Myth #3: Duggan Got the Streetlights Back On
Detroit's "state-of-the-art" lighting system has also been held up by Mike Duggan and others as an example of how he has guided the city to a "rebirth" since emerging from its infamous municipal bankruptcy. Getting the lights back on was actually brought about by Dave Bing and the Michigan legislature—Duggan is just taking credit for it—but in any case we still have a lot of these lights that don't work, and there are a lot of complaints about their quality of light when they do work. Sure, the lights YOU see in Detroit are working, but that's because you only hang out in Midtown™. Meanwhile, in the parts of the city where majority Detroit lives (that is, black Detroit), streetlights are still an issue while the yarns about Detroit's rebirth continue to be spun in the media.
And in 2019, the Detroit Public Lighting Authority had to spend $3 million in taxpayer dollars to replace 19,500 faulty bran-new LED streetlights, representing no less than ONE THIRD of the city's entire lighting grid:
This was after the $4 million court settlement with the LED manufacturer, Leotek Electronics, did not cover the nearly $7 million tab to swap out the faulty lights. Duggan however, in a statement to The News, called the settlement "fair" and said the city was "glad to have this matter resolved." Sounds to me like we're getting gaslighted, doesn't it?
The defective lights were "charred, burned, or cracked," despite being installed just a few years prior, the Leotek lights were expected to last at least a decade. The lawsuit against Leotek was filed in May 2019, arguing that around 20,000 lights supplied by Leotek were "prematurely dimming and burning out" and putting the city's revitalization progress "in jeopardy." After all, it's Duggan's image as the holy revitalizer that's really most important, isn't it? The authority was forced to tap into its maintenance fund to begin the replacement project in June 2019, after the lights failed in "large sections of Detroit." The Detroit taxpayer absorbs yet another Duggan blooper, but somehow everyone still wants to paint him as the squeaky-clean white savior mayor?
According to the article,
"In Detroit, the lighting authority paid $3.9 million in 2014 to purchase 25,320 lights from Leotek. Installation costs for the lights were about $5.2 million. According to the lighting authority, Leotek, per its 10-year warranty, said it would correct and replace any defects. The authority's May lawsuit had asked the federal court to grant judgment against Leotek for alleged warranty violations."
So wait, something doesn't add up here...we gave Leotek $3.9M for the lights, $5.2M for the installation, they said they would replace the defective ones under warranty...we take them to court, and we only get $4M, Leotek still doesn't have to honor their warranty, AND we have to cover the replacement ourselves?!
The article continues,
"The parties entered into 'confidential settlement discussions' with a mediator on Oct. 22. The two sides then agreed to settle their disputes and dismiss the lawsuit."
Ohh, I see. Once again a closed-door backroom deal where nobody knows what happened, Duggan comes out clean and we have to foot the bill for whatever "deal" his cronies struck in there. Doesn't sound like a deal to me, it sounds like we got bent over. What kind of negotiator goes into a scenario with the upper hand like that, and doesn't come out with something to show for it? What was the trade-off that Duggan rigged for Leotech to get off so cheap? What did the taxpayer get out of the deal? If we had gotten anything, it wouldn't need to be confidential. Sounds like Leotek just became Duggan's newest campaign donor, or maybe we will see one of his nephews as their CEO in a few years. That's the only explanation. After all, what is the average taxpayer to do other than speculate, when their money is frittered away in "confidential settlement discussions" with private corporations, and we have no one in the room representing our interests?
