Warren Mayor Lori Stone addresses a crowd during the annual State of the City address Oct. 21 at the Warren Community Center.
By: Brian Wells | Warren Weekly | Published October 24, 2025
WARREN — Warren Mayor Lori Stone said running the city has brought her many things over her term’s first 23 months.
“Completing my second year as mayor of Warren has been an honor and a privilege, working together with so many in the community to make Warren a better place to live, work, play and grow,” she said. “Leading the third-largest city in Michigan has brought me many joyful and jubilant experiences, and it has also brought challenges and surprises.”
Stone, who was elected as mayor in November 2023, held her second State of the City address Oct. 21. A crowd of residents, employees and city officials filled part of the auditorium at the Warren Community Center.
Much of her address focused on successful improvements and innovations in the city, including the growth in the area’s defense industry, infrastructure improvements and successes in the city’s public safety departments.
Stone celebrates growing defense industry
In April, Warren and Sterling Heights entered into an agreement to each contribute $250,000 annually to the Arsenal Alliance initiative. The initiative is aimed at bolstering the defense industry’s ties to the region.
“I’m really proud that I get to brag about the Arsenal Alliance,” Stone said. This is a partnership with Sterling Heights committed to the preservation and expansion of our shared $6.5 billion defense corridor. We are stronger together and growing military and defense assets providing opportunities for manufacturing to adapt to a changing mobility landscape.”
The agreement has helped keep the defense industry in Warren, Stone said. Additionally, she was also able to join the Macomb County Chamber to represent the city at Operation Northern Strike at Camp Grayling.
“The big picture is that beyond the Detroit Arsenal and the defense corridor, statewide military and defenses are built on layers from Selfridge to Camp Grayling, and only by working together across levels of government will we work to maintain our valuable military assets,” she said.
Mayor touts infrastructure improvements
While Stone mentioned several new housing projects, including the construction of a modular housing project west of Van Dyke Avenue and workforce housing units, she took time to address improvements to the city’s infrastructure, including the new Stephens Road Detention Basin, which the city held a ribbon-cutting for in February.
The project, which cost $37.5 million, is aimed at reducing basement flooding and sewer discharges into the Red Run.
“When I started and there was flooding, the only thing that we could do was wait for gravity,” Stone said. “Now, on several occasions, the Stevens Road Detention Basin has been utilized to pump water from inundated storm sewers to create space and time for our wastewater treatment plant to function as designed.”
A video was shown, highlighting the construction of the retention basin. The conclusion of the video was met with applause from the audience.
“Oh, Warren, we did that,” Stone said. “We did that.”
While Stone celebrated the retention basin, Councilwoman Mindy Moore said the plans for it had already been in place for several years.
“As much as she talked about the basin, that was all approved and done in 2019. All that happened this year was that it was opened,” she said.
City Councilman Jonathan Lafferty echoed the sentiment.
“Full credit belongs to (former Mayor James Fouts),” he said. “He is solely responsible for the inception of that project, its construction and eventual opening. Stone’s only responsibility was cutting the opening day ribbon.”
Address draws further criticism from Councilmembers
Lafferty said Stone’s address had a number of inaccuracies.
“The speech was a guessing game of facts, as everyone witnessed the mayor stumble from one topic to the next,” he said. “Stone’s inaccurate portrayal of supposed successes was simply embarrassing.”
Stone said in her address that the city had 31 boards and commissions. She said the city had filled 15 of them completely, and 16 still had vacancies before asking that residents serve on them.
Lafferty said the vacancies being filled shouldn’t be considered an accomplishment.
“These positions are vacant two years into her term. That’s not an accomplishment,” he said.
While Moore recognized the vacancies being filled, she pointed out that several critical vacancies had not been – specifically an appointment to the Veterans Commission and the Elected Officials Compensation Commission, which Moore said is state-mandated.
The Elected Officials Compensation Commission, Lafferty said, is responsible for setting the pay for the mayor, clerk, treasurer and council.
Both Lafferty and Moore also chided the mayor for talking about the south Warren microforest, which both said looked like a blighted property.
“It’s a beautiful idea, but poorly executed, and the residents in that neighborhood are complaining about how terrible the project looks,” Lafferty said.
Additionally, Moore said she’s familiar with the current state of the city and was hoping to hear more about the mayor’s plans to move the city forward. Traditionally, the address is held in the spring, and the mayor’s plans help the Council create a budget.
“Of course, we’re very, very far from the budget. We just passed one. It went into effect July 1. So we’re just a few months into this budget year, and I don’t know what any of the plans are for the future,” she said.
Lafferty said the speech showed a lack of vision for the city. Instead of appointing an economic development director, he suggests the mayor should appoint a team of qualified economic leaders to help move the city forward under a mayoral vision.
“Future development begins with the vision, and the mayor must demonstrate the ability to lead and make the necessary appointments to inspire that vision to reality,” Lafferty said. “The speech lacked all of those elements that one would expect to hear. Sure, laud your successes, celebrate the people that made those things happen, and then talk about the future. What’s next for Warren?”