Detroit Mayor Young Won’t Seek a 6th Term

Coleman A. Young, the feisty, salty-tongued mayor of this downtrodden city for 20 years, said Tuesday that he would not seek a sixth term, thus making way for a new generation of leadership.

Young, 75, cited his poor health as a factor in his decision. He suffers from emphysema, and has limited public appearances much of the past year as his vigor has been sapped.

“I have not been able to put out the effort in the last year in the manner that I have been able to in the previous 19 years,” Young said at a press conference.

Young, the city’s first black mayor, is credited with reforming the city’s hard-fisted police department, once viewed as an occupation force by the black majority. Today, the police force is more than 50% black.

“We changed the face of Detroit,” he said.

Young also steered the city away from the brink of bankruptcy in 1981 and rebuilt Detroit’s waterfront with parks, a 70-story hotel and office tower and an expanded convention center.

But it was not enough to turn around Detroit’s flagging fortune. White flight to the suburbs, high unemployment, rampant drug use and widespread crime left the city with the image of an economic disaster area.

“Our unemployment rate is too high,” Young acknowledged. “Our crime rate is too high. Our city budget has been cut to the bone.”

Young often was at odds with the press. He also was investigated several times by federal authorities, but never charged with wrongdoing. But several associates were charged, including former Police Chief William Hart, who was convicted of embezzlement.

Young will likely endorse a candidate for the Sept. 14 non-partisan primary. The top two winners then meet in the general election Nov. 2. Twenty-five candidates filed petitions to run, including U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), Wayne Country Administrator Arthur Blackwell, former State Supreme Justice Dennis Archer, Assistant U.S. Prosecutor Sharon McPhael, and Paul Hubbard, former head of the civic organization New Detroit.