Former Ann Arborite now plays critical role in Detroit

The woman who honed her skills at Ann Arbor’s city government is now putting them to use as the new director of Detroit’s Buildings and Safety Engineering Department. Excerpt:Karla Henderson decided to spend her first week on the job figuring out what her employees actually do.So the then-new director of Detroit’s Buildings and Safety Engineering Department had one-on-one meetings with supervisors to compare the job descriptions of employees with their actual jobs.Few matched. And some employees had never seen their job specifications.One meeting was with a woman who said she was a special events coordinator.”Here, I’m thinking she’s talking about coordinating the vendor licenses (for big events) at Hart Plaza,” Henderson said. “But when I talked to her, she said, ‘No, I coordinate the employee picnic and the party and office stuff.’ That was a job responsibility.”Henderson needed fewer parties and more help, so she transferred the employee. The woman, whose salary was $60,000 a year, soon retired.Welcome to change.Henderson, who joined Mayor Dave Bing’s team last July after years of city service experience in Highland Park and Ann Arbor, is bringing Bing’s no-nonsense approach to the department that deals with everyday business: inspections, permits, licenses, zoning questions and demolitions. She and her deputy director, Kimberly James, an attorney with institutional memory and a keen sense of savings, form a dynamic duo who want to change the conversation in Detroit about buildings, property maintenance and beauty.Read the rest of the story here.