COMMERCE TWP, Mich. (FOX 2) – A man who feared treatment for Lung Cancer is now cancer free after receiving help from a team of health experts. 

65-year-old Glen Cannon from Detroit began smoking a pack a day since he was 12-years-old. He was diagnosed with stage three lung cancer in May 2023.

“In the black community we’re so ill-informed about what cancer is,” said Cannon. “It was like a gut punch from Mike Tyson.”

Cannon did not want chemotherapy, immune therapy, or radiation. He was told radiation would burn him up. 

Tammy Pouget is an oncology nurse navigator at DMC Huron Valley Sinai Hospital, who helped Glen overcome his fears by feeding him knowledge.

“Do you find it’s more prevalent, the uncertainty of medical treatment, in the black community than other communities?” asked FOX 2’s Charlie Langton.

“I would say it is more prevalent, but I believe most patients diagnosed with cancer really do not have a lot of knowledge,” answered Pouget.

One little weird remedy: Glen’s doctor was a big Prince fan, and Glen used to do promotional work in the 90s for Prince.

“He loved Prince. I worked for Prince, and we bonded. We clicked,” he said. “It’s kind of creepy.”

Creepy or not, Glen beat lung cancer as of September 2024. But he does have a message, especially during Lung Cancer Awareness Month.  

“To the black community, the best thing that you could do for yourself, whether you feel good or not, is go and get screened.”
 

A newly released review of the planned reconstruction of Detroit’s Interstate 375 proposes several alternate designs, including making the area more walkable once the freeway is removed, minimizing displacement and economic impact, while recognizing harms done to Black neighborhoods by the original construction.

The analysis, detailed in a 104-page report for the Detroit Downtown Partnership and funded by the Kresge Foundation, includes several recommendations different from what the Michigan Department of Transportation has proposed. Among them: eliminating the currently planned median in favor of more pedestrian space along the road; putting trees in population-dense areas; and creating an interchange that includes room for homes and businesses rather than just vehicle traffic.

“The I-375 Reconnecting Communities project is at a critical moment of design development,” the peer analysis states. Testing alternative roadway and interchange designs, along with land use scenarios and economic and reparative impact, “has unearthed several near- and long-term opportunities that can inform how project partners and the community can maximize restorative, reparative and reconnective impacts and outcomes created by the removal of the highway.”

MDOT plans to tear up the sunken I-375, update the Interstate 75 interchange and replace I-375 with a street-level boulevard connecting Jefferson Avenue and I-75, lined with businesses and homes. The agency’s goal is to begin work late in 2025, and MDOT has held a series of public meetings about the project.

MDOT Spokesman Rob Morosi didn’t comment on whether the peer analysis will change any of the agency’s plans for 375 but said it appreciates the Downtown Detroit Partnership’s efforts. The partnership oversees the city’s downtown parks.

“Overall, this was a very positive process that yielded tangible improvements to the conceptual design,” said Morosi in an email. “We appreciate the efforts DDP and all our partners put forth on this endeavor. We are aligned in our goal for a project that prioritizes pedestrian safety and connectivity while providing equitable access to neighborhoods and downtown destinations.”

The analysis was conducted by three firms: Urban American City, or urbanAC; Toole Design Group; and HR&A Advisors.

When I-375 was built in the 1960s, 28 local street connections were removed between Mack and Jefferson that connected the city’s historic Paradise Valley and Black Bottom neighborhoods to downtown and adjacent communities. It displaced roughly approximately 2,600 residents and families.

Eric Larson, CEO of the Downtown Detroit Partnership, which ordered the peer review analysis of the plans for 375, said he recognizes the need to minimize losses for businesses in the shadow of the project’s construction, a concern raised at public meetings held by MDOT.

“You never, ever want to lose any ground, especially having come off of some of the really challenging years that we have not so distant in our rearview mirror,” Larson said. “And so from a partnership standpoint, we are going to be working just as hard as we do every day on making sure that the destination that downtown has become, the very robust opportunities that downtown represents, continue to be top of mind.”

The analysis details five key recommendations for the possible redesign of 375. They include: designing the boulevard that will replace 375 “for people and vibrant street life, rather than high-speed vehicles”; putting trees where people are; and considering eliminating the median in favor of enhancing pedestrian spaces.”

The partnership’s report also lays out three hypothetical land use scenarios along the reconstructed boulevard, with estimates for the economic and social benefits from each, in terms of measures such as job creation, income taxes and new housing units. One vision prioritizes housing, another focuses on a cultural heritage district and a third designed around sports and recreation.

The analysis estimates a housing-focused scenario, for example, could lead to more than 3,200 units in the heart of Detroit.

The report also includes a 2022 quote from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg about the historic harm done to Black communities by transportation projects, which the Buttigieg said has sometimes been deliberate, and which the downtown partnership said is critical to address.

“…Some of the planners and politicians behind those [transportation] projects built them directly through the heart of vibrant, populated, communities — sometimes in an effort to reinforce segregation. Sometimes because the people there had less power to resist,” Buttigieg said in the report. “And sometimes as part of a direct effort to replace or eliminate Black neighborhoods. … There’s nothing sacred about the status quo.”

(CBS DETROIT) – Former Detroit Deputy Mayor Todd Bettison returns to the police force as the city’s interim police chief.

Bettison, who worked in the Detroit Police Department for 27 years, was sworn in on Tuesday by City Clerk Janice Winfrey.

“It’s nothing more than I can think of that I would want to do; it means everything,” Bettison told reporters.

Bettison takes over after Police Chief James White stepped down to become CEO of Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network. The City of Detroit’s longtime advisor, Melia Howard, has been named the new deputy mayor.

Bettison joined DPD in 1994 as a patrol officer and was later promoted to sergeant and then lieutenant within six years. He served as first assistant chief under White before stepping down in 2022 to become deputy mayor. 

On Oct. 25, Mayor Mike Duggan appointed Bettison as interim chief, saying, “I hate to lose him as Deputy Mayor, but this job is so critical that I’m just so pleased we had somebody ready to step in.”

Now as interim police chief, Bettison says he’s ready to get to work. 

“I am going to lead with distinction, with honor, and I got their back,” he said.

Bettison is familiar with police operations and believes his appointment will be a smooth transition of power within the department. Some of the most important issues he’s focusing on are reducing crime, slowing down reckless driving and retaining DPD police officers.

Bettison says the goal is to build on the past improvements under White and be as transparent as possible for the community.

“I got the support of the men and women in the Detroit Police Department as well as the executive leadership team who I already know. I know them, and they know me,” he said. “I am going to be an over-communicator, so that’s one thing you can expect from my administration.

Bettison says he knows that the interim position is temporary but believes he is the right choice for police chief and will be permanent.