Detroit Ombudsmen: 'Watchdogs for Citizens, Business Owners and Visitors'

A month before Mayor Dave Bing took office last spring, Detroit Ombudsman Durene L. Brown submitted her 2009 report on citizens' complaints and troubles throughout the year with a title of "ABANDONED!" in block red letters. The cover of the report emphasized Detroiters' concerns with images of three vacant structures open to entry, a garage filled with garbage and a vacant lot where scofflaws had dumped more than 100 old tires.

Detroit's ombudsman's office seeks change as an advocate for individual citizens who have troubles that range from neighborhood blight to clogged sewer basins to streetlights not working. Dead trees, missed trash pickup and tax disputes are among other examples.

"We are watchdogs for citizens, business owners and visitors," explains Anna Ferrante, an assistant ombudsman. "When citizens report to us, we document what we hear and if a department needs to take action, we tell them what they need to do."

Ombudsman Brown was unanimously appointed to the position by the Detroit City Council in 2005. Ombudsmen serve for 10 years and cannot be removed from office before their terms expire unless they commit a crime.

Charles Pugh, Detroit's first-year City Council president, says he supports Brown in her push to change the city for the better. "(Brown) has one of the hardest jobs in Detroit," says Pugh. "Even in the event when a constituent's problem can't be solved, it is never due to a lack of effort from the ombudsman's office."

Going Beyond Complaints

The city's ombudsmen operation goes beyond citizens' individual complaints. Brown assembles statistics in various complaint categories and sends policy recommendations to the city council.

Brown's 2009 report states:

"Over the past 20 years, the city has abandoned certain neighborhoods that have been left without core services:

"No Public Lighting

"No Police Response, or Emergency Medical Services (without Detroit Police Department escort)

"No code enforcement, including uncollected illegal dumping and piles of trash

"Sparsely populated landscapes of open, burned, and dangerous buildings

"Slumping property values and loss of property tax revenue

"Children, families and senior citizens are trapped."

Brown recommends that city leaders allocate more federal funds to fight blight. At the same time, she says the Building & Safety Engineering Department's Demolition Division is overdue for oversight, because an "internal control review" has not taken place since 1994. She also proposes eliminating the Department of Administrative Hearings and the 311 phone line for non-emergency police calls, describing both as "costly inefficiencies."

Pugh responded to Brown's report, saying, "All you have to do is ride through Detroit and see that there are neighborhoods that have been neglected. However, this is a new day, with new leaders concerned about every citizen in every community. My office is committed to helping those neglected communities organize. Everyone needs to be empowered to solve the problems of their neighborhoods. It will take time, but we will improve."

Ed Cardenas, spokesman for Mayor Bing, addressed the ombudsman's concerns with a statement: "We have established a good working relationship with the ombudsman's office and will continue to develop it further."

Brown's next report to elected officials and the community will take place in April.

Working with City Government

Citizen action to create public sector ombudsman offices took root during the middle 1960s amid "exposure of government secrecy and scandal, and movements such as civil rights and good government," according the United States Ombudsmen Association's Web site. Detroit was among the first of the nation's communities to establish an official budgeted ombudsman's office through a 1973 public vote for a city charter amendment.

Since its beginning, the Detroit ombudsman's office has been working with the community and city government to enact positive change. Often by the time citizens contact Brown and her associates about problems in the city, they have exhausted other avenues.

Assistant ombudsmen Ferrante and Gail E. Barnard, who also serves as a community outreach specialist, say they aim to advocate for citizens, but also to avoid conflict with city officials unless necessary. In fact, they urge citizens to take concerns directly to municipal employees and department heads, and to consult the ombudsman office only when a response is lacking.

"We like to be the problem-solvers," Ferrante says. "We realize that citizens are frustrated by the time they get to our office. Each of our staff members is very compassionate."

Still, staffers say they can't promise instant results for concerns such as a abandoned firetrap next-door, because Detroit's budget often is short on funds.

"One of our mottos is that you might not like the answers that we give, but we are always going to give you an answer," Barnard explains. "A lot of times, people thank us just for answering the phone. We have good customer service. I think we have it all."

Ferrante tells a story: "A woman called and said, 'I love you. I've been trying to call public lighting for more than a year, and you got my street light turned on.' This was within two weeks after she contacted our office."

Though citizens are able to achieve results through the ombudsmen, it seems that personnel at some Detroit city departments still don't answer their phones. The ombudsmen say they have the most trouble getting through to the city's public lighting operation, while the finance (tax collection) office has shown the highest level of recent improvement. Overall, Ferrante and Barnard give City Hall an overall "B" grade for public responsiveness.

Barnard explains, "It's not always easy, but if necessary, we will march down to see a department head. One thing about it is we will not give up."

Ombudsmen Reach Out

In the same way that Brown issues no-holds-barred reports to the City Council each year, Barnard says outreach work shows that ombudsman team members don't just sit back and wait for complaint calls.

"Every year, we go to eight or nine different neighborhood communities to meet the people," Barnard says. "We bring the water department. We conduct health fairs for issues such as breast and cervical cancer. We have law enforcement present. Firefighters provide smoke detectors and batteries. Recently, U.S. Census 2010 workers have attended to promote a full count.

"Once we did this at a library, and there was an abandoned building right across the street. Prostitutes were doing their business and guys were dealing drugs. The library staff had been trying to get that building torn down for years. We got the city to tear it down."

Even with that, says Barnard, an ombudsman's job never is finished. A state law had provided stiffer penalties for drug dealing near schools, but libraries were not included. Through the efforts of Barnard and the ombudsman's office, state legislators passed an amendment to add libraries to the law.

Another initiative through ombudsman outreach persuaded 30 Detroit churches to take turns housing the chronically homeless, and yet another aims to help ex-felons find employment.

"This reflects Durene Brown's slogan: 'Getting problems out of the way, so that progress can occur,'" Barnard says. "That is underneath everything we do, and everywhere we go."