approved and we will be implementing that this summer.

David Martin: We didn’t really talk about this. and I don’t certainly want to necessarily end this way. I know that, Detroit has a crime problem. What can you do to help knock down the crime stats and to make it a safer city?

Alisha Bell: So just. Oh, boy. About three weeks ago, we had a press conference because our numbers are lower than they’ve been in 30 years. As far as crime numbers, all of our numbers are down. Carjacking rates, murder. Everything is down. Down to a historic low to start me in the last 40 years. Okay, so we are working collaboratively with the sheriff and chief of police of Detroit, the prosecutor’s office and the courts, all working together to make sure that preventative programs put in place, program to deter people.

But in a place community policing is big. We have great community policing, programs. All of those things working together has brought us down to one of the best crime stats that we’ve had in many, many years.

David Martin: All right. I’m going to I’m going to give you the last word. I’m going to end with your your one minute pitch on why people should come visit Detroit.

Alisha Bell: Okay. So, let me first clarify that I’m a Wayne County commissioner. Okay. That’s fine. And I am a resident of Detroit, and I represent Detroit. So why would you come to Wayne County, Andy? Detroit. Yeah, because we are a very diverse community. We have beautiful parks, we have great restaurants. The people are friendly and inviting and welcoming.

And I think once people come, they will fall in love with it. All the different architect we are what the top rated architectural design buildings in the country. So when I embrace all of the arts, arts that we have the Detroit instead of art, African-American museum, all of the things that we offer makes it the best place in the country to live, work and to thrive.

David Martin: You mentioned the Ford Museum.

Alisha Bell: And then there’s the Ford Museum.

David Martin: Which is a pretty incredible museum.

Alisha Bell: It absolutely is.

David Martin: But that’s that’s outside. That’s not Wayne County, is it?

Alisha Bell: the Ford Museum.

David Martin: I don’t know.

Alisha Bell: The Dia is in Detroit, it’s Detroit instead of Arts. And then we have Air American Museum as well. And the Holocaust Museum is in, Oakland County.

David Martin: Like I said, I’ve been to Detroit a few times. I’m sure I’ll be back again. I was always very impressed, and it was very impressive talking to you. Thank you so much for taking time.

Alisha Bell: Thank you for having me.

David Martin: You’re welcome. We will see you in Detroit.

Alisha Bell: Yes.

David Martin: You will. All right. Thank you. This this has been a great conversation with Alicia Bell. And you are the chairman of the Wayne County Commission. Thanks for stopping by.

Alisha Bell: Thank you.

David Martin: Where do you get your news from? Where do you get your state and local government news from? Because that’s getting harder and harder. And it’s essential to stay updated with your community. And it’s becoming increasing really important to know what’s going on in other cities and states, because they’re likely facing challenges that you’re grappling with, too, or you’re going to face eventually.

That’s why we’d like to welcome our new partner, route 50, to the show. Route 50 is a leading online publication covering state and local governments across the country. They’ve written about states protecting themselves against the rise in cyber attacks, counties using AI to better support citizens services, local responses to crumbling infrastructure and extreme weather, and much, much more.

There’s a lot there. It’s a one stop shop for issues affecting state and local governments and their residents. That’s you. That’s all of us. Do yourself a favor and go to route 50.com to see the topics and solutions they cover, and learn what other people in government are doing. They also deliver a daily newsletter called route 50 today.

I see it in my inbox every morning. I check it out and you should too. Thanks again. Route 50. We’re excited to have you on board and being a partner here at the Good Government Show.

What is it the county government does? That’s the question county commissioners get asked the most. And the simple answer is everything on the good Government show. We’re so lucky to have talked with so many county commissioners and other county officials that have shown us how effective county government is. County government dates back to get this 1634, making it one of the oldest forms of government in the United States.

Think about it. Roads. Highways. Hospitals. Schools. Recycling. Law enforcement. Water. Sewers, and most of the county. Those services are maintained by the county that’s county government. The National Association of Counties represents all 3069 counties across the USA. Naco helps county government work better together through things like sharing best practices. When county government works well, well, that’s just good government.

Well, I got a few updates. Corktown in Detroit is a it’s a pretty cool neighborhood, good barbecue, among other things. And I hear that the Michigan Central Station is now anchoring the neighborhood and helping revitalize the area. I sort of anchor. I think that’s what the commissioner said. A good conversation with Wayne County Commissioner Chair Alicia Bell.

Do her a favor, B one of the many people in seems who are vacationing in Detroit. You just might be surprised if you can’t do it in time for a Lions game or a Red wings game, or a Pistons game. The Tigers played right in downtown, too, and the baseball season starts in April. It’s worth the reaction when you tell people, hey, I went to Detroit on vacation.

Well, that’s our show. Thanks for listening. Please like us and share this with your friends and review us right here. We’re listening and check out our website. Good Government show.com for extras. Help us keep telling stories of good government and action everywhere. Join us again for another episode right here. I’m Dave Martin and this is a good government show.

The Good Government Show is a Valley Park production. Jim Ludlow, Dave Martin, That’s Me and David Snyder are the executive producers. Our show is edited and produced by Jason Stershic. Please subscribe then share us and like us and reviews. That’s the best way to make sure we’re able to keep telling these stories of our government working for all of us.

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**This transcription was created using digital tools and has not been edited by a live person. We apologize for any discrepancies or errors.