Last month, hundreds of Oakland County residents packed a Pontiac meeting room. They came to speak against a proposal that would put surveillance drones, built by a company called Flock Safety, into the hands of the county sheriff.
He joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to discuss the recall effort, his business connections that have prompted ethical concerns, and whether he should have handled that April meeting differently.
Editor’s note: During this conversation, Woodward said some people involved in the recall campaign are advocating for political violence. The Metro reviewed the social media posts Woodward referred to. In one, a person supporting the recall effort praised Luigi Mangione — the man charged with killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December of 2024 — calling him “the closest thing to a superhero we have.” A leader of the recall campaign says that supporter is no way affiliated with the campaign.
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Highland Park is a small city that once had a relatively large population for its size. At the height of Detroit’s automotive boom, more than 50,000 people lived within Highland Park’s 2.9 square miles. Today, the population is less than 9,000.
WDET’s Crossing the Lines series features conversations with and stories about Highland Park’s people, culture, and history.
Detroit Public Radio’s Citizen Vox project gives residents a chance to express how they feel about their communities and the issues that matter to them.
WDET’s Pat Batcheller spoke with Highland Park resident Ken Bates at a coffee shop on Woodward Ave. on April 10, 2026.
Listen: Highland Park resident says smart planning can reduce poverty
Bates was born in Detroit but moved to Highland Park with his wife more than 25 years ago. They bought a Craftsman-style bungalow in a historic district of the city. Voters elected Bates to the city council in 2018, where he served until 2022. He chairs the board of an energy nonprofit called Soulardarity. Its mission includes installing solar-powered streetlights in Highland Park’s neighborhoods.
Bates shares his thoughts on housing, poverty, community pride, and development.
Ken Bates: We know that there’s a housing crisis, a housing shortage nationally, affordable housing. Highland Park has an abundance of land that is underutilized, that really could be put forth in terms of development. So, we could look at land trusts. We could look at affordable housing, low-income housing, market rate housing, duplexes to grow the population because that’s what we have in abundance.
Manufacturing? I doubt that will ever come back to the extent that Henry Ford and Chrysler and some of the other manufacturers had here. That’s a bygone era.
And so, we have to look into the future as to what will help Highland Park become sustainable. What kind of industries should we count on?
You have to get education on board. You have to get private development. You have to get your government funding all in order, and you have to have a plan and a vision and the expertise in order to do it.
If not, you’re just maintaining the status quo. And year after year, you’re just one disaster away from some financial calamity, whether it be a natural disaster or something like the Great Lakes Water Authority suing us for $19 million and threatening to put it on our tax rolls.
Pat Batcheller: What do you like about being in Highland Park?
KB: Highland Park is centrally located. It’s convenient. There’s a sense of—like with my block, I never expected it to be so diverse. And yet you’ve got immigrants, you’ve got people of different faiths. You’ve got people who are ascribed to different lifestyles. I mean, it just it goes on and on, different political beliefs, and we all live together in the same community, and we’re able to communicate and talk and look out after each other.”
PB: From the conversations I’ve had with you and some of the other folks I’ve talked to, it isn’t really the borders that define Highland Park, it’s the people. Would you agree with that?
KB: Well, yeah, I would say the people do define Highland Park because, because again, they’ve been here. Most have been here quite a long time. And even if you travel outside of Highland Park and talk to people that formerly lived here, many people will tell you, ‘Yeah, my grandparents lived here.’ They remember it as a great city. They’ve had fond memories.
The historical district is obviously something that has gained attention. People are looking at those homes and, if they have the means to renovate them, are coming in and deciding, “well, let’s renovate this home.” Because you can’t rebuild those anywhere for anything that I would consider reasonable.
Highland Park has just had its own identity for a long, long time. And so, I can’t see that changing because it would be so difficult to incorporate us into the Detroit culture. We’re not Detroit. We’re not Hamtramck. We’re Highland Park.
PB: What’s the most pressing issue facing Highland Park right now?
KB: It’s poverty. You’ve got to figure out how to raise people’s incomes up, so to speak, their standard of living. So, whether it be through employment, homeownership, because poverty impacts everything around us. For example, ALDI is usually out of shopping carts because people abscond with them. If you’re running a business, that’s not helpful. We were fortunate in that Foot Locker moved into the old CVS building because CVS, Rite-Aid, and another drugstore left.
Convincing businesses to come here is a real challenge because the landscape has changed. Brick and mortar stores aren’t necessarily how people are going about retail experiences. You would think that we would have a thrift shop or something of that nature in a community like that. We don’t.
So, trying to look at trends that will allow people to be gainfully employed, increase home ownership, educate their children are things that should be made priority.
The appearance of the city has to change because we have a lot of blight. We had a press conference celebrating the announcement of Highland Towers on Woodward being torn down. We’ve got to have news that is uplifting, that is showing progress now. Yes, the building should be torn down because it’s caught on fire sixteen years ago. But we need to be announcing opportunities for growth projects that will bring about change.
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Other people have also been killed by ICE agents, including Silverio Villegos González near Chicago and Keith Porter Jr. in California. Those deaths, though, did not trigger the same national response.
In Detroit, City Council Member Gabriela Santiago-Romero is pushing the city to act. She represents Southwest Detroit and chairs the City Council’s Public Health and Safety Committee. She’s asking whether Detroit can legally restrict ICE activity on city property and in sensitive areas, such as schools and hospitals.
Santiago-Romero joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to discuss how cities can respond when federal immigration enforcement becomes more aggressive, and how local governments weigh responsibility, risk, and trust.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.
WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
In Michigan, hundreds of millions of dollars that people are counting on remain frozen.
Last year’s state budget included roughly $645 million in “work-project” funding for things like local roads, public safety, and community services. But in December, House Republicans voted to block it. With that money still on hold, projects aren’t moving.
House Republicans are considering a court challenge.
Meanwhile, lawmakers debate tax breaks for data centers, how cannabis revenue should be used, and the regulation of consumable hemp products—decisions that affect utility bills, road repairs, and small businesses.
Politics reporter for the Michigan Public Radio Network, Colin Jackson, joined Robyn Vincent to break down the constitutional fight over the funding freeze and what it reveals about power, process, and everyday life in Michigan.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.
WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
The hiring of a new assessor in Clarkston has led to confusing communication with Independence Township in northern Oakland County over their intergovernmental agreements, which includes police and fire services in the city.
Clarkston City Manager Jonathan Smith told the city council on Tuesday night he received a text message from Independence Township Supervisor Chuck Phyle on Sept. 23 stating his intention to cancel the three-year agreement signed by the two municipalities in June.
It came one day after the council voted 7-0 to approve hiring Kim Fiegly Assessing for assessing services for Clarkston.
“Supervisor Phyle texted me to say that because we had selected Kim, the township would be canceling the police, fire, department of public works and Deer Lake Beach agreements,” said Smith. “He texted that to me.”
That text from Phyle was followed by “I will send official notice from (township attorney) Dan Kelly.”
In a statement to The Oakland Press on Wednesday, Phyle seemed to change his position.
“Independence Township is reviewing all intergovernmental contracts with the City of the Village of Clarkston to ensure fairness, compliance, and protection for residents of both communities,” Phyle said. “As township supervisor, I have both the authority and the responsibility to initiate these reviews when terms appear inconsistent with the township’s fiscal or legal obligations. Any final action to amend or terminate a contract will, as always, go before the full board for approval.”
Clarkston’s Smith told the council there was a meeting on Oct. 2 between Phyle, Kelly and Clarkston city attorney Jerry Fisher to discuss cancellation of the agreement.
“I was hoping it was just a big misunderstanding, but that was not the case,” said Smith, who was also in the meeting. “He suggested that the city could not afford to be a city anymore and we should consider folding into the township.”
Smith and Trustee Amanda Forte met informally with Phyle after a township meeting on Oct. 7 to find out what the problem was with the hiring of Fiegly, the former Independence Township director of assessing.
“He noted that Kim would not be able to work with their (Independence Township) building department due to the way she left things,” said Forte. “We asked if there was any major incident that happened and he said ‘no’ and we asked if she was fired and he said ‘no,’ so he did not give us any specifics on why that would be an issue.”
“He cannot provide any reason why we should not do business with someone who is completely independent from them,” Trustee Erica Jones said. “It is nothing that a publicly elected official should be doing.”
It turns out Fiegly left her position at the township because Phyle was on track to overload the assessing department in order to cover the townships assessing costs.
Phyle sent a text message to Clarkston City Manager Jonathan Smith the day after Kim Fiegly was approved the city council to take over as head of the assessing department.
photo courtesy Independence Township
Back in April, the Oakland County Board of Commissioners approved a cost increase on assessing services done through the county, which led to several communities looking into bringing in their own assessors.
Fiegly said Phyle began talking with those communities about signing on with his department for their assessing services.
“Mr. Phyle was soliciting other governmental contracts for me to head up an assessing division for profit for Independence Township,” said Fiegly. “He was soliciting as many municipalities as he could that the county had alienated. He was trying to make money off of other municipalities to offset his own (assessing) costs.”
She said he had been in contact with Commerce, Springfield, Orion and Oxford townships, but knew the amount of work it would bring would overload her department.
“I agreed to take on one or two small units for him, but it blew up much larger to the point where we could not do it without compromising the quality of service,” she said. “It was in my best interest to bow out and leave.”
Fiegly resigned in April, opened up her own business and submitted one of four proposals for the Clarkston assessor position.
The three-year proposals were from: Kim Fiegly Assessing - $22 per parcel, AAS Assessing - $23.68 per parcel, WCA Assessing - $27.16 per parcel and Oakland County - $32.11 per parcel. Independence Township has since contracted with AAS for their services.
Clarkston would have paid Oakland County an average of $32.24 per parcel if they had agreed to a proposed three-year contract for county assessing services from 2026-28.
The threat of pulling police and emergency services from Clarkston due to her hiring did not dissuade Fiegly from signing the contracton Tuesday. She notified the state that her company is now the assessor of record for the city.
“I did a lot of soul searching with the city and I said, ‘I don’t want to bring harm to you,’ and they said this has nothing to do with you and you are the one we want for our assessor,” said Fiegly. “I grew up in this community. I have 40 years of real estate knowledge here and this is something I could give back to the village.”
By not going along with Phyle’s plan, she said their dynamic changed.
“(Phyle) went from advertising us as the greatest assessing office to me being incompetent,” said Fiegly. “He is retaliating and he is angry at me and he is taking it out on (Clarkston), but he has no authority to tell the village who they can hire.”
Fiegly drew nothing but praise from Clarkston Treasurer Greg Cote.
“Kim Fiegly is a startup company with Kim having 30 plus years of experience. Kim grew up in Independence Township and is quite capable of serving this community,” Cote said at the Sept. 22 where she earned board approval. “If a resident wants to talk to an assessor, Kim being born and raised in this community, indicated that she would come here to the office and sit down and explain rationale. So, I believe Kim is more than capable of performing the duties we are requesting.”
“She is highly regarded in the field and has nothing but the highest reputation,” said Smith.
Clarkston has three intergovernmental agreements with Independence Township for police services, fire services and building services (including building and code enforcement services).
The police agreement commits Clarkston to pay 2.7% of the township’s total cost for police services and a $300 a month administration fee.
The fire agreement commits the city to pay the township the same millage rate that the township charges its residents - 3.37-mills.
The city has been contracting with Code Enforcement Services, a division of Ann Arbor-based Carlisle- Wortman Associates ,for building services since 2017.
The Deer Lake Beach agreement committed Clarkston to lease the beach to the township for $1 per year with the Independence Township Parks and Recreation Department offering multiple services including swim lesson, a boat launch and open swimming for residents of both municipalities. The township would keep the collected fees to offset their costs.
Trustee Jones said it would impact Clarkston significantly if the agreement was canceled.
“It affects the actual emergency services that would be provided to our community,” she said. “(Phyle) is putting resident safety in jeopardy. This is basically a breach of contract. We signed a contract for those services in June and those contracts have gone into effect.”
Fiegly also recognizes the consequences of leaving the city without a fire department.
“When you start threatening to take away fire services in a historical district with homes from the 1800’s, that is some pretty major stuff,” she said.
Jones said the possibility of “folding” Clarkston into Independence Township was unrealistic.
“It legally cannot happen because of the way our charter is worded. A township cannot absorb a city,” she said. “(Phyle) wants the brand affinity of the Clarkston name for Independence Township.”
Clarkston could have their emergency services canceled by Independence Township after hiring a new assessor. Township Supervisor Chuck Phyle now says their intergovernmental agreements are under review.
file photo
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