DETROIT (WXYZ) — Detroit business owners, residents and community leaders gathered for a roundtable discussion reacting to Mayor Mike Duggan's final State of the City address at The Congregation coffee shop on the city's west side Tuesday.
7 News Detroit hosted the community conversation with people of diverse backgrounds.
We asked the leaders what they were hoping the mayor would touch on in his final address and then watched his speech together.
Imani Foster is a member of 482 Forward and fights for education justice across the city. She was hoping the mayor would discuss the issues students face inside schools including low literacy levels and higher education opportunities.
Watch coverage of Mike Duggan's speech below:
"I think every child at base level needs to be able to read and comprehend," she said before the mayor took the stage.
Spencer Ellis is the lead pastor at Citadel of Praise in the Brightmoor neighborhood. He says he's seen improvement in the neighborhood he lives and works in and hopes to see that progress continue.
“I’ve been in that area for almost 20 years and when we first got there, it was abandoned property after abandoned home after abandoned property," Ellis said.
Watch Mike Duggan's full speech below:
Imhotep Blue is the vice president Detroit 300, a grassroots organization that helps communities by policing targeted neighborhoods, providing support to those who have experienced violent and nonviolent crime. He says mitigating crime and focusing on the city's youth is top of the priority list to him.
"You have to understand the different dynamics of the different people that come from different areas," he said.
Delly is the sister of Rayshawn Bryant, who was an innocent bystander shot and killed at a Detroit Lions tailgate at Eastern Market last September. For her, community safety is most important and she hopes what happened to her brother doesn't happen to anyone else.
“I want to feel comfortable in large environments like concerts and festivals within the city and know there’s not a potential that I'll have to run or hide or that someone I love is gonna be taken away," Delly said.
Motor City Match recipient and owner of the clothing store Coup D’etat, Angela Wisniewski-Cobbina, says she's proud of the progress the city has made in the downtown area but hopes some of those successes can be transferred to surrounding neighborhoods.
“We need to spread some of that love right into the other pockets who aren’t seeing as much," she said.
The members of our roundtable listened intently to the mayor's address, taking notes and comparing what he said to what they're seeing in their own backyards.
In the end, they say they feel hopeful for the city and its future.
"It is an exciting time in the city of Detroit. What I was especially impressed with was the crime rate," Ellis said.
However, others were hoping to hear less about development strictly in the downtown area and more about the neighborhoods.
“I think that I did have a little bit of tension and frustration with how much of the focus was on so much of the development happening downtown and leaving the neighborhoods last in his speech," Foster said. "A nice, pretty city... People stay because they can be rooted in a place."
These residents and community leaders say they hope the next mayor can continue pushing the city along and make their city a place everyone can continue to be proud of.
"We want to stay in Detroit, we want to continue to live in Detroit, we just want to see the next mayor that comes after Mayor Duggan take the baton and run with it," Ellis said.
