The Democrats are so fumed that Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has abandoned them for an independent run for governor that they are reportedly dropping a cool $3 million to dig up dirt on the Teflon Leprechaun.
The Democratic Governors Association has fired off Freedom of Information requests to the city, asking for documents related to everything from Duggan’s vocabulary to his bedroom habits.
For example:
Did Duggan use the n-word?
Did Duggan swing contracts to his then mistress and now wife?
Did Duggan steer contracts to his contributors as his constituents in the neighborhoods grew gaunt?
Duggan’s dirtiest laundry is actually dirt itself, but the national Democrats seems unaware of it, judging by their raft of requests.
Things got so bad with Hizzoner’s federally funded demolition program that federal agents conducted a full-blown seven-year investigation complete with a grand jury and dozens of subpoenas.
There were allegations of bid-rigging and price-fixing. The city and its agencies were forced to pay millions in fines. Demolition costs nearly quadrupled. A health department study concluded that the city’s children got elevated levels of asbestos and lead poisoning because of the shoddy work.
It got so bad that Duggan and his cronies at the Land Bank Authority had to hire Hillary Clinton’s lawyer at $1,000-an-hour to bring things to a crawl. After eight years of slow-walking, the investigation drowned in a pool of political subterfuge.
But the cremains of that investigation are everywhere, and the DGA should exhume them. As the Detroit Office of the Inspector General wrote: “Contractors were able to fill hundreds of properties with unapproved and unverified back-fill which potentially put the health, safety, and welfare of Detroit residents who live near the backfilled properties at risk.”
Duggan’s Land Bank was supposed to collect documentation verifying the origins and cost of the dirt used to fill the holes. In July 2021—a full seven years into the program—federal agents subpoenaed the receipts for the dirt. The Land Bank responded that it “does not have the requested records,” even though they were required to have those records.
That’s likely why no one went to jail.
Whenever the feds put a test shovel in the ground, however, the test results came up dirty. Lead, arsenic, mercury, even cement from the I-94 rehab project went into the ground, according to the Treasury Department.
The number of poisoned holes could be in the thousands. No one really knows.
Duggan promised to fix things. The media took him at his word. And then a collective amnesia set in.
But the dirty game of dirt is still going on, says whistleblower Robert Howard, a long-time demolition contractor in the city.
“Shit, they was taking that contaminated dirt from the Northland Mall project and dumping it in the city,” Howard says. “It was supposed to go to the landfill, but it got diverted and dumped on the people of Detroit. And everybody got paid.”
Two other contractors, who exchanged their candor for confidentiality, confirm that the Northland scheme two years ago involved thousands of semi-trailers full of contaminated dirt being diverted from the landfills and getting dumped into city lots. They blame Duggan and his incompetent demolition department for lack of oversight and concern.
“I pay truckers to move dirt,” said David Dedvukaj, the developer of the Northland site. “I’m not sure where they might have taken it. They bring me landfill records, and I pay them. If they took it somewhere else, I wouldn’t know where they might have taken it. It’s unfortunate. I don’t like being involved in any of it.”
Howard, the contractor, said he notified both the city and the state, but no bureaucrat seems interested in “environmental racism” being perpetrated by the Detroit Democratic Machine.
One hopes the Democratic Governors Association will do some digging. Because the people of the neighborhoods got done dirty, and Duggan is getting gone.
Charlie LeDuff is a reporter educated in public schools. Follow him on X @Charlieleduff.
