(WXYZ) - It’s not a pretty picture in Detroit: unemployment highest in the nation, basic city services that just don’t work, and a budget deficit so high Detroit municipal bonds are now rated as junk. So how could any city leader be unaware and unconcerned about wasting taxpayer money? Chief investigative reporter Steve Wilson has details.
WATCH STEVE WILSON'S INVESTIGATIVE REPORT IN THE VIDEO PLAYER ON THE RIGHTIt’s no secret Detroit’s city council is often dysfunctional and sometimes seems out of touch with reality. That’s why, even after colleagues have reportedly and repeatedly told Councilwoman Martha Reeves what she’s doing is improper, why is she still doing it? Do you suppose the woman who made her name in music seems too tone deaf to grasp the point of a simple question?
Wilson: With the city in the shape that it’s in, how is it that you have not just a car but a city paid driver?
Martha Reeves/Detroit Councilwoman: I beg your pardon?
That’s right, like the other members of the council, Martha Reeves is provided with a city-owned sedan and gas, insurance and maintenance all paid by taxpayers—and no real restriction on how she can use it.
And like council president Monica Conyers, Reeves has a city-paid driver, too.
Conyers, by the way, was spotted using her chauffeured city car and driver the other day to have her son taken to his private school in the suburbs. So, one more time:
Wilson: With the city in the shape that it’s in, why do you have a city car and a city-paid driver?
Reeves: Oh, no, he’s an administrative assistant. We live in the same area.
Wilson: Well actually he lives far away from you.
Reeves: No he doesn’t.
She lives only several blocks from city hall, but he? He lives miles away out past City Airport, so the arrangement can’t be merely for his convenience.
Reeves: Okay. He recently moved there, too.
Since she took office four years ago, her friend and “assistant” Ulysses Council has been her driver and, we’re told, done virtually no other work in her office.
Reeves: I’m a professional entertainer, Mr. Wilson.
Wilson: And I love your music.
Reeves: Thank you very much.
Wilson: But the question is, we heard he drives you down to the casinos.
Reeves: Who told you that?
Someone who told us exactly where we could find her several nights a week, and sure enough, there she is, walking into the Greektown Casino the other evening with her administrative assistant who drove her there. That’s her city car parked in a handicapped spot in the V-I-P lot where you have to gamble more than a grand a month to get access to the prime parking.
That’s her sitting at the slots pumping in coins while the assistant plays at a discreet distance. Time and again we’ve watched. For more than two hours one night she sat, she played, she walked to the ATM and back for more.
So the issue, of course, when he’s driven her to work in the morning and is still squiring her around at night, how much is that costing a city that cannot afford it?
Reeves: He’s not a city worker. He’s paid by me.
Wilson: You pay him every week?
Reeves: I pay him, ah, as weekly as I can. He’s a personal friend of mine. He’s also a city employee here at the City of Detroit. Is there a problem with that?
Wilson: Well, ma’am, I don’t know. Are you willing to show me his payroll records?
Reeves: I don’t have to show you anything!
Wilson: It’s a matter of…
Reeves: I don’t have to show you anything!
Wilson: Ms. Reeves you’re accountable for city money.
Reeves: I’m accountable for my life. This is my life!
Well, we won’t know for sure how much, if any, overtime this “special assistant” work is costing us until we see the payroll records which we’re now going after with a Freedom of Information request. Meanwhile, there’s more: there’s the tax bill she could be paying with the money she gambles. And tonight on Action News at 11 we’ll have more hidden camera scenes of just where she’s been driven lately, and all the different reasons she says there’s nothing wrong with this picture.
If you have a tip for the Action News Investigative Team, e-mail us at Wilson@wxyz.com or call us directly at (248) 827-9466.
