Detroit City Council is going on recess from July 31 to September, but that doesn’t mean all local government meetings will stop in and around Detroit.

WDET’s newsroom partner Detroit Documenters report on many public government meetings in southeast Michigan. And now, we’re starting a new project with the Documenters.

Each Friday, we’ll be joined by members of the team to discuss not only what’s happening at government meetings, but also how you can be civically engaged with Detroit and its suburbs.

Detroit Documenter coordinators Lynelle Herndon and Noah Kincade joined The Metro this week to discuss their work and a recent SMART transit meeting they covered.

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Detroit Documenters are a collective of more than 500 southeast Michigan residents who are trained and paid to take notes on local government meetings. These notes are shared with the public to keep an open record of what happens at these meetings. 

“So anyone in Detroit or the surrounding area can be a Detroit Documenter. Documenters come from maybe up to 45 minutes to an hour outside of the city,” Herndon said. “Just live, love, work in the city of Detroit. You need to be 16 years or older and know how to read, write and navigate the internet and then we’ll train you to do the rest.”

Documenters covered the SMART Board of Directors meeting on Thursday. SMART bus operators have been working without a contract since January 2023. 

At the meeting, Kincade spoke with the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1564 President Kevin Colon, the union representing SMART operators. He told Kincade that contract negotiations are in a fact finding stage.    

“To come to an agreement, both sides kind of make their best offers and then a mediator tries to figure out what the best deal is for both sides,” Kincade said.  

It’s unclear when a contract will be reached, and Kincade says SMART operators have little leverage in negotiations as they can’t go on strike as government workers.

“It sounds like they may have come to kind of agreeable terms on their pay, but it’s really, the operators have been stripped from a retirement plan. So if you came in right now as a new driver, you’re not going to have any kind of retirement plan,” Kincade said.

A driver shortage is also having an impact on riders. Kincade spoke with Transit Riders United Engagement Specialist Lukas Lasecki. TRU is an organization working to improve transit in the region. Lasecki was in attendance to represent people who use the transit system. 

“The drivers, they’re working without a contract. And between that and the low pay that they’ve been given, it makes it difficult to attract new drivers. And SMART is short close to 100 drivers which is having major impacts on service reliability,” Lasecki said. “If two drivers call off sick, they start canceling buses. And that’s a daily occurrence in Oakland County. It’s not, it’s not sustainable and it’s leaving us bus riders stranded all the time.”

Want to become a Detroit Documenter? The next training session is on Aug. 1. You can find information on many public meetings at detroit.documenters.org.  

Use the media player above to hear the full interview with Herndon and Kincade.

More headlines from The Metro on July 26, 2024: 

• Today marks the 34th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which aims to end discrimination against people with disabilities. CurbCutOS CEO Mark Pound and Accessibility Support Engineer Al Puzzuoli joined the show to talk about technology’s slow adoption of ADA requirements. 
• Some of Detroit’s neighborhood names have a long history, like Corktown — Detroit’s oldest neighborhood. Others come from nearby landmarks, but changes in the city sometimes cause the original context to no longer make sense. Alex Hill, a local researcher, cartographer and founder of Detroitography.com, joined The Metro to discuss the many neighborhood names of Detroit.
• The Detroit Film Theatre inside of the Detroit Institute of Arts is celebrating its 50th year at the museum. WDET’s Ryan Patrick Hooper caught up with longtime director Eliott Wilhelm to find out what’s screening.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 11 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.