Action,
Advocacy,
Impact
CELEBRATING
C.-7 FOUNDED IN 1843
B'nai B'rith is working for
you: Around the world and
right here at home.
Get Out The Wrecking Ball
Dan Gilbert is planning to tear down every single
abandoned building in Detroit.
TO COMMEMORATE
B'NAI B'RITH'S
170th ANNIVERSARY
Bill McGraw
SIXTEEN PAST PRESIDENTS
OF B'NAI B'RITH
GREAT LAKES REGION
Special to the Jewish News
M
JACK CAMINKER
ARTHUR SCHOTT
HERMAN KASOFF
FLOYD BORNSTEIN
OSCAR TUTTLEMAN
JAMES GREY
PETER PERLMAN
GERALD CORLIN
RALPH WORONOFF
JOHN ROFEL
EDWARD WEBERMAN
MARTIN MELTON
BRUCE GOROSH
STEVEN KAPLAN
STEPHEN ZORN
NANCY BRAUN
WILL BE HONORED AT A
"GUARDIAN OF THE MENOP
LUNCHEON
NOON, SUNDAY,
OCTOBER 13TH 2013, AT
PI BANQUET HALL, SOUTHFIELD
B'nai B'rith International, the Global
Voice of the Jewish Community, fights
for human rights around the world;
Adovates for Israel; Supports seniors
through commitment to healthy aging
and safe housing for seniors of limited
means; Responds when disaster strike.
Interested in learning mon
about our efforts?
Connect with us:
www.bnaibrith.org
www.facebook.com/
bnaibrithinternational
email: greatlakes@bnaibrith.org
248-646-3100
B'NAI B'RITH
INTERNATIONAL
Sponsored by
Pisgah Lodge
embers of President Barack
Obama's cabinet made a whirl-
wind visit to Detroit late in
September, bringing promises of $300
million in federal funds. But top offi-
cials from Washington come here all the
time, and millions of federal dollars have
poured into the city for decades.
Their visit, and all
the complicated news
it generated, tended
to obscure a truly
significant bulletin
of the day: Quicken
Loans founder Dan
Gilbert, the rajah of
Downtown,
is getting
Dan Gilbert
involved in Detroit's
neighborhoods for the first time. He
wants to eliminate blight. All of it.
That's man-bites-dog kind of news.
It's extremely rare for a business per-
son at Gilbert's level in Detroit to take
on such a monumental public challenge,
Is It Doable?
N
o one doubts the sincerity of
Dan Gilbert's efforts toward
making Detroit a world-class
city, but is his promise to abolish all
abandoned buildings in the city pos-
sible from a legal and constitutional
standpoint?
Yes, says attorney Alan Ackerman,
managing partner of Ackerman,
Ackerman & Dynkowski in Bloomfield
Hills. Ackerman has served as
vice-chairman or
chairman of the
American Bar
Association's Real
Property Section
Condemnation Law
Committee for more
than a decade and
throughout his
Alan
career has aggres-
Ackerman
especially one whose success can be both
quantified and observed.
And it's equally unusual for a big-time
Detroit businessperson who is prominent
in reviving Downtown to move into a
high-profile and long-lasting project in
the city's neighborhoods.
It was announced Friday, Sept. 27,
that Gilbert, the 51-year-old billionaire
who has made national headlines for
his work in transforming Downtown, is
one of three people who will serve on a
task force that will try to figure out how
to demolish Detroit's tens of thousands
of abandoned buildings. Roy Roberts,
the former emergency manager for the
Detroit Public Schools, will serve as the
executive — or "land czar" — who will
lead the effort day-to-day and report to
Kevyn Orr, the city's emergency manager.
Gilbert didn't mince words on the
blight task force's goal: "We have to get it
all down," he told reporters.
At the recent Techonomy Conference
at Wayne State University, Gilbert hinted
he was thinking beyond Downtown when
he said: "To get the neighborhoods going,
we've got to take down the 78,000 or so
— we don't even know the exact number
of structures that need to be taken down,
mostly houses. Once we can get that
done, you will have open pieces of land,
and you're going to have, more impor-
tantly, hope and optimism:'
And Gilbert means demolishing every
last abandoned structure. He even dis-
cussed erecting a big count-down board
to keep score.
"Maybe I'm out of my mind, which I
am for various reasons:' he said. "You get
these structures down and, I mean, all of
them, not most of them, all of them:'
The challenge is almost unimaginable.
The 139-square-mile city has an endless
landscape of abandoned houses, com-
mercial buildings, factories, old police
precincts, fire stations, churches, schools
and one very big train station. The blight
stretches from Alter Road on the far
East Side to Five Points on the far West
Side. Despite the best intentions of many
mayors, none has made much of a dent
in ridding Detroit of blight. In fact, it gets
worse all the time.
sively fought for the rights of dis-
placed and undercompensated con-
demnation and eminent domain vic-
tims. He has taught eminent domain
law at the University of Detroit Law
School since 1983, and now serves
as an adjunct professor at Michigan
State University College of Law. In
2009, Chambers USA recognized him
as one of the best eminent domain
attorneys in the country.
"It's doable, and what's more
important, it's constitution-
ally doable," Ackerman says. "The
Constitution allows for immediate
seizure of vandalized and abandoned
properties in the name of public
safety."
Even eyesores like the hulking
abandoned train station, owned
by billionaire bridge owner Manuel
"Matty" Maroun?
"Yes," says Ackerman. "We should
have been doing this for the last 25
years."
According to Ackerman, the city,
state or a task force, such as the
one Gilbert now sits on, if given the
authority by statute, can legally bull-
doze blighted and abandoned build-
ings that pose a safety hazard to city
residents. It's likely that ownership
of those parcels would then pass to
the city.
"This is a great thing Gilbert's
doing," Ackerman says, adding that
Gilbert has been doing the same
thing in Cleveland and getting
results. "I hope he's successful here."
Ackerman says that it is men like
Gilbert who are doing the work that
will have his children coming home
to Michigan after college to work and
raise their families.
"Gilbert is a real impetus. If he's
successful, he will transform the
city," he adds.
❑
— Jackie Headapohl, Managing Editor
1859140
24
:tober 10 • 2013
Round 17.-1
I
Notes Farago:
I I First Read
I Notes RenMedia: