Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick took his text message scandal to the Michigan Supreme Court on Friday, urging justices to strike down decisions from two lower courts to provide the public with secret documents he used to settle police whistle-blower lawsuits last year for $8.4 million...Any port in a storm, but this is highly suspicious. Loved the comment about "packing time," though. Even better is the "drag on the forward progress of the city" bit; just what exactly is a drag on the forward progress? The rampant crime and poor law enforcement? Or, you know...enforcing the law?City Council members said they were disappointed.
Councilman Kwame Kenyatta said in a statement, "Either the mayor has something to hide or he's buying packing time."
Councilwoman Barbara-Rose Collins said, "I'd like this to be over. For me, this is just dragging it out longer and longer and longer. The city needs to get back to the business of governing."
Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel expressed concern that the scandal, which sprang from a Jan. 23 Free Press report revealing the contents of damaging text messages between Kilpatrick and his then-chief of staff, Christine Beatty, is turning into "a continuing drama."
"At some point this is going to be a drag on the forward progress of the city," she said.
Legal experts gave Kilpatrick slim chances of winning.
It isn't looking too good for Mr. Mayor. Of course, we've all known for a long time now that this man is incredibly corrupt, but the question really is this: what's going to happen to him? You know what? No matter what happens here, I'm betting he keeps his spot. But that's not the tragedy. The tragedy is that all Detroit needs is good governance to clean up crime, but the city is just going to keep on electing the criminals.
Anyway, the Freep has an article about the growing importance of the city's auditor general:
Detroit Auditor General Loren Monroe has spent his first two years on the job in relative obscurity, but that's about to change in a big way.Where is someone who "clashes publicly" with a corrupt mayor when you need him? Anyway, the Detroit City Council members are really growing on me:The City Council has ordered Monroe's office to audit every financial transaction made by Kwame Kilpatrick's office during his six years as mayor and all legal expenses it incurred.
The audit is part of the council's investigation into the text message scandal involving Kilpatrick...
Monroe's quiet approach is opposite that of his predecessor Joseph Harris, who would speak frequently on the state of the city's budget and clash publicly with Kilpatrick and council members.
Harris said he was on hand when Monroe presented the budget report to the council in 2007, and his performance confirmed what he said former colleagues at the office had been telling him about problems with summarizing and answering questions.
"The first thing that came to mind was that he wasn't presenting," Harris said.
Despite his criticism of Monroe's skills, Harris said he has confidence in the work of the staff in the auditor general's office.
"That's where the report comes from," said Harris, who is not involved in Detroit government anymore. "My guess is that you'll get a very good report."
Hehe.In 2007, when he presented the auditor general's annual assessment of the mayor's budget recommendation, some council members criticized him for relying on his prepared text and delegating most of the council members' questions to his staff.
At the time, Council President Ken Cockrel Jr. said he expected Monroe to have command of all the information in the report and be able to answer most questions on his own.
Cockrel said if Monroe's staff had been hit by a bus that morning, "this probably would have been a five-minute presentation."
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