By MARISA LORANGER, Staff Reporter.
“Exciting things are happening in Saginaw,” says Dennis Browning, mayor of the city.
Browning, 65, was born and raised in the heart of Saginaw. He attended Saginaw public and Saginaw Township schools, graduating from Douglas McArthur High School.
Saginaw has a very strong city manager form of government with nine elected city council members. The city council members chose the city’s mayor, unlike in other cities where the mayor is chosen by the voters. The mayor in the city of Saginaw is different than other cities, he doesn’t make the decisions, the city manager does the decision making. The mayor of Saginaw is the spokesperson for the city, signs documents and leads all the city council meetings.
On Feb. 5, 2015, the mayor presented the State of the City address where he explained how the city is doing economically and the new plans for the future.
“Saginaw is a great place to live, work, learn and play,” Browning said.
The city’s old motto was “Live, work, play,” but with additions like the new Delta Saginaw satellite campus and the Garber Mansion (housing for St. Mary’s new medical students), Saginaw is now more than ever a place that fosters learning .
There will be 60 medical students coming to Saginaw in May and 200 medical students will be staying in Saginaw for a minimum of two years working on their degrees.
The city has also been re-inventing the “play” aspect of their motto. The Bancroft and Eddy building is a “great place to live downtown,” said Browning. “But it also is a great place to get some drinks after work.” Bradley’s Bistro is a new bustling restaurant with their farm to table movement in downtown Saginaw and Art Felton is opening a vodka distillery in Old town Saginaw which will be the only one in the Bay Region.
“Saginaw has become a cool place to hang out. People want to be here and you can see that with the new businesses,” explained Browning.
Browning, a former Saginaw police officer, was the city’s 214th officer. He attended Delta College and completed training through Delta’s police academy. He became a police cadet in 1969 and was sworn in in 1970. When he started off as a police officer, the city had 96,000 people. Now the city is down to 51,000 people.
After the GM plant closures, the majority of the city residents lost their jobs.
“Everything was based on GM, so once they closed a lot of people left,” said Browning.
Since then, Saginaw has had its share of blighted areas. The city received a grant of 11.2 million dollars from the U.S. government to eliminate the blight in 2013. They have torn down 400 houses so far. As a former police officer, Browning puts a lot of pressure on crime prevention, and by demolishing abandoned homes, he thinks this will help put a stop to crime.
“For a while we were number one in homicide in the country,” said Browning.
So eventually the governor assigned state troopers to the area.
“We have also seen a comeback in Neighborhood Watch associations; citizens are just as important as the cops,” says Browning.
Since these actions have been put forward, the city has seen a 53 percent decrease in crime in one year. Saginaw is a safe community but “trying to get past the downsizing has been really hard,” said Browning.
Loss of jobs means people leave the city, which leaves less kids in school. The city has been debating closing a public high school for reasons such as lack of enrollment and funding.
“Those are the tough decisions, people are going to be upset with either outcome, but it’s the job we take on,” said Browning.
For two thirds of Browning’s career, he worked on crime prevention and spent time in schools teaching D.A.R.E. to the fifth and sixth graders.
Browning retired from the police department on July 7, 2000.
“One of the hardest things to do was to take off that badge and hand it in.”
The same time that he retired, a city council member passed away. There was an open seat and he interviewed for it.
“It was a nice transition for me,” said Browning. “One of the first things I had to do was downsize police and fire, and I had a lot of people mad at me.”
As a city council member, he made decisions to cut trash, finance, eliminate recreation and got the city of Saginaw out of owning the zoo. The last downsize they made was public safety. Saginaw is starting to come back with real estate, housing prices have started to go back up for the city, especially waterfront property explained Browning.
“I have the best job of anybody,” said Browning.
This will be Browning’s last term as a mayor as his term expires in 2018. “That’ll be 16 years, that’s enough.”
He feels that the city is in the right hands, the hands of the citizens.
“The people are what make Saginaw successful,” said Browning.
