Watch live at 12:30 p.m. as 7 Action News Anchor Stephen Clark hosts a webcast from the Mackinac Policy Conference.

The webcast will be focused on education and will include live guest appearances from:

• Roy Roberts – Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager
• Dr. John Covington – First Chancellor for the Education Achievement Authority of Michigan
• Michael Khoury – President of Detroit Cristo Rey
• Jennette Smith, Managing Editor, Crain’s Detroit Business

Click here to go to wxyz.com for the live webcast from Mackinac Island.

Roberts and Dr. Covington will talk about the just-announced agreement on the future of education in Detroit.

Starting this fall, it is anticipated that all Detroit schools will be expected to reach minimum achievement or growth standards consistent with a common definition of college readiness and grade level proficiency.

Monday some 1,500 southeast Michigan business and political leaders arrived under sunny skies on the island.

Innovation, collaboration and expanding Michigan’s global reach are the three simple ideas framing this year’s conference.

The man who brought the wildly successful ArtPrize to Grand Rapids has a new initiative.

Start Garden is a new venture capital fund announced by Rick DeVos, that will invest $5,000 in two ideas each week, then continue to invest as they gain momentum.

The fund is backed by a $15 million commitment from the DeVos family.

“We’ll make investments up to $500,000 each–investing in over a hundred ideas every year, DeVos told Stephen Clark at the Mackinac Conference.

Last year, ArtPrize awarded more than $400,000 in prizes for artists–most of it selected by the public.

ArtPrize served as an inspiration for Start Garden.

“It’s taken off like wildfire…it really surprised us,” DeVos said.

You don’t have to be in Grand Rapids if you want to compete in Start Garden.

 Click here to go to the Start Garden website.

From the Detroit Regional Chamber:

The Detroit Regional Chamber is urging Michigan residents not to sign a petition to put a constitutionally mandated 25 percent renewable energy standard on the ballot.

The proposal would require Michigan energy providers to produce 25 percent of their electricity from sources such as wind and solar.

“Michigan is already on an intelligent and affordable clean energy path because of the 2008 energy law, which passed the Legislature with overwhelming bipartisan support,” said Chamber President and CEO Sandy Baruah. “We strongly urge all Michigan families and businesses to oppose this mandate to ensure Michigan can continue to provide its residents and businesses with reliable and affordable electric service.”

Public Act 295, which the Detroit Regional Chamber supported, included a goal for Michigan to generate 10 percent of its electricity from renewable sources such as wind, solar, hydro and biomass by 2015.

Click here to go to the Detroit Regional Chamber’s Mackinac Policy Conference website.

Detroit 2020′s Person of the Week is one of the main organizers of Detroit Night Walks.

Bishop Edgar Vann of the Second Ebenezer Church in Detroit and leaders of more than 30 churches are behind the initiative.

They are dedicated to ending the violence in the city, and hope to set a new tone.

It is a call to action for Detroiters to take part in Night Walks through neighborhoods.

Click here for more information on Detroit Night Walks.

If you’d like to nominate a Detroit 2020 Person of the Week, you can do that in the comment section below!

More than 30 clergy members are teaming up with law enforcement with a call for a cease fire in Detroit. It’s called Detroit Night Walks.

After months of ongoing violent crime, the clergy members are calling for calm and asking for others to join them in upcoming trainings for Detroit Night Walks.

The clergy team, led by Bishop Edgar Vann of Second Ebenezer Church and Pastor James Warfield of Mt. Vernon Missionary Baptist Church, have already committed to Detroit Night Walks in targeted areas of the city.

“We have churches in all corners of Detroit, but we want to fill in as many neighborhoods as possible with a peaceful, but powerful presence,” Pastor Warfield said.

Detroit has 468 crimes per square mile. The national average is 39 crimes per square mile.

Both clergy and lay people are invited to two trainings on Friday, May 25th and Friday, June 15th. In addition, prayer rallies to end the violence are planned at five churches on Saturday, May 26th.

Friday, May 25th

Phase 1 of Detroit Night Walks Training

6-7:30 p.m.

Second Ebenezer Church

14601 Dequindre

 

First Night Walk:

Friday, May 25th

7:30 p.m.

Solomon’s Temple

2341 E. 7 Mile

 

Saturday, May 26th:  Youth Prayer Rally at five Detroit Churches at 2pm, with prayer at exactly 3:13 p.m.

-Eastern Region: Second Ebenezer Baptist Church

-Northwest Region: Lighthouse Community Church, 15820 Wyoming, Detroit

-West Region: Third New Hope (West Campus), 5439 West Warren Ave., Detroit

-Midtown Region: Citadel of Faith Covenant Church, 1419 West Warren Ave., Detroit

-Southwest Region: Grace In Action, 7725 West Vernor, Detroit

From Sherri Welch at Crain’s Detroit Business:

Attendees of the Detroit Regional Chamber’s Mackinac Policy Conference next week will see a familiar site: artwork from the Detroit Institute of Arts on display around Mackinac Island.

The DIA has taken its Inside/Out program to the island, with support from the Miami-based John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Visitors to Mackinac Island will see some of the DIA’s most popular masterpieces.

Click here to read the entire story on Crain’s Detroit Business.

Detroit is welcoming auto racing back to the Motor City.

The Belle Isle Detroit Grand Prix is just around the corner, and 7 is your station for all of the excitement!

Race weekend on Belle Isle is June 1st through 3rd.

Get information on going to the race and watch our shows leading up to the checkered flag–

Click here for complete coverage of the 2012 Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix on wxyz.com.

Danto has dozens of pictures of homes that are abandoned, burned out and dangerous.  He drove past them every day as he came to work, “In 2011 business was great, we thought it was so disturbing just driving into the community that we thought we’re going to start boarding up these houses.”

Danto took Detroit 2020′s Stephen Clark on a walking tour of the area where the project began — just a couple of blocks from his store.  He showed Stephen the first house he boarded up and told him, “We had been fed up for years.  We looked at this house and said this is next to our property and we have to do something so we boarded up this house.”  And then another house on the same block.  And then another.

Danto tried several times to buy a four unit apartment building.  But the city wasn’t able to find the owner.  So, instead he boarded it up.  He says, “We closed it up several times, it has been burned three times.  Most of the building is gone.  It’s severely damaged.”

Now keep in mind, Danto doesn’t own these properties so he’s risking trouble with authorities by boarding these structures.  But he says he will continue to use his money to buy materials and use his work crews when they have a little down time.

So far he has boarded up more than 60 houses.  Among the first were houses near neighborhood schools.  “It just bothered us that you could just walk out of a school and right there would be an empty hulk of a building waiting for a school kid to be grabbed or who know what to happen.”

One abandoned house sat right next to a new playground at Harms Elementary School.  There were occasional squatters inside.  Principal Karen White was afraid, “Some of the kids after school would play on the playground , get a little bored and come to this open, abandoned house and play in the building.”

So Danto took matters into his own hands.  He had the house boarded up and proudly added a sign with his company name.

According to Principal White, “While he was there he looked across the street, saw three more houses and also boarded up those houses.  I feel secure that the children are now safe and happy.  That I don’t have to worry any longer about something happening to them.”

As more signs began to appear in the neighborhood, more neighbors began to call pleading with Danto to come to their block because they were afraid of arson.  Danto says, “We have literally a half dozen situations like that where we went out that day to board up the house because the people were so afraid.”

When you factor in materials, labor and the cost of things like running a generator, Danto says it takes about $500 to board up each building.

As much as people want this, we had to ask Danto about the fact that what he’s doing is technically illegal.  His answer: “Clearly we’re trespassing, vandalizing people’s property and putting these boards up.  On the other hand, we’re also preventing future crime and minimizing some of the safety issues.”

We contacted the Detroit Police Department and the city Code Enforcement office to get their reaction to what Danto is doing.  We never heard back.

Click here to read more about Danto Furniture.

As we continue our look at efforts to control blight across the area, a non-profit group is taking the lead in northwest Detroit.

The Grandmont Rosedale Development Corporation buys homes out of foreclosure, then renovates and sells the homes.

Sean Kvoriak is a toddler on the go. He’s growing up in Detroit’s North Rosedale Park—a neighborhood his parents fell in love with when searching for a home.

“It just felt right, it felt like a good place to call home,”  Joe Kvoriak told Detroit 2020.

Joe and Keara purchased their house from the Grandmont Rosedale Development Corporation.

The non-profit organization completely renovated the 2-story home after buying it out of foreclosure.

“We fell in love with the house as soon as we saw it. It’s gorgeous, everything had been re-done,” Joe said.

Tom Goddeeris is the Executive Director of the GRDC.

“Even though we can’t address every vacant house in the neighborhood, by the doing the numbers that we’re doing right now, we can impact the market,” said Goddeeris.

Over the past 18 months, the GRDC has sold 16 houses with four more sales pending.

A Detroit firefighter is buying this brick home on Rosemont. It has a fireplace, hard wood floors throughout, three bedrooms and a brand new kitchen. And it’s on a tree-lined street– free of blight.

This striking castle-like home is the non-profit’s most recent purchase.

It needs plenty of work on the inside but when complete–the 4 bedroom, 24-hundred square foot home is going to be a great buy for someone.

“A house like this might have sold. I think, easily for $300,000 at that time. Now, when it’s fully renovated, in today’s market, it probably won’t even be half that price,” Godderris said.

Which means someone is going to get great value with their purchase.

Hubert Sawyer III grew up in the neighborhood.

He’s married now—and has come back—this time as a homeowner—thanks to $10,000 in down-payment assistance from the GRDC.

“I said ‘let’s look into this.’ We went on the website and saw a house and literally within a day we were looking at the house on Sunday and getting in the process of actually moving on it,” Sawyer said.

Hubert and his wife have only been moved in for a few months but it already feels like home.

“I know this neighborhood. I know how active the neighbors are, just even on both sides of us, they’re great. And we’re really happy to know we have neighbors who have our back.” And really care,” Sawyer said.

Some 5,300 homes make up of the neighborhoods of North Rosedale Park, Rosedale Park, Minock Park, Grandmont, and Grandmont #1. They’re located in northwest Detroit–in the area of the Southfield Freeway and Grand River.

Housing isn’t the only thing the Development Corporation does on behalf of the community but it became a major focus due to the foreclosure crisis.  Residents say it’s making a difference—preserving what makes these neighborhoods—desirable.

“I was very pleased to see how GRDC had evolved, being more integrated and taking a pro-active role on helping, ya know, keep the neighborhood where it needs to be,” Sawyer said.

Tom Goddeeris is one of those residents—and for over 20 years now.

“I think this is a community that can survive, that will survive and continue to be a great place to live for next several generations,” said Goddeeris.

Sean Kvoriak has a lot of growing still ahead of him.

“While we loved our time spent downtown, childless, this is definitely a really great place to settle with a family,” said Keara Kvoriak.

 Click here to go to the Grandmont Rosedale Development Corporation website.

State Senator Smith calls blight one of the major hurdles which creates an obstacle to living and investing in Detroit.

On his website, Smith says “I’m sick and tired of the blight in my city, and after researching the problem I realized that we need to give Detroit and other cities throughout Michigan the ability to go after bad actors.”

The bills are SB 1096 – 1100 and will:

• Clarify that failure to comply with a Department of Administrative Hearing judgement can be classified as a misdemeanor and prosecuted at district court.
• Save cities money by streamlining the lien process to ensure payment of judgements against blight violators.
• Attempt to streamline the garnishment procedure on owners who do not pay the fines following their appeal.
• Prohibit citries from issuing zoning approval to anyone with a blight violation and
• Prohibit cities from issuing building permits to anyone with a blight violation.

The bills call for possible jail time for property owners fail to comply with a second blight citation.  A third time offender could be jailed for  up to a years.  The legislation also would expedite the process of placing liens on blighted property and prohibit those with outstanding blight violations from obtaining building and zoning permits on other property.

The bills will go to the Michigan Senate Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Senator Rick Jones.  The bills have bipartisan support, with Senators Smith, Rick Jones (R-Grand Ledge) Tonya Schuitmaker (R-Lawton), Tupac Hunter (D-Detroit), and Bert Johnson (D-Highland Park) each sponsoring a bill.