Detroit Socialist Party member and current SPMI State Secretary-Elect Matt Erard has officially qualified for the ballot in the upcoming April 5th, 2011 election for the city of Detroit’s Downtown Citizens’ District Council, following his receipt of the Detroit Socialist Party’s nomination for that office at its February 2011 local membership meeting, and subsequent submission of the requisite number of valid signatures by the petition deadline earlier this month.
Since their initial establishment in the late 1960s, Detroit’s citizens district councils have been charged with the task of representing the interests of poor and working class city residents within each district of the city where “urban renewal” development and rehabilitation projects are intended to be slated. As mandated under both state law and the Detroit City Charter, the Detroit City Council and Detroit Planning & Development Department are required to maintain continuous consultation with each applicable citizens’ district council on all aspects of the planning process for each proposed development project prior to its approval, and to incorporate all citizens’ district council recommendations to the maximum extent feasible. Likewise, Michigan state law further empowers each citizens district council with the ability to delay the implementation of any proposed project that it votes to disapprove, and to additionally call upon any city department for information it seeks to obtain on behalf of its district residents….
Each of Detroit’s citizens’ district councils is composed of twenty-four members, with six members annually elected to three year terms and the remaining six members appointed by Detroit’s mayor. The Downtown Citizens District Council represents all residents living within Detroit’s central business district, bounded by the Fisher Freeway (I-75) to the north, the Chrysler Freeway (I-375) to the East, the Detroit River to the south, and the Lodge Freeway (M-10) to the west (except for the portion of the area lying south of Michigan Ave., which additionally extends a few blocks west of the Lodge.) [district map].
Detroit’s Chrysler Elementary School Church, located at 1445 E. Lafayette St. [map], will serve as the sole polling location for Detroit’s downtown district during the city’s upcoming Citizens District Council election on Tuesday April 5th, and polls will be open from 7:00AM-8:00PM on that date for all eligible voters who have not voted by absentee ballot. Although Matt Erard is running as the Socialist Party’s nominated candidate in the April 5th Citizens’ District Council election, neither he, nor any other candidates in the race, will have a party affiliation listed with their names on the election ballot itself.
The official website for Matt Erard’s 2011 Downtown Detroit Citizens’ District Council campaign can be found at: http://erard2011.spmichigan.org