CHICAGO -- Detroit’s new mayor Wednesday introduced the core of his transition team even as he said it remains unclear how much power he will have under the city’s state-appointed emergency manager.
Mike Duggan, a former Wayne County prosecutor and CEO of Detroit Medical Center who won the election last week, said his transition team will spend the next seven weeks in “a very intense effort to see if we can’t figure out how to structure city government.”
“We’re in an interesting situation today in that we have an emergency manager in place,” Duggan said at a press conference.
“We’re going to come out with what we believe is the road map,” he said. “All I can say is, Here’s my vision for how the city should be run,’ and it’ll be up to the governor and the emergency manager to say whether or not I can do it.”
Duggan -- like outgoing Mayor Dave Bing before him -- hopes to run the city’s overall operational restructuring and leave the debt restructuring and bankruptcy oversight to emergency manager Kevyn Orr.
“Under the law, the governor and the emergency manager can say yes or no, so we’ll see how it works out,” Duggan said.
Duggan, who will take office Jan. 1, introduced four people who will serve as the core of his team.
The core members include former state Rep. Lisa Howze, who mounted her own run for Detroit mayor, who will run the finance and business operations of the team. Former Detroit Police Chief Ike McKinnon will oversee public safety efforts.
Duggan’s campaign manager, Bryan Barnhill II, will be responsible for recruiting the rest of the team and members of the new administration. John Roach, Duggan’s current spokesman, will become communications director.
Duggan said the team will have 12 areas of focus and has set up a web site that asks Detroiters with expertise in various areas to get in touch. The final transition team could have up to 100 people.
