Jerry Dettloff

former Royal Oak

Downtown Manager

The DDA’s decision to fund two downtown police patrolmen resulted from a Main Street committee recommendation. . . . Planting flowers with volunteers is great, but the DDA recognized the need to contract with the private sector to water the flowers all summer and to clean the sidewalks. . . . Several cities in the area are Royal Oak wannabes . . . . Royal Oak continues to be considered the flagship-downtown in the Metro area. . . . Is there any thriving city for which parking is not a problem?

Such are the topics which are mentioned or examined when two civic activists who also happen to be consultants have a coffee conversation.

Jerry Dettloff, now consulting for four other communities through his firm, Downtown Management Strategies, was Royal Oak’s Downtown Manager from 1999 To 2004. He participated actively during an earlier spirited public examination of the role and performance of the DDA and its relationship to City Hall and to the Main Street Oakland County program and to long-time downtown retailers.

How other cities compare with Royal Oak came up quickly during our chat, and Jerry expressed a common consultant’s experience jocularly: “Please present me with a problem other than parking!” and he described the commonality of a city’s problems being blamed on: city hall, the chamber of commerce, the DDA, this or that group of merchants, absentee property owners.

Dettloff, age 56, describes himself as “passionate” about downtown development work and he is grateful for his Royal Oak experience because of “the high profile downtown Royal Oak continues to have in the region.” That experience plus his 15 years as economic development director for Hamtramck confirm his view that “a town needs to take more of a pro-active role in its revitalization efforts.” Jerry maintains that a strong central core will always have a positive effect on the community as a whole, and he is not discouraged by the economic downturn. He puts it, “I am excited to see the turnaround taking place in spite of the current sluggish economy.” 

I reminded Jerry that he and his then new position of downtown manager were well received at first, because he was perceived to be effectively bringing small businesses to Royal Oak, filling, especially, vacant retail spaces. Then, it seemed to many, he became so busy meeting with and reporting to the DDA about the four Main Street Committees that he was performing essentially secretarial duties. Jerry disagrees. For one thing, he maintains that most of the volunteers serving on those committees were young and enthusiastic and dedicated and brought forth several useful initiatives.

Serving as liaison between those committees and the DDA, he became aware that much of the tension and dissension was personality-driven.  I related similar personality-driven problems which led to mutual irritations between the Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Royal Oak Association (DROA), which had grown from a Chamber subcommittee to a dynamic and almost independent entity. As a Chamber participant in resolving those problems, I was among those who urged total independence for DROA. That happened, but later, Jerry recalled, “DROA imploded.”

He and I compared impressions related to all that: Were there not enough “real” retailers serving on the DDA board to properly serve traditional downtown merchants? . . . Did the Chamber withdraw from or was it forced out of its dominant role in creating and sponsoring some downtown special events (Royal Oak in Bloom and Clay & Glass Fest are still Chamber events)? . . .  and the like.

Dettloff finds that some of the problems his current client-cities are facing are also personality-driven.  The more we conversed, the more I realized that it might be helpful to think of Royal Oak’s DDA/Main Street/City Hall/Chamber of Commerce matters in the broader context provided by his experience with other cities.

• That our Planning Director serves as DDA’s Executive Director is not legislatively mandated: Other cities appoint the City Manager or a contract employee to the position. DDA Board structures vary by city: retailers, property owners, business owners, even manufacturers where pertinent.
• About the uneasiness/distrust of some observers over the fact (a) most of the DDA’s work is performed by Plan Department Staff and (b) the DDA therefore pays part of the DDA’s staffing costs, Jerry offered, “DDA rules permit the agency to subsidize the cost of any work done for the DDA by city employees.”

• About the current tension over whether DDA or Main Street Oakland County should get “top billing:” More often than not, MS comes in to help a DDA which can use help and which is willing to be considered a part of the Main Street program. In Royal Oak, MS found a dynamic and forceful DDA and what some see as a power struggle emerged. I recalled an early Main Street presentation during which I thought MS was urging our DDA to operate independently from City Hall. Jerry fine-tuned my impression. “MS recommends that a DDA be as autonomous as possible, functionally and financially, but the DDA must ultimately be responsible to City Hall.”
• That personality dimension kept coming into our conversation. At one point, Jerry and I agreed that we weren’t talking just about nice guy/bad guy or about “CBs” (chronic bitchers) or about old-timers vs. newbies, but also about simple burnout. True, retailers began to raise new issues, but “People lose interest or the desire to fight for their ideas after decades of volunteering.”
• And there are such things as culture clashes – relationships, friendly or not, among property owners and city officials and renters and restaurants vs. retail and residents vs. visitors/tourists – whether speaking of parking or of bricks & mortar vs. marketing. “Think about Ferndale’s on again/off again relationship with Main Street Oakland “ -- which in my mind, if not in Jerry’s, merely reflected the clash of two dynamic political egos – Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson and Ferndale’s then City Manager Tom Barwin.
• Royal Oak is not alone in experiencing confusion-caused suspicion about Main Street matters. Aware of that, Main Street Oakland County has recently sent a letter of agreement to all its client-cities, attempting to clarify some of the confusion and to define the roles of all the involved parties. “On a national level, Main Street Oakland County is considered a model program,” Jerry says.

Focusing again on Royal Oak: Dettloff became Royal Oak’s Downtown Manager when Barbara Bos was Chairwoman. As part of becoming familiar with his new responsibilities he visited several times with Tom King, the city’s first DDA Chairman who had served for about 15 years. Considered curmudgeonly but effective, Tom had led the DDA to prominence by concentrating mostly on its bricks & mortar duties. Kinder and gentler Barbara, Jerry says, “began to take the DDA to the next level, tried to explain the role of the  DDA to the public, reached out for more volunteer support, and was a proponent for new development.”

Addressing my findings of mistrust about matters-DDA, Dettloff counters that there was no attempt to hide DDA and Main Street activities. Meetings were/are open to the public; there were no secret meetings; Board members’ names are readily available at city hall; perhaps there was some uneasiness because many of the Main Street volunteers were new; when foot traffic drops downtown, it is difficult to identify the villain: the overall economy, the retail-restaurant/bar mix, city hall (policy or politics), absentee landlords holding out for higher rent.” Jerry recalled the “Downtown Neighborhood” meetings held monthly to introduce downtown businesses owners to each other, to discuss common problems, and to communicate to the business owners what was going on downtown: new initiatives, upcoming events, and so on.

About the plight of traditional retailers in downtown Royal Oak: You know, bars and restaurants are fine, but the kind of people who frequent them aren’t the demographic which shops conventional retail, so the advice to stay open nights is not well received, despite a success story or two. Here, Dettloff seems to be an economic Darwinist: “Let nature take its course . . . Each vacancy is an opportunity . . . Add support staff . . . If the market’s not there . . . “

Dettloff reminded me that while he was Downtown Manager, I worked with a small group of retailers who openly, not secretly, unsuccessfully tried to re-start a retailer-focused small association.

And so it goes.

Jan 2007

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