Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • 201

LOCAL NEWS 6D DETROIT FREE PRESS I WWW.FREEP.COM THURSDAY, DEC. 18, 2003 COXI Attorney general shifts course Detroit closes textbook gap for students it 96 are delivered, executive reports By TERESA MASK I RbE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER I FIRST YEAR IN BRIEF January: Elected by 5,200 votes out of 3 million cast, one of the narrowest margins In Michigan history, Cox Is sworn Into office two days after his 41st birthday, jt He was born in 1961, the day after i Frank Kelley, who would go on to serve 37 years as Michigan attorney general, took office, i' February: Rebuffs Gov. Jennifer Granholm's request to file a brief supporting the University of Michigan's affirmative action policy before the U.S. Supreme Court. It would be the first of many public and private disagreements between the offices.

May: KOs International Boxing Federation crulserweight champ James Toney for unpaid child support Toney Is jailed in California for two days before paying $1 00,000 owed for his 1 0-year-old daughter. High-profile campaign I to crack down on deadbeats Is underway. June-December: Reorganizes office, creates new bureaus. Emphasis on special cases (like the 18-year-old murders of two hunters In Oscoda County), public corruption and Identity theft. December: Closes year on a sour note with Granholm over allega- ROMAIN BLANQUAFTTDstrolt Fmt Pnu Mike Cox, who is nearing the end of his first year in office, holds the state seal.

The state's 1 top law enforcer has shown some political acumen and has generally earned high marks for his tough approach toward deadbeat parents. tlons the Attorney General's Office Is being shortchanged in budget negotiations. Granholm spokes-man says Cox needs to learn how to "work In the rain." From Page IB 4-year term for declining to file an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on Granholm's behalf in the University of Michigan affirmative action case. Better than expected, says EPICMRA pollster Ed Sarpolus.

Cox has been partisan when it served a purpose and conciliatory when it didn't, Sarpolus said. "I've been surprised. He's a better politician than I thought," he said. Changing course But the clearest thing that Cox has been is different. After the long Kelley reign (extended under Granholm) in which the Attorney General's Office was best known for consumer advocacy, Cox has changed priorities.

He wants a reputation as a champion for kids, as the guy who collected debts owed to children by noncustodial parents. Although Cox almost always mentions other initiatives crime, consumers, the environment, etc. when talking about his duties, child support has become his signature issue. And the arrests of celebrity athletes (boxer James Toney and ex-Detroit Lion Bennie Blades) who've allegedly let down their kids have been his surest headlines. Unlike Kelley and Granholm, Cox is far from a natural performer in front of a TV camera or a crowd (he's already developed a reputation for mangling the names of the people with whom he shares the stage at news conferences).

But on the subject of child support and the righteousness of going after deadbeat parents he is a passionate and effective communicator. Announcing a new set of initiatives to intercept tax refunds headed to those who owe child support, Cox said, "Before you get money from the state, we need to make sure you don't owe your children money." Facts and figures roll off his tongue with ease 650,000 Michigan kids are getting shortchanged; 300,000 are getting nothing at all, and there is more with only a measured shot at the mayor's administrative skills thrown in for good measure. Cox said last week the Kilpatrick investigation, and his office's approach to criminal investigations generally, reflect his 12 years of experience in the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office. "I wanted to invigorate the criminal division a little," he said. "They didn't have the same sense' of urgency I think we want." While relnvigorating the anti--crime corps and practically ln-: venting the child support function, all while undergoing' significant budget cuts and staff reductions, Cox has inevitably had to de-emphasize some of the of-' fice's traditional roles.

He adamantly denies that con-' sumer protection, which devel-! oped a national reputation under Kelley, has been ignored since took over. Aggressive actions; have been taken against tobacco companies and on contest fraud, identity theft and war-profiteer-' ing scams, he said. Collections from consumer-rights litigation1 reached their highest level in his-: tory, $326 million. 1 All true. But he does admit that, one of Kelley's annual crowd pleasers, the Christmas price' scanner survey, has been shelved because of a lack of staff.

Cox said the unit that conducted the survey, was disbanded under Granholm' (but it did manage to eke out a 2002 report). It's hard to know whether such changes have affected Cox's standing with the public. Rick Gamber, executive direc-. tor of the Michigan Consumer Federation, said he's heard few, complaints about the new attor-, ney general, and said he's inclined to "see how his reorganization works out and wait and see." Ordinary citizens probably feel much the same way. It will take: more time in the public eye before! a lot of them are sure who he is.

But one thing we do know. He's, easily the best Republican attor-j ney general Michigan's had since Frank Millard. Contact DAWSON BELL at 313-222- 6604 or dbellfreepress.com "Having an inventory is a way of helping everyone become more accountable," he said. The reports were due last Friday, but only about 80 of 250 have been filed, Coleman said. "They are coming in every day; we're still trying to get them in," Coleman said.

With winter break approaching, Coleman said it is unlikely most reports will be in before the end of the year. All that matters to Tiffany Thompson, a 15-year-old Cody High School freshman, is that the books are in hand. "We have our books," Thompson said this week. Whether students will take care of the books and return them is another issue the task force is working on. Detroit Federation of Teachers President Janna Garrison agrees that nearly all the classrooms have books, but keeping the books in good condition still needs to be addressed.

She said one of the biggest problems was students not returning books at the end of the year. "Gone are the days when you had to pay a $10 fine for losing your books; parents today are not paying," she said. A survey of teachers in October indicated classrooms were missing hundreds of textbooks and some teacher guides. Garrison said the union will survey teachers again in February determine the status of books for second semester. "Like I said, the majority of the classrooms do have books," Garrison said.

"But if there is one classroom without books, that's a problem." Contact TERESA MASK at 248-351-3691 or maskfreepress.com. Detroit Public Schools administrators say the bulk of missing textbooks have been delivered to students, but correcting problems that kept them from children for months is still under way. "Based on the documents we have, we've delivered 96 percent of the books," said William Coleman, chief operating officer for the district. A computer glitch and spotty inventory led to thousands of students being without books at the start of the school year. Coleman said Wednesday that 18,000 missing books were delivered by Oct.

31. By mid-November, some said they still had not received books in certain classes and that teachers were using work sheets to get them through assignments. To help resolve the situation, a district-wide textbook task force has been formed. For the past few weeks, the group, made up of people from several departments, has been meeting almost daily. One main goal is to come up with strategies to help the textbook-ordering process run smoother, Coleman said.

But as the committee works toward fixing the problem, most school administrators have missed a district-imposed deadline to report what books they have in their buildings an attempt to improve the inventory system. Last month, Coleman asked for the accounting so that the district could create a database of what books are at each school. than $3 billion in outstanding debt. Of course, in that context the $1.4 million his child support unit has secured since its formation last summer seems puny, even if it exceeds the unit's first-year goal of $1 million. But Cox says he's trying to create a stop-sign mentality among child support payers, where a few high-profile prosecutions encourage widespread voluntary compliance.

Varied reviews Virtually all observers agree there's not much downside for Cox on child support (at least until he jails an innocent parent whose payments got lost by bureaucrats). But in other areas, he's been less deft. At a Republican leadership conference on Mackinac Island in September, Cox mounted a selfconsciously aggressive campaign to set himself up as the leader of Granholm's political opposition. His staff printed up T-shirts bearing an image of the governor's summer residence on the island and the slogan "Take Back the Mansion." In a speech, he was widely perceived as having attacked Granholm for being unprincipled. A close reading of what he said shows it's unclear whether that's what he meant to imply.

But it led to more harrumphing by Democrats, who thought the governor's attorney should be publicly more respectful. At other times, he's been less partisan than some would have predicted. Most conspicuously, when asked to investigate the imbroglio surrounding Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (a top Democrat) and his security detail, Cox didn't grandstand. Instead, he wrapped it up in short order and cleared Kilpatrick of wrongdoing, Oakland County is unfazed Sterling Heights official quits to Detroit as jobs migrate But then be says he'll hold off until Jan. 6 By SHAWN WINDSOR FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER By BILL LAITNER IRhE PRESS STAFF WRITER takes time." At least one councilman said Bishop, whose annual salary is' $93,000, wasn't happy about the daily grief he was taking from some city administrators.

"I think there are people who are not allowing him to make decisions," said Councilman Steve Rice. "He needs latitude." Rice said he hopes to make that clear at the next council meeting. Councilwoman Danna Koski said city officials hope to name a permanent city manager by June. Contact SHAWN WINDSOR at officials and a meeting with them at a local restaurant convinced Bishop to wait until the next council meeting Jan. 6 to make his final "I'm quite sure he will change his mind," said Pat Lehman, the city's community relations director.

Bishop, formerly the assistant city manager, took over the city's top administrative job after his predecessor, Steve Duchane, was fired in October for lying about his education. Bishop was not available for comment. Lehman said Bishop just needed to work through the stress of the job. "It's a big city," she said. "It One City Councilman blamed the department heads.

The community relations director pointed to the stress of the job. Whatever the reason, Sterling Heights' interim City Manager Dan Bishop, who took the job six weeks ago, faxed a letter of resignation to the City Council Wednesday morning. Bishop said the resignation would be immediate and he regretted he had to leave the job. But a round of calls from city company's 60-employee corporate headquarters, which will move from Chicago in 2005. Even GM, increasingly rooted in downtown Detroit, has told Patterson "they'll have good news for us in the next few months," he said.

Besides the lure of being near GM, new employers in downtown Detroit are enjoying big incentives in cheap land and relocation aid as rewards for moving against the tide of job loss in Detroit. That tide continues, however. Moving soon from downtown Detroit to Southfield is a major law firm Jaffe Raitt Heuer Weiss which will shuffle at least 150 employees while keeping a small office in Detroit. Leaders on both sides of 8 Mile say they don't like competing for jobs within the region. Instead, they hope as the recession lifts that new jobs throughout metro Detroit come from outside Michigan.

"It shouldn't be a dog-eat-dog thing," said George Jackson, CEO of the Detroit Economic Growth which provides low-interest loans to spur development in Detroit. "We have good working relations with Oakland County." Alcan picked Oakland County for its key expansion because the county not Detroit anymore is the epicenter of U.S. automak-ing. In Novi, Alcan customers can easily drive over to see "our showcase North American plant," Vice President Michael Kelly said. Contact BILL LAITNER at ON THE MOVE For decades, Detroit has seen a stream of jobs leave for suburbs in Oakland County or elsewhere.

But here are major employers who have recently left or plan to leave Oakland County for downtown Detroit, -with the approximate number of jobs involved: EDS is leaving Troy in stages, starting last fall; 1,500 jobs Compuware left Farming-ton Hills this year; 4,1 00 jobs OnStar will leave Troy in 2004; 900 jobs Next year, the outlook is good for workers both north and south of 8 Mile: Oakland County is expected to gain 10,100 jobs in 2004, while Wayne County including Detroit will get about 3,700 new jobs, say SEMCOG and University of Michigan analysts. Already this year in Oakland, small firms are expanding their job rolls in sales, production and high-tech design. Among them, Alcan Automotive soon will hire 40 employees for a new plant in Novi, designing and producing aluminum bumper beams for automakers. In October, the firm moved its existing 20-person sales and design force from Farmington Hills to Novi. Oakland officials also cite Borg-Warner an auto-powertrain giant already entrenched with 450 technical workers in Auburn Hills.

Now, a site nearby has landed the First it was Compuware. Then came EDS. Now, OnStar. To the casual observer, it might seem that high-profile companies are streaming from Oakland County to Detroit, helping the big city at the expense of its suburbs. Not so.

In Detroit, hammered by job losses for 50 years, these new high-tech employers are a cause for celebration, and the announcements of their moves make frontpage news. But in Oakland County, with some of the nation's leading job-producing communities, the losses barely register. The 6,000 departing jobs make up less than 1 percent of the more than 700,000 jobs remaining in Oakland twice as many jobs as in Detroit. Economists, leasing agents and county Executive L. Brooks Patterson say the losses barely affect Oakland's office vacancy rates or overall employment.

"Now our job is to backfill with new companies to replace those that left, and we're doing that," Patterson said. The firms moving to Detroit don't seem dissatisfied with Oakland. Instead, experts say that recent demand for office space in downtown Detroit was driven by General Motors which lured major suppliers and subsidiaries to its Renaissance Center headquarters to improve communication among them. Attention All Participants, Retirees And Beneficiaries Of The Rouge Steel Co. UAW Retirement Plan Rouge Steel Co.

Salaried Employee Retirement Plan Rouge Steel Co. UAW Past Service Retirement Plan Rouge Steel Co. Salaried Employee Past Service Retirement Plan The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), a United States government agency, has determined under provisions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) that the above pension plans must terminate and that PBGC should become statutory trustee of the pension plans. PBGC has determined that the plans must terminate December 18, 2003. As erf that date, participants cannot earn any additional benefits under the plans.

PBGC will seek to take over the plans' assets and assume responsibility for paying benefits. Until PBGC is appointed trustee, Rouge Steel Co. remains responsible for payment of plan benefits. PBGC will guarantee benefits, according to plan provisions, up to the maximum amounts allowed by ERISA. Current retirees will experience no interruption in benefit payments.

As participants become eligible for retirement under the plans and complete the required forms, PBGC will begin to pay their pension benefits. PBGC currently pays benefits to more than 300,000 individuals in over 3,000 pension plans it has previously taken over. The maximum guarantee for workers in plans that terminate in 2003 is $3,664.77 a month (or $43,977.24 a year) for persons retiring at age 65. Maximum guarantees are adjusted for retirees at other ages and for those with survive benefits. DOWNTOWN I RenCen to get theater From Page LB beers, cocktails and wines.

Popular selections at Cinema Grills in other cities are buffalo wings, daiquiris and margaritas. Burke said as the plans for revitalizing the Detroit waterfront evolve, having a movie theater downtown will only add to the quality of downtown life. It will also add another high-quality property to the growing Riverfront Shops, which is a collection of stores, restaurants and services in the RenCen, Millender Center and River East Center. The Cinema Grill will be located on the second level of Tower 200. James Duffy and brother John Duffy launched the Cinema Grill concept in 1979 in Orlando, Fla.

Their company and franchisees run 26 conventional theaters plus 32 with cafes or restaurants in 32 cities in 18 states, including Atlan ta; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas, and Washington, D.C. The Duffys built their theaters with the belief that movies should offer much more than popcorn. "By offering a restaurant as an integral part of a night out at the movies, we create a value-added entertainment feature for our audiences," James Duffy said. Contact ERIK LORDS at 313-222-6678 or brdsfreepress.com. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation December 18, 2003 OOWDNMENT AGENCY.