Sam Robinson, senior reporter
srobinson@michronicle.com
Nonprofit CEO and former city council president Saunteel Jenkins stole the show at the end of Monday night’s Detroit mayoral debate hosted by WDIV-Local 4 and AARP of Michigan.
Candidates answered questions from WDIV’s Jason Colthorp related to affordable housing, policing and economic development, specifically within Detroit’s inner-city neighborhoods.
Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield, Triumph Church pastor Rev. Solomon Kinloch, Jr., former Detroit Police Chief James Craig were selected by organizers based off the most recent WDIV-Detroit News poll conducted by Lansing-based Glengariff Group.
The debate, held inside the auditorium at Wayne State’s Gretchen C. Valade Jazz Center, included four of nine candidates who polled above 10%, including those within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4%. Councilman Fred Durhal III, businessmen Jonathan Barlow and Joel Haashiim, plus candidate Danetta Simpson didn’t make the cut.
The primary election on Aug. 5 will narrow the field to two candidates. The general election on Nov. 6 will elect the city’s 76th mayor.
Though Durhal was absent, Craig at one point during the debate repeated a line previously deployed by the District 7 council member to criticize Kinloch: “Detroit doesn’t need a mayor who needs on the job training.”
“Imitation is the highest form of flattery,” Durhal said in a message to Michigan Chronicle during the debate.
Here’s what else you missed from Detroit’s first televised mayoral debate of the 2025 election cycle:
Jenkins, Kinloch agree on affordable housing “failure”
Sheffield pointed to the cost of construction when asked by Michigan Chronicle Executive Editor Jeremy what can be done to increase the city’s affordable housing stock without a new windfall of federal dollars.
“We have to address the fact that the cost of construction of doing affordable housing in Detroit is extremely high, so a lot of times we have to provide abatements to allow for the members to match out,” Sheffield said.
The city council president highlighted the city’s progress, saying there’s more work to be done. Sheffield highlighted the $1 billion in creating and preserving affordable housing and $40 million in home repair grants for seniors.
“When we start talking about ‘we built a billion dollar in housing’ and the median income in this city is less than $40,000 a year, you cannot say you’re building affordable housing when the average person in this city is not making $800 a week,” Kinloch said.
Jenkins said she agreed with Kinloch.
Kinloch would distance himself from Jenkins during his closing remarks in response to Jenkins’ line criticizing the rest of the field: “If you want a future that includes more guns in schools, locking up our kids, Craig if you guy. If you want a part-time mayor who will be working two full-time jobs, Kinloch is ready. If you want a mayor who shows up on Instagram, but doesn’t show up for meetings, then follow Mary.”
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Kinloch said that the way to build yourself up, isn’t by tearing others down.”
Craig struggles to finish his thoughts
Throughout the debate, James Craig’s answers to several questions were cut short by the time limit.
“I would’ve liked more time but I have a tendency to be a little long in the tooth,” Craig told Michigan Chronicle after the debate. “It’s hard in a minute and a half to articulate what I talk about.”
Craig said he wasn’t able to finish his idea on deploying a tool he used when he was police chief, CompStat, to the entire city.
“I’m going to do ‘CityStats,’ people say, city stats, what’s that? It’s an accountability tool to measure activity in real time — we got to know what’s going on,” he said.
During the debate, Craig addressed what he called “the elephant in the room” that he is a Republican. He reminded the audience the office of mayor is nonpartisan, and vowed to serve every resident regardless of political affiliation if elected.
After the debate, Craig told Michigan Chronicle he’s had positive conversations with some of the 19,667 city residents who voted for President Donald Trump in 2024, who also plan to vote for him.
“It has nothing to do with R or D — look, a lot of African Americans in Detroit grew up in the church,” Craig said. “They’re conservative. So what I am today is no different than what I was when I started in 1977 with Detroit. I’ve not changed, I just changed parties.”
Sheffield pitches new revenues to reduce taxes
Structural property tax reform would be at the forefront of a Sheffield administration, she said Monday.
“We have to address the real issue, which is we have extremely high property taxes in Detroit, which is a barrier to both business and revenue,” Sheffield said.
Jenkins also floated a new penny tax that she says would generate over $100 million, allowing for the city to dramatically reduce property taxes.
Kinloch offers different perspective on policing
Jenkins took aim at the perception surrounding Craig’s “tough-on-crime” approach, (Craig has said he would boost neighborhood policing) saying over policing won’t make the city safer.
Kinloch said providing more job opportunities would reduce crime. He pointed to costly settlements while questioning whether policing strategies pitched by other candidates are actually working.
“When we just look at the fact that in the last three years, city council approved more than $63 million in DPD settlements. At some point, we got to ask ourselves, how many more officers would we put on the street, how much more equipment, how many more mental health professionals could we equip our department with? And how many more officers would have loved to have that paid in their salary.”
