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Public commenters urge ticket fee or oppose new taxes as Detroit weighs sales and admissions levies
Summary
During the Committee of the Whole meeting, residents offered one-minute public comments: some urged a targeted ticket/admissions fee to capture nonresident spending, while others opposed new taxes and called for participatory budgeting and accountability.
Four members of the public gave one-minute remarks during the meeting’s public-comment period.
William M. Davis, an online caller, recommended starting with a ticket or admissions excise tax aimed at stadium and major-event tickets, arguing such a levy would capture spending by many visitors and suburban attendees without broadly taxing Detroit households. "Ultimately the city may wanna look at a 1% sales tax, but I think before you get to that point... an easier goal is a tax on tickets," he said.
Other callers pushed back. Mavi Heard criticized new tax proposals and cited past allocations she described as problematic, saying, "Absolutely not. This property tax, revenue hoax is always a hoax." Another caller, Mia Paul, said district services do not match tax burdens in some neighborhoods and urged the council to expand participatory budgeting rather than add taxes.
Council leaders said the public comment would be added to the record and that the body would continue the discussion; no action was taken at the meeting.
The comments reflected the wider debate heard earlier in the meeting: some council members and presenters signaled support for studying revenue options that could relieve property-tax pressure, while others sought more analysis of distributional impacts before advancing any proposal.
