- [Narrator] Just ahead on one Detroit, a special high school graduation marks a milestone in a new approach to public education plus Bridge Detroit's Malachi Barrett gives us an update on two hot button issues in Detroit, property taxes and population.

Also ahead Detroit's.

Stacey Hotwaxx Hale talks about her early days as a DJ in a male dominated industry, and we'll have a rundown of events to take in this weekend and beyond in metro Detroit.

It's all coming up next on One Detroit.

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Visit DTEFoundation.com to learn more - [Narrator 2] Nissan Foundation and viewers like you.

(bright music) - [Narrator] Just ahead on this week's One Detroit.

We'll check in with Bridge Detroit's Malachi Barrett on his reports about Detroit property taxes and population decline, plus The Godmother of House Music Stacey Hotwaxx Hale reflects on her career and the importance of educating the next generation of women DJs.

And if you're looking for some arts and culture to enjoy this weekend, Dave Wagner and Cecilia Sharp of 90.9 WRCJ have some ideas for you.

- 'Cause summer is definitely- - [Narrator] But first up a unique educational partnership has produced its first class of high school graduates.

In 2019 the closure of Marygrove College gave way to a different approach to education on the same campus.

The school at Marygrove is part of a cradle to career program called the P-20 Partnership.

It's a collaboration among several organizations including Detroit Public Schools' Community District, Kresge Foundation the Marygrove Conservancy, Starfish Family Services and the University of Michigan School of Education.

One Detroit contributor Deja Moss takes us to the school's commencement ceremony marking the success of the project's first phase.

(bright music) (indistinct chattering) - You got that one, you got that one.

- I bring you greetings on behalf of the Detroit Public Schools Community district and my amazing faculty and staff.

Welcome to the first commencement exercise for the school at Marygrove.

- We did it - [Narrator 3] The school at Marygrove.

A new school opening new doors for students in the city of Detroit.

After opening in 2019 right before the pandemic the social justice and engineering focused school has officially had its first graduating class - For over 90 years.

Marygrove College has served with excellence in education and served the city of Detroit.

It is with great pride that this tradition continues through the school at Marygrove, part of the Detroit public schools and the conservancy.

- Today is a testament to what happens when partners across the city come together to make a dream come true.

- Whether it's the Kresky Foundation, PNC Bank, the University of Michigan School of Education, or many other wonderful and dedicated partners, the entire community is an integral part of the school at Marygrove.

- We know the quite literal work, sweat and tears it took to get here, ours included.

To open a brand new school is hard enough, to open a school in a pandemic where we all lost someone or something, with almost annual leadership turnover through virtual teaching and learning and in what amounted to an active construction zone for four years.

Well, it's quite difficult, let's just say that.

- Today we stand on a threshold of a new chapter.

A chapter brimming with endless possibilities and exciting opportunities.

The hard work, dedication, perseverance, craftsmanship integrity, social responsibility and empathy we have demonstrated has led us to this very moment.

- What does it mean to be Marygrove made?

It means that we not only prescribe to the rigor of academic challenge but devote ourselves to embodying core values that have shaped our educational career and that we will carry throughout the remainder of our lives.

- When TSM was merely an idea, we envisioned a place where education would transcend traditional boundaries.

We set out on a journey to create a safe haven of learning.

A place where critical thinking and community mindedness would flourish.

A place where joy and community were just as important if not more than formulas and essays.

You have exemplified the spirit of our school embodying the portrait of a graduate that we so passionately crafted.

- We're really committed to preparing the very best teachers for our children throughout society.

And we send students, our graduates all over the country, but one of the things that we haven't always done is stay with them.

The school at Marygrove and our partnership with Detroit Public Schools Community District gives us the opportunity to continue to work with our graduate.

- This graduating class is...

I'm especially fond of them because they were my first class as a teacher.

They didn't have any examples.

They had no role models.

They didn't know what seniors were supposed to do.

They didn't know about senior dues.

They didn't know.

So they learned together every step of the way and I'm so proud of them.

- Not only were they learning how to be high schoolers, they were building a school and they were also facing something that none of us had ever faced before, all while trying to just pass their classes.

So I mean, it's been quite a journey for them.

We're really proud of them for being able to make it.

- I applied my freshman year, didn't get in, sophomore year didn't get in, in my junior year, I didn't get in, but then they reevaluated my application and told me I got in and I cried.

I ain't gonna lie, I cried because it was like I was fighting for this.

Like I fight bit and climbed tooth and nail for it.

So once I actually got it and then once I got into school and talked to the people and they were so embracing and like loving to me, I was like "Man this is really one of the best choices I could have made.

- My teachers was a different experience that I never had before.

So they definitely are like what I'm gonna remember the most and I wanna keep in contact.

- That first day man when I walked in I'm like, "I don't know nobody.

I gotta try to like adapt and just try to learn who I want to be around and everything."

But I feel like it went well and we all like came together.

- Today is kind of weird, like my father passed on May 31st 10 years ago.

So it's kind of hard to be here 'cause now I feel like everything is like hitting me all at once.

The amount of support that I had got from the student body was like immaculate - To me i took like all of us just working together, working hard, putting our best foot forward, always trying to get our assignments done on time and that got us here.

- One of a kind you not gonna find no school like this anywhere.

It's a family.

These ain't just some kids that chose to just go to school together or we were sports here.

We loved each other.

This's a family.

- I want people to know that as all things striving for greatness are, it is a work in progress.

If there's ever a time where we got to a place where we're like, "All right, we're done.

We've built the best school."

we're missing something, right?

And so I want people to know it's a work in progress to understand what they're getting themselves into, but that it is a community of support, that we are building the plane as we're flying it, but we are building it together.

(students cheering) - [Narrator] Reducing property taxes and increasing the city's population are two issues, making headlines in Detroit.

Mayor Mike Duggan outlined his proposed changes to the city's property tax system at the Mackinac Policy Conference and he's challenging the latest census data on the city's population decline.

I caught up with Bridge Detroit reporter, Malachi Barrett to get the latest on both topics.

(bright music) - Mayor Duggan has been calling for taxes to be changed in Detroit.

So can you explain what the issue is and what the mayor is calling for?

- I don't think this is like news to anybody living in the city of Detroit that the tax system is unfair and perhaps even pretty broken depending on who you talk to.

Right now, the tax system is set up in a way that incentivizes blight and you know incentivizes people to hold onto property until it becomes, you know, more lucrative for them to either sell it to a big developer or, you know, it's kind of like a cheap lottery ticket that the mayor said that they hang onto this land until it's in a position where the surrounding area is ready to be redeveloped and then they kind of cash in.

And our tax system really penalizes homeowners who face you know, some of the highest tax rates in the area.

And so, you know, it's really been holding back growth in a lot of neighborhoods and what the mayor would rather do is kind of reverse the situation by creating a new tax rate for homeowners, for structures would be taxed differently than just land itself, so that the taxes would go up on land and it would go down on structures and you know that would create a giant tax savings for 97% you know, the vast majority of people in the city.

It would be automatic, you wouldn't have to sign up for it.

It'd be recurring, you know, automatically as well.

It's not like you would have to like apply year to year.

So you know, you'd get tax savings there and then the people who are sitting on parking lots or you know, grassy lots in your neighborhood, they would have to pay more and maybe that would kind of promote doing something with that, developing the lands, selling it to somebody who would develop it and maybe kind of kickstart some of these areas that have been, you know, held back by land speculation.

- He's trying to flip the tax code so that it brings the taxes down for people who have structures on their property like homeowners without having to go through anything.

They don't have to sign up for any programs, because it's a policy change, but at the same time he's trying to spur economic development by putting a higher tax rate on vacant lots, people use for like maybe dumping or like you said parking lots or just properties that are, you know kind of being held onto and letting go into disrepair.

Those are the properties that are going to be taxed at a higher rate correct?

- Yeah, definitely.

So I think this really kind of targets the downtown parking lots that a lot of Detroiters have gripes about right?

These kind of like pretty vast like swaths of concrete that aren't really seeing a lot done with them.

It also would affect tow yards and scrap yards and some of these kind of dumping areas that you've referenced.

The mayor really pointed this out during a speech that we've got 450 plus scrapyards in the city of Detroit and that's not because, you know we have the higher rate of scrap that needs places to be at.

I mean a lot of it is because it's a lot cheaper for those business owners to have that land in the city compared to out in the suburbs.

- What challenges is Detroit facing right now when it comes to the population?

Because you wrote that they're there still.

- They're there in a major way, you know, depending on if you believe this census we're either shrinking or shrinking pretty fast, the mayors kind of challenged some of that federal data that shows the city continued to drop residents in the last year, lost around just under 8,000 people from 21 to 2022 I believe.

There was some polling that was done of Detroit residents kind of first of its kind, survey done by Gallup and it found that, you know, this probably won't be surprising either.

It's crime and its education are the top two reasons that people are leaving the city and you know we hear this all the time that people don't feel safe in their neighborhoods and they also feel like younger families in particular don't have places to send their kids to school that, you know, will set them up for success, you know, there's a perception and probably rightly so that, you know you have to send your kids to non-public school if you live in the city for them to get a good education, and you know younger families that are making decisions long term that's something that pushes them out.

Job opportunities and wages is another reason that ranked really high, and then right behind that is cost of living, right?

So that connects to all of the issues of housing that you talk to people about all the time.

You know, how expensive it is to buy a house, to renovate a house, even to rent in the city of Detroit.

You know, medium income in the city is still around like $35,000 or something like that.

You know, it's not really good enough to afford a lot of the new rental units that are being built and nobody's really building like single family houses.

So, you know, where do you actually live, that all ties together.

- From your reporting, where is your optimism?

Is it high, is it medium, is it low?

- Yeah, I mean I think in one sense it's encouraging to see that the things that we're talking about, you know, policy makers are talking about as well.

Like there's a pretty clear eyed view I think of what's holding us back and what needs to be done.

I think where I start to maybe be less optimistic personally is what's gonna be done about that?

I mean the governor put together a commission to kind of study some of these population trends statewide and come up with a set of recommendations and I think, you know, depending on your opinion, that's either a great step forward to start to address these things, or it's another kind of like reinventing of the wheel, because we already kind of know what a lot of these issues are, right?

- Yeah.

- We are definitely gonna be a major site of investments moving forward, like Detroit and the metro region is still really vital to the state's economy.

It's gonna be the source of this kind of population growth strategy that Governor Whitmer is working on.

So I don't know, I guess I'm hopeful, but, you know, we're obviously gonna be keeping a really close eye on this and you know if folks aren't as hopeful, I certainly understand why.

- [Narrator] June is black music month, a time to celebrate the impact and contributions of African Americans in the music industry.

One Detroit contributors Cecilia Sharp of 90.9 WRCJ recently sat down with Stacey Hotwaxx Hale known as "The Godmother of House Music" for a wide ranging conversation.

They talked about Hale's rise to fame as a DJ, her unique music style and her passion for mentoring and promoting music education.

(bright music) (upbeat music) - Stacey Hotwaxx Hale the first DJ in Detroit to play house music on the radio in the early 80s and The Godmother of House, thanks for being on the show.

- Thanks for having me.

- Absolutely.

You started during a time when it wasn't quite necessarily popular for women to DJ.

What attracted you to DJing?

- Well I don't think it was not popular for women to be DJs, but you recognize them on the radio as air personalities versus playing in the club, and that's what was unusual for women to be doing that.

I was determined and male, female thing wasn't even in my thought process, it was the love of the music and to be able to play it and present it to people.

My brother was big into electronics so I was always looking at reel to reels and cassette players and turntables and things like that.

So he was just one that liked to play music and hear it, you know, he never inspired to be a DJ or anything, so I kind of got that from him and I took it to another level, and I stumbled in a old club, it used to be a coffee shop, it was called the Chess Mate.

It's a laundromat now on McNichols and Livernoise and inside of there this organization called "True Disco" which consists of Ken Collier, Dwayne Bradley, Ronaldo Smith, and Morris Mitchell.

They created this thing called "True Disco" and they were in there playing, I heard the records mixing and I went, "What?"

I found my way up to that booth and looked and I saw two turntables and a mixer and I said, "Oh that's what I need to be doing."

- You also performed at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.

- The Apollo Theater.

- Yes, the Apollo Theater.

What brought you to the Apollo?

- Jessica Care Moore's Black Women Rock were now called "The Daughters of Betty".

Yes, that's what brought me there, and I work as the assistant music director helping Kat Dyson and in addition to me doing that, being able to play with the band, the Apollo actually called and asked me would I DJ.

- What?

- Didn't have to ask me twice why?

- Of course they didn't.

They barely got it out their mouth before you said yes, right?

- Yep.

I'm like, "What's all?"

My friends came they were in New York and they were dancing in the aisles up by the seats.

- The way that you engage your audience you make everyone feel invited, it's a warm environment.

Everyone knows that they can get down to the music.

The way you blend house music with other genres from gospel to R&D, a little bit of classical, jazz.

You incorporate acoustic live instruments, it's just amazing.

How did you develop that style?

- I listen, you know, and that's the first thing I tell my students to do is to listen, use your ears, and if you just pay attention to some things around you then allow the creativity inside of you to go on and incorporate it in something that you enjoy doing.

- You talked about students, Stacy and you're definitely passionate about not just performing and sharing your gifts with the audience and the people that love your music, but passing on your knowledge your wisdom to other young people, to students.

Why is it so important to you as a DJ, as an artist to pass on that craft?

- It's so important for it to come from someone like me to be able to pass it on, because I can tell you real stories.

I can let you know by different things my real feelings.

You don't have to go to YouTube University to find out the best that I could do is to pass this on, 'cause I want someone else to be able to do it, and we'd like to have this not only be historic, but for someone 50 years from now to be able to do that, or at least take the theory of that and present themselves in that way.

The Sheometry, Music and Arts Festival that you created and launched in 2019, what is the mission of the Sheomoetry Music and Arts Festival?

- The mission is to be able to show off women that are good in music in many different genres.

A live instrument DJing, and in the business of music itself, and it's primarily women with a splash of men to be able to show off the arts and things that they do within this big world of music.

- Because a lot of times it's the reverse, a lot of men in the festival with the splash of women- - Correct.

- But this time, this festival highlights women in music.

You have style on the turntables, but you also have your own fashionable style.

when you're rocking out, you always just bring it with the clothes, with the jewelry, with the hair.

Even today you're representing the D with your old English D earrings on, you got these wonderful bangles and this piece that you are wearing as a necklace, tell us about that piece.

- This right here is a 45 spindle and it spins, and I realize there's three generations that don't even know what this is, and this used to be the item that you would place inside of the 45 record that you put on the turntable in order to play records.

- Yeah.

- And so I love to, you know, show this and I wear it all the time, Ttis is actually a key chain.

- Stacy, what makes your music so unique?

- My music is so unique, it's because I believe in making people happy.

When I play music, it's my job to make you happy.

So therefore I place myself in environments where people are gonna enjoy the types of sound I deliver.

I'm very spiritual.

I love gospel house music.

Many of the selections that I play have that type of thing in it, and I have been successful in those that say "I don't like house music, but I like yours."

And that's because it's coming from the heart and the vibe like that and to make you feel good, and that's my whole point in everything and it's been proven.

Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.

(upbeat music) (singer vocalizing) - [Narrator] The Weekend is almost here and there are lots of things to do in metro Detroit.

Dave Wagner and Cecilia Sharp of 90.9 WRCJ have today's One Detroit weekend.

- Hey Cecilia can you believe the summer season is almost upon us?

- Dave yes I can, because summer is definitely my favorite season, and I am so excited for this warmer weather.

- Yeah.

- It means more outside events and more opportunities for people to enjoy arts and culture happenings in and around the city, like the Michigan Glass Project running June 9th through June 11th.

People can head down to the Russell Industrial Center to experience three days of live art, glass making and musical performances.

- And speaking of fresh air, you can go to the Detroit Zoo, well really any day, but June 10th the zoo is celebrating World Oceans Day from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM, there's going to be some great advice on how to conserve water and keep our waterways clean.

- Pretty cool, Dave.

Fun with the animals and learning how to help the environment, count me in, and of course, we at WRCJ are sponsoring the Classical Brunch Concert series at the Community House in Birmingham, where guests can enjoy live classical music, while indulging in a delicious meal on June 11th.

The afternoon series will include Hannah Hammel Maser, on the flute, Alex Kinmonth on the oboe, Jack Walters on the clarinets, Conrad Cornelison on the bassoon and Scott Strong on the French horn.

The musicians will also hold discussions after their performances with patrons.

- Great the classical brunches that the community has are always something to look forward to, I'm so glad that they're back.

- Me too.

- Now June is Pride month and here are some ways to celebrate this weekend.

On June 9th, Insideout Literary Arts is holding a Pride+ Allies Open Mic Night at Room Project where youth and adult poets can come to perform one of their pieces from 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM - And the Motor City Pride Festival is June 10th and 11th in Hart Plaza.

The parade starts Sunday at noon running along Griswold from Fort Street to the Plaza.

There have been over 50,000 people taking part in Pride events here in Detroit, and it's such a wonderful way to promote equality.

- Sure is.

Well, there's so much happening in Detroit, we've just kind of skimmed the surface of a number of things Cecila, but there's so much more to do and let's find out about all of those events coming up.

(bright music) - [Narrator] That will do it for this week's One Detroit.

Thanks for watching.

Head to the One Detroit website for all the stories we're working on.

Follow us on social media and sign up for our weekly newsletter (bright music) - [Narrator 2] From Delta Faucets to Behr Paint.

Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Support for this program is provided by the Cynthia & Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism and Detroit Public TV.

The Kresge Foundation.

- [Narrator 3] The DTE Foundation, is a proud sponsor of Detroit Public TV, among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan focused giving.

We support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Visit DTEFoundation.com to learn more.

- [Narrator 2] Nissan Foundation and Viewers Like You.

(bright music) (bright piano music)