Michigan

In the Weeds: Zachary Kolodin, Michigan Chief Infrastructure Officer

Published

2 years ago

September 18, 2024

In the Weeds: Zachary Kolodin, Michigan Chief Infrastructure Officer

Editor’s note: This story is part of Governing’s ongoing Q&A series “In the Weeds.” The series features experts whose knowledge can provide new insights and solutions for state and local government officials across the country. Have an expert you think should be featured? Email Web Editor Natalie Delgadillo at ndelgadillo@governing.com.

Michigan Chief Infrastructure Officer Zachary Kolodin helps coordinate infrastructure investments across state agencies.

The state is also distributing $25 million in match funding for cities.

State funding recently helped bring in $35 million to four cities for street safety improvements.

There is more federal money available to states and cities for infrastructure investment than at any time in recent memory. But that’s not to say it’s easy to get. Winning federal grants requires extensive planning, documentation, and usually at least some type of match funding — a heavy lift, especially for small towns with few public employees.

Most states have named infrastructure coordinators to help direct statewide investment strategies. But some have gone farther than others to assist cities with grant applications.

(Photo Courtesy of Zachary Kolodin)

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer created an Office of Infrastructure in 2022 to help implement a series of infrastructure investment plans developed by state agencies. In 2023, Michigan launched a technical assistance program with $25 million in funding approved by the state Legislature, which is distributed to cities as match funding for federal grants. Recently, the city of Detroit used $2.2 million from that program to win a $10 million federal Safe Streets and Roads for All grant — one of four Michigan localities pulling in $35 million from the most recent round of awards.

Zachary Kolodin, the state’s first chief infrastructure officer, recently spoke with Governing about the office’s role in bringing federal infrastructure investment to Michigan cities. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

The Michigan Infrastructure Office is still fairly new. What is it for?

The Michigan Infrastructure Office aims to help Michigan pull down the maximum amount of federal dollars that we’re eligible for in order to revitalize our infrastructure and lay the foundation for a 21st century, clean-energy-driven economy. The way we do that is by coordinating efforts across state agencies to ensure that we’ve got a solid plan for accessing competitive federal grants. We provide resources to state agencies sort of as surge capacity, because getting competitive federal grants can take a lot of effort, and not every agency is equipped to drop everything they’re doing and go pursue those dollars. And we offer technical assistance to local governments as well, both in the form of grant-writing resources and match funding to help them come up with the required non-federal match for their applications.

Four cities in Michigan recently got $35 million in Safe Streets and Roads for All grants from the federal government. What was the Michigan Infrastructure Office’s role in helping to get those grants?

The program is designed to reduce injuries and fatalities on the roadways through infrastructure upgrades like pedestrian bump-outs and rumble strips that alert drivers that they may be inadvertently changing lanes and going off the road. And there are all kinds of other mechanisms that can be used to make traffic flow more smoothly while keeping people safe.

We participate in two ways. We raise awareness of these grants among communities that are eligible for them. And we provided match funding for the city of Detroit’s Gratiot Avenue safety improvements. In that case the city would not have been able to apply for a $10 million federal grant if not for the $2.2 million in match resources that they got from the state.

The kind of education we try to do is basically say to communities: What you need to pull down federal dollars for this program is a safety action plan. If you don’t have one, the federal government will give you dollars to draft one. If you do have one then you can apply for a grant and you have a really solid chance of winning anywhere from $5 million to $25 million to help implement that safety action plan. We’re helping communities climb onto that ladder of readiness for safety improvements on the roadways.

To what extent are you setting a statewide infrastructure investment agenda that’s based on Michigan’s particular needs and interests, versus just reacting to the opportunities that are available from the federal government?

The governor sets the agenda for infrastructure priorities at state agencies, whether that’s the Clean Water Plan that the governor released, or the Building Michigan Together Plan for infrastructure. It really starts at the top. And in a lot of ways agencies reflect the governor’s priorities through the investments they make. [The Michigan Department of Transportation] MDOT, for example, has a five-year plan outlining the investments in Michigan road and highway infrastructure that they believe are most critical for that period. The Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy produced the Healthy Climate Plan which charts a course for decarbonization.

The Michigan Infrastructure Office is really an enabler of those plans. We help those agencies access federal dollars to make those plans a reality. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) give us critical resources that we need to repair our aging infrastructure and also drive toward the creation of new assets that help support changes in the economy. There’s a lot of work to do, and the grants available from the BIL and the IRA make that investment possible.

Has the state been able to build more relationships with local leaders through these processes?

Yes, especially within the last year. We hired a director of our Technical Assistance Center, Kris Brady, in the fall of 2023 and she’s been fantastic at reaching out to local leaders, educating them about opportunities, educating them about the work and resources that we have available. Those partnerships develop when there’s alignment between a particular funding opportunity that we’re offering support for and a local priority. In basically every case the local leaders know what their infrastructure needs are but they may not know what funding sources are available and they also may not know how they can find the human resources and financial resources to put a project together for federal funding. So we can help them bridge that final gap.

Communities across the state that have proactively planned for their infrastructure needs, starting even before the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was passed, have been the most successful in the state. Kalamazoo, for example, put together a comprehensive downtown revitalization plan that involved the conversion of one-way streets to two-way streets, pedestrian improvements, stormwater management improvements to make the community more resilient in storms, and safe street improvements, including the $25 million they were able to win through this most recent opportunity. I really believe that it’s due to the coordination among Kalamazoo stakeholders to align around a vision for infrastructure. I think the city of Detroit has also done a fantastic job at pulling together resources behind a unified vision, and they’ve been able to win an incredible amount of funding from the federal government.

I would encourage every citizen, every local leader, to think about what their infrastructure needs are for the future. Opportunities like this infrastructure law don’t come up every year — this is really a once-in-a-generation infrastructure bill — but the federal government does offer competitive grants for infrastructure development virtually every year. Communities that are ready are the ones that are most likely to win.

Is the Michigan Infrastructure Office going to be a permanent feature of state government?

As [the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act] IIJA winds down over the next couple years, Congress will need to take up again the question of how to fund our infrastructure and pass a new five-year authorization. I very much hope they do that and I hope they recognize that the IIJA was designed to help close the infrastructure maintenance gap but only by about 10 percent. The infrastructure maintenance gap in this country is quite substantial and it’s not something that you’re going to be able to address in just five years. I would advocate for another bipartisan infrastructure law that helps us continue to close that gap. An infrastructure dollar invested today to maintain an existing piece of infrastructure saves us at least six dollars in 10 to 20 years, because bringing a road that is in fair condition back up to good condition is so much less expensive than bringing a road that is in poor condition back up to good condition.

We have a five-year funding authorization ourselves, and as of right now our authorization does not go beyond 2026. I can’t predict the future and what the Legislature will decide to fund. But I do believe that an office like this that has the ability to coordinate among agencies from the perspective of the governor’s office is extremely helpful in moving work forward and ensuring the state has a competitive response to federal opportunities.

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Michigan

Ocasio-Cortez backs El-Sayed in Michigan U.S. Senate race

Published

12 minutes ago

July 2, 2026

Press Room

Ocasio-Cortez backs El-Sayed in Michigan U.S. Senate race

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a potential presidential or U.S. Senate candidate in 2028 and a popular, recognized leader in progressive politics nationwide, has endorsed former Wayne County and Detroit health director Abdul El-Sayed in the Aug. 4 Democratic primary for the nomination to Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat this year.

Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, announced the endorsement in an interview with the New York Times. On July 2, El-Sayed’s campaign put out a statement from her, saying, “After watching this campaign unfold for well over a year, it has become clear that Abdul El-Sayed is the strongest candidate to keep this seat in November.”

“He is building a winning coalition by putting forward an agenda that speaks directly to working people,” she said. “He is not afraid to take on the greed making life unaffordable across Michigan because he’s never taken a dime in corporate donations. When he gets to Washington, he will work to get big money out of politics and to guarantee healthcare as a human right to all Americans. I am proud to endorse Abdul El-Sayed to be Michigan’s next senator.”

It adds to an already impressive list of endorsements that includes the UAW and Detroit’s Black Slate.

El-Sayed, who was born in Michigan, trained as a medical doctor and worked in public health, is a strong supporter of government-provided healthcare, abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and an arms embargo on Israel; polling averages show him narrowly leading the Aug. 4 primary over U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens of Birmingham and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow of Royal Oak and the frontrunner to face Republican former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers of White Lake for the seat in the fall.

Stevens, who is seen as a more moderate, mainstream Democrat, has also racked up endorsements, such as those from former U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm; McMorrow, making her first run for federal office, has positioned herself as a more progressive Democrat who is less tied to the party’s establishment than Stevens but more politically experienced than El-Sayed, and has gotten endorsements from U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Chris Murphy of Connecticut and others.

The Free Press typically doesn’t cover individual political endorsements unless they are newsworthy. And in this case, Ocasio-Cortez’ endorsement doesn’t come as a surprise: Like El-Sayed, she is an unapologetic advocate for progressivism in the Democratic Party and she also endorsed him in 2018 as she was running for Congress for the first time and he had mounted an ultimately unsuccessful effort to win the party’s nomination for governor, losing to Gretchen Whitmer, who became governor.

Other progressive stalwarts, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, have also already endorsed El-Sayed.

But given Ocasio-Cortez’ national profile, she could be a potentially significant factor in bolstering the support El-Sayed has seen in what some progressive backers consider the most important primary of the year and one that could be determinative as to whether left-leaning candidates break through. Her endorsement − and any appearances, if she were to campaign for El-Sayed in Michigan − could also be helpful, given that absentee voting by mail has begun.

Also, unlike past election cycles, in this current one Ocasio-Cortez has been far more circumspect about handing out her endorsement, as she has been talked about as a potential candidate for president in 2028 or a challenger to Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York that year. Those endorsements have also seemingly paid off with her preferred candidates winning primaries this year in California, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

Ocasio-Cortez also has seemed more wary of endorsing in races where House colleagues have been challenged. But in endorsing El-Sayed, Ocasio-Cortez does so in a U.S. Senate race where Schumer has spoken publicly of his belief that Stevens, who was elected in the same class as Ocasio-Cortez and flipped a previously Republican district in Michigan, is better positioned to win in November.

Ocasio-Cortez’ endorsement of El-Sayed is her first in a competitive U.S. Senate race this year, as well. Taken together, it is indicative that Ocasio-Cortez expects El-Sayed to win the primary, despite Michigan’s history of electing more moderate Democrats to the U.S. Senate. (No Republican has won a U.S. Senate race in Michigan since Spencer Abraham in 1994 and he served a single term before being defeated.)

“Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez has changed the trajectory of American politics and inspired a generation to believe that government really can work for working people,” El-Sayed said in response to the endorsement. “She has spent her career taking on the powerful on behalf of everyday people and she has shown all of us what courageous, smart, values-driven leadership looks like. I am deeply honored to earn her endorsement.”

The state Republican Party, for one, was unimpressed, with spokesman Greg Manz calling it “the least surprising political news of the week.”

“It takes one unhinged, radical socialist to spot another, and Abdul El-Sayed has made it clear he’d rather push the reckless Green New Scam that would kill Michigan auto manufacturing jobs and support dangerous immigration policies that would allow illegal, criminal invaders into Michigan neighborhoods than protect hardworking Michigan families,” he said.

Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on X @tsspangler.

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Michigan

Michigan ‘defined’ by waves of immigration that keep shifting

Published

10 hours ago

July 2, 2026

Press Room

Michigan ‘defined’ by waves of immigration that keep shifting

Immigration has been a defining force in creating the nation’s identity over the last two and a half centuries and continues to shape the country and Michigan as the United States looks beyond its 250th birthday on Saturday.

That was on display in Southwest Detroit during a recent weekend event, as hundreds gathered for the unveiling of a state historical marker honoring a Latina activist.

“Michigan is defined by the efforts and cultures from the waves of immigrants who began to arrive when we were still a territory,” said Laurie Kay Sommers, a folklorist and historic preservationist based in Okemos, who has been writing about Michigan history and culture since the 1970s.

While the state was once shaped by waves of German, Irish, Dutch and Polish immigrants who arrived in the 19th century seeking job opportunities, especially as the auto industry exploded, immigration continues to play a key role in the state’s population.

Immigration is the sole reason the state’s population is growing, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures, adding 55,000 residents in the 21st century. Population counts are a key factor in determining how much federal aid flows to states, counties and communities through hundreds of federal programs, according to the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit government watchdog based in Washington, D.C.

“All the growth in Michigan between 2020 and 2025 is attributable to immigration,” demographer Kurt Metzger said. “In other words, we’ve gotten more people from other parts of the country than the rest of the country got from us.”

According to the American Immigration Council, about 7% of Michigan’s population was born in another country, while another 7% are native-born U.S. citizens but have at least one immigrant parent. Metro Detroit’s immigrant population is even higher at 10.7%.

The Trump administration has sought to rein in immigration, specifically those who’ve entered the country illegally. Heightened immigration and customs enforcement since the start of Trump’s second term, as well as executive orders, have led to court cases and clashes with activists across the country.

Trump touched on the dangers of illegal immigration during his June 24 remarks at the opening ceremony of the Great American State Fair in Washington, D.C., marking the start of celebrations for the nation’s 250th anniversary.

“We inherited the worst, most dangerous, most wide open and insecure border in history, and we have quickly turned into the strongest, most secure border in the history of our country,” said Trump, according to video of his remarks posted online by Fox News.

“We are removing murderers, gang members, drug dealers and dangerous criminals by the thousands. They came in through a ridiculous open border.”

How immigration has evolved in Michigan

Still, how Michigan immigrants are reshaping Michigan continues to evolve.

In Detroit, a city once made up of a wide range of immigrants, the southwest side is one of the city’s last ethnic enclaves. Home to thousands of Latinos, it reflects how the contributions of immigrants and their descendants have shaped Michigan even before it became a state in 1837.

The Smithsonian was one of the sponsors of an event Saturday that recognized part of southwest Detroit’s commercial corridor, full of Latino businesses, which is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In a separate event, about 100 people attended the Sunday unveiling of a State of Michigan historical marker in honor of Dr. Lucile “Luci” Cruz Arellano Gajec, a community organizer, author and historian, who died in 2008.

“It’s well-deserved and long overdue,” said Tobi Voigt, director of museums for the State of Michigan Historical Center, at the unveiling of the historical marker at 4000 W. Vernor.

Latino businesses in southwest Detroit are just one example of the way “Main Street” businesses in Metro Detroit rely on immigrants to own and operate restaurants, hardware stores, dry cleaners and pharmacies, to name a few professions, according to a recent study by nonprofit Global Detroit that explored the immigrant impact on the economy. Global Detroit said it advocates for “equitable local, regional and statewide economic growth through immigrant inclusion.”

The April report, called “Job Creators: How Immigrant and Diverse Entrepreneurs Drive Metro Detroit’s Prosperity,” found that while immigrants comprise 10.7% of Metro Detroit’s population, they make up 12.5% of the workforce, 18.4% of area business owners and 23.8% of “Main Street” business owners.

Like many immigrant business owners, Gias Uddin Talukder, a Bangladeshi immigrant, saw a niche that he could fill to help others in his community. In 2013, Talukder started Bengal Auto Sales, a used-car dealership in Hamtramck, to serve other Bangladeshi immigrants who have formed a community on the border of Hamtramck and Detroit.

“I want to be known as more than just a businessman; I want to be involved in lots of activities,” Talukder said in an interview with the nonprofit New Economy Initiative.

He has given cars away to those in need and has raised thousands of dollars for various charities.

The largest number of immigrant business owners in Metro Detroit were born in Iraq, according to the Global Detroit report. Organizations such as the Chaldean Chamber of Commerce and the Chaldean Free Loan Fund have invested millions of dollars to support start-up businesses within the Chaldean community, as well as services for immigrants and refugees.

The West Bloomfield-based Chaldean chamber said an estimated 59% of Chaldean households own at least one business.

“Immigrants are critical drivers of the small business economy and are well-represented among the region’s business owners despite their small share of the population,” the Global Detroit report said. “The facts rebut tropes that immigrants take jobs from U.S.-born workers. Immigrants expand the economy.”

Changing demographics

Still, data shows that the mix of those who come to Michigan from other countries is changing.

As the six-county Metro Detroit area continued to lose both Black and White residents in the last five years, the region experienced double-digit increases in the Asian and Latino populations.

In 2023, the region’s Asian population of 261,532 residents surpassed the Latino population’s total of 250,215. The latest Census data doesn’t fully capture the impact of Middle Eastern immigrants because, until recently, they were categorized as White. In 2024, President Joe Biden’s administration created the designation of Middle Eastern or North African (MENA) as a new federal race category.

The enduring influence of previous waves of immigration is felt in every part of the state, said Sommers, the Okemos-based historic preservationist. Whether it is the French names of cities like Detroit or Calumet, the former Finnish churches in the Upper Peninsula or the many local bakeries on the west side of the state that sell Dutch or Czech pastries, the impact can last through food and historical architecture.

“Much of Michigan’s surviving 19th and early 20th century buildings were built by immigrant carpenters, brick layers, iron workers,” Sommers said. “Much of the interior artistry of major architectural landmarks were decorated by immigrant artisans.”

Same immigration concerns, but a different century

Immigration at times has also created a backlash in the form of anti-immigration policies, nativist rhetoric and sometimes violence.

Much of the language and immigration policy of the Trump administration echoes the early 20th-century battles to halt the influx of Southern and Eastern Europeans, among others, said Ashley Bavery, an associate professor of history at Eastern Michigan University.

“There’s a lot of rhetoric about how immigrants are going to pollute the good Nordic and Protestant stock of America, and America is going to turn into something, kind of racially, that wasn’t right,” Bavery said. “They’re going to be too many Catholics and too many Russians and Poles, just to name a few.”

The Trump administration has justified its immigration enforcement efforts as an attempt to collar and expel criminals — whom Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has termed “the worst of the worst” — who entered the country illegally while deporting undocumented immigrants it has encountered.

There were federal laws a century or more ago that limited the flow of immigration. In Detroit, during the 1920s and throughout the Great Depression, the city’s police chief teamed up with a local federal representative of immigration services to conduct what they called “a deportation war,” Bavery said.

Bavery is the author of a 2020 book, “Bootlegged Aliens: Immigration Politics on America’s Northern Border,” that looks at the labeling of immigrants as criminals, among other things. The book examines the policies applied to combat “bootleggers,” the smugglers of Canadian alcohol across the Detroit River during Prohibition, who sometimes would also transport a handful of immigrants on the boats along with the illegal booze.

23.8% of ‘Main Street’ businesses owned by immigrants

The April report by Global Detroit found that while immigrants account for 18.4% of all the business owners in the region, they are 23.8% of the business owners of so-called “Main Street” businesses. Those include supermarkets and grocery stores, convenience stores, pharmacies, gas stations, as well as hotels and motels.

Behind Iraq, India ranks as the second most common country of origin for business owners in Metro Detroit, followed by Romania.

Still, the report found that barriers remain for many immigrant entrepreneurs, especially in accessing loans and grants.

“The region’s economic success will depend, in part, on its ability to spark, attract, retain and nurture a wide range of businesses from a diverse group of business owners,” the report said.

laguilar@detroitnews.com

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