Zut Alors!

Oust mayor, Granholm asked

nobody@vox.com(Xtine) — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:08:00 -0700

City Council also to pursue Kilpatrick's removal from office
By Zachary Gorchow and Naomi R. Patton
Free Press Staff Writers
May 13, 2008

The Detroit City Council has just voted to launch a two-track effort to remove Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick from office by both beginning its own process and asking Gov. Jennifer Granholm to oust him.

The vote was 5-4 as the council made an historic move to topple a mayor.

A delicate majority in favor of removing Kilpatrick managed to hold together overnight.

Voting yes were Council President Ken Cockrel Jr and Councilmembers Sheila Cockrel, Brenda Jones, Kwame Kenyatta and JoAnn Watson. Voting no were Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers and Councilmembers Barbara-Rose Collins, Martha Reeves and Alberta Tinsley-Talabi.

Both processes are expected to take months. The council set an initial public hearing for its removal hearings of June 13.

The independent attorney hired by the council to assist with its investigation, Bill Goodman, estimated that it would take two months for the council to complete removal hearings and then – if the council actually votes to oust Kilpatrick – another year for the mayor’s appeals to play out in the courts.

How long it will take Granholm to determine Kilpatrick’s fate is unclear. Despite today’s vote, the council must still submit to the governor’s office a formal sworn statement requesting she remove Kilpatrick from office.

The law giving Granholm the power to remove elected local officials does not give a timetable for action.

The last time a governor conducted removal hearings on a local official was 1982 – for a West Bloomfield Township official accused of public drunkenness. Gov. William Milliken ordered the official to quit drinking or be removed.

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Detroit deputy mayor warns council that if tunnel deal fails, expect cuts

nobody@vox.com(Xtine) — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:08:16 -0700

By Zachary Gorchow and Naomi Patton
Free Press Staff Writers
May 2, 2008

A top aide to Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick warned the City Council today that Kilpatrick will implement “drastic cuts” in services [NB: What services? We don't have any services anymore, you witling!] if the council doesn’t approve a proposed deal to sell the city’s half of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel.

Deputy Mayor Anthony Adams told the council the mayor would not support selling bonds to patch the $65-million hole in the 2007-08 fiscal year budget if the city doesn’t sell its half of the tunnel to a new authority run jointly by the cities of Detroit and Windsor. Under the deal, the city would transfer title on its half of the tunnel to the authority and the city of Windsor would in turn provide Detroit with $75 million.

But Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel said she wouldn’t bow to scare tactics. Cockrel said the deal may make sense, but is so complex and said the administration continues to provide information about it in a piecemeal manner at the last minute.

“I’m not going to get bullied into a transaction no matter how conceptually great it may be,” she said.

Adams responded that he wasn’t bullying anyone.

“I’m speaking to the hard fiscal realities in our city,” he said.

That prompted Cockrel to retort that instead of threatening to cut city services, the mayor should start “with all the family and friends with all the contracts in city government.”

Adams said he wanted to know what contracts to which Cockrel was referring.

“We’ll have that for you real soon,” Cockrel shot back.

In other work on the budget, Auditor General Loren Monroe told the council today he is concerned the budget's projected revenues are based on revenues such as the tunnel sale; a $25-million credit from the Police and Fire Retirement System pension fund; $22.3 million for the sale of surplus city-owned property; and $194.8 million in casino taxes.

The sales transactions have not be finalized, city officials have not completed negotiations for the pension fund credit, and the projected casino revenues were "overstated" by about $12.9 million, Monroe said.

When asked by Cockrel if the inclusion of these projected revenues in to the mayor's proposed budget really "translate in to a possible deficit," Monroe was noncommittal. The mayor’s office has said it expects the 2007-08 budget to end balanced, but the council’s Fiscal Analysis Division has projected a $113-million deficit.

Monroe said the budget "would be kind of risky based on those assumptions."

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House committee threatens Rove with subpoena

nobody@vox.com(Xtine) — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:15:42 -0700

By BEN EVANS
1 May 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Judiciary Committee threatened Thursday to subpoena former White House adviser Karl Rove if he does not agree by May 12 to testify about former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman's corruption case.

In a letter to Rove's attorney, committee Democrats called it "completely unacceptable" that the Republican political strategist has rejected the panel's request for sworn testimony even as he discusses the matter publicly through the media.

"We can see no justification for his refusal to speak on the record to the committee," the letter states. "We urge you and your client to reconsider ... or we will have no choice but to consider the use of compulsory process."

Committee Democrats are investigating whether Rove and Republican appointees at the Justice Department influenced Siegelman's prosecution to kill his chances for re-election. It is part of a broader inquiry into whether U.S. attorneys were fired for not aggressively pursuing cases against Democrats.

Siegelman, a Democrat who served one term as governor after being elected in 1998, was convicted in 2006 on bribery and other charges and sentenced to more than seven years in prison. He was recently released on bond pending appeal.

Last year, Alabama attorney and one-time Republican campaign volunteer Jill Simpson, told the committee under oath that she heard conversations among GOP operatives in 2002 suggesting that Rove was pushing the Justice Department to pursue a conviction against Siegelman. She also has said Rove asked her in 2001 to find evidence that Siegelman was cheating on his wife.

Rove, who frequently worked in Alabama politics before orchestrating President Bush's White House campaigns, has denied having anything to do with the case. In a recent magazine article, he called Simpson a "complete lunatic" and said he had never heard of her.

The career prosecutors who handled Siegelman's case also have denied any political influence.

Thursday's threat marks the latest development in a lengthy standoff between President Bush and Congress over testimony from current and former White House staffers.

The committee has issued or threatened subpoenas to more than half a dozen administration officials and is suing White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former presidential counsel Harriet Miers for refusing to comply with subpoenas on the U.S. attorney firings.

The White House has generally maintained that their testimony is off-limits from congressional oversight under executive privilege.

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, maintains that Rove must defer to that position. But as the White House has offered on other matters, Luskin wrote the committee this week that Rove would discuss the Siegelman case on the condition that his comments not be under oath and not be transcribed.

Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., and several other lawmakers rejected the offer, saying such an interview "will not permit us to obtain a straightforward and clear record."

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Police question Israeli PM about foreign campaign donations

nobody@vox.com(Xtine) — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:52:28 -0700

By ARON HELLER
The Associated Press
Friday, May 2, 2008

JERUSALEM -- Police questioned Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Friday in an investigation of campaign donations by a U.S. citizen - the fifth high-profile probe involving the Israeli leader whose popularity has badly suffered because of the repeated charges of corruption.

Olmert's office predicted he would weather the latest storm, but it threatened to further weaken his hold on power and potentially derail peace talks with Palestinians.

With a court-imposed gag order limiting information about the investigation, it isn't clear what allegations police are looking into, but Israeli law restricts how much politicians can get from donors. Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's son, Omri, is in jail for receiving donations that far exceeded the ceiling.

Olmert was questioned under caution, indicating police believed their interrogation could result in an indictment. If Olmert was indicted, he would have to resign. A decision on formal charges was at least months away.

Investigators arrived at Olmert's official residence in Jerusalem at midmorning and questioned him for 90 minutes, police said. Police would not disclose further information, citing the gag order.

Olmert's office said the questions dealt with donations raised by an American citizen between 1999 and 2002, before Olmert became prime minister. The money was meant to finance elections for the mayorship of Jerusalem and primaries in Olmert's former political party, Likud, the office said.

Olmert, a former Jerusalem mayor, was elected prime minister two years ago and heads another party, Kadima.

"The prime minister answered all of the investigators' questions on the subject, and will continue to cooperate with all legal authorities to the extent he is required to do so," the statement from Olmert's office said.

Another statement from Olmert's office Thursday said he "is convinced that with the discovery of the truth in the police investigation, the suspicions against him will dissipate."

Olmert is already a suspect in several corruption affairs involving real estate deals and questionable political appointments. He has been questioned several times in the past by police but has never been charged.

Labor party lawmaker Shelly Yachimovich, a member of Olmert's governing coalition, called the scope of charges swirling around the prime minister "unprecedented" and said he should suspend himself immediately.

"It has been proven beyond any doubt that the prime minister can't be under serial investigations and also suspected of crimes and also lead the country," she told Israel Radio.

Gideon Saar, a lawmaker in the opposition Likud, which has a big lead over Olmert's party in opinion polls, urged Labor to quit the Olmert-led government of "serial suspects" - a move that could cause the government to fall and force early elections.

"Olmert is the most-investigated prime minister in the history of Israel, and he is surrounded by people whose are related to the greatest number of criminal affairs in the history of Israel," Saar said.

Yoel Hasson, a Kadima lawmaker, came to Olmert's defense.

"From past experiences, we know that all the investigations started with a lot of noise and ended with nothing," he said. "The political system should not get hysterical and take brash political actions that will unsettle the government."

Israel's attorney general has ordered two criminal investigation into suspicions that Olmert acted improperly while he was trade minister. He is also suspected of improprieties in the purchase of a house in Jerusalem.

In November, police recommended closing another case involving allegations that he tried to steer a government bank sale in the direction of supporters.

Some of Olmert's close political allies have also had legal troubles. His finance minister had to step down under embezzlement suspicions, and another - now the country's vice premier - was convicted of sexual misconduct for forcibly kissing a female soldier.

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Group Urges Ban on Medical Giveaways

nobody@vox.com(Xtine) — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:37:21 -0700

By GARDINER HARRIS
The New York Times
Published: April 28, 2008

Drug and medical device companies should be banned from offering free food, gifts, travel and ghost-writing services to doctors, staff members and students in all 129 of the nation’s medical colleges, an influential college association has concluded.

The proposed ban is the result of a two-year effort by the group, the Association of American Medical Colleges, to create a model policy governing interactions between the schools and industry. While schools can ignore the association’s advice, most follow its recommendations.

Rob Restuccia, executive director of the Prescription Project, a nonprofit group dedicated to eliminating conflicts of interest in medicine, said the report would transform medical education.

“Most medical schools do not have strong conflict-of-interest policies, and this report will change that,” Mr. Restuccia said.

The rules would apply only to medical schools, but they could have enormous influence across medicine, said Dr. David Rothman, president of the Institute on Medicine as a Profession at Columbia University.

“We’re hoping the example set by academic medical colleges will be contagious,” Dr. Rothman said.

Drug companies spend billions wooing doctors — more than they spend on research or consumer advertising. Medical schools, packed with prominent professors and impressionable trainees, are particularly attractive marketing targets.

So companies have for decades provided faculty and students free food and gifts, offered lucrative consulting arrangements to top-notch teachers and even ghost-wrote research papers for busy professors.

“Such forms of industry involvement tend to establish reciprocal relationships that can inject bias, distort decision-making and create the perception among colleagues, students, trainees and the public that practitioners are being ‘bought’ or ‘bribed’ by industry,” the report said.

A group of influential doctors decried these practices in a 2006 article in The Journal of the American Medical Association, and said that medical schools should ban them. In the article’s wake, the medical college association created a task force.

With Dr. Roy Vagelos, a former Merck chief executive, serving as the task force’s chairman and the chief executives of Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Amgen and Medtronic on the roster, some who advocate for greater restrictions on industry influence in medicine predicted that the report would be weak.

They were wrong.

In addition to the gift, food and travel bans, the report recommended that medical schools should “strongly discourage participation by their faculty in industry-sponsored speakers’ bureaus,” in which doctors are paid to promote drug and device benefits.

It recommended that schools set up centralized systems for accepting free drug samples or “alternative ways to manage pharmaceutical sample distribution that do not carry the risks to professionalism with which current practices are associated.” It suggested that schools audit independently accredited medical education seminars given by faculty “for the presence of inappropriate influence.” And it said the rules should apply to faculty even when off-duty or away from school.

Speakers’ bureaus and drug samples are pillars of the industry’s marketing operations, and many medical school professors have resisted efforts to restrict them. Only a handful of medical schools presently bar faculty members from serving on speakers’ bureaus, so if this recommendation is widely adopted, it could transform the relationship between medical school faculty and industry, and it could change substantially the way medical education is routinely delivered.

Indeed, the chief executives of Pfizer and Eli Lilly dissented from the report’s recommendation regarding speakers’ bureaus.

“We continue to believe that these types of programs, which are subject to clear regulations regarding their content, can be worthwhile educational activities,” wrote Jeffrey B. Kindler of Pfizer and Sidney Taurel of Lilly.

David Beier, an Amgen senior vice president, wrote a letter that endorsed the report’s recommendations but disagreed with some of its text “because we have a different view about the accuracy concerning representations about the motives of the participants in industry-academic interactions.”

Ken Johnson of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said his group would review the report.

“Providing physicians — and medical students — with timely, accurate information about the medicines they prescribe clearly benefits patients and advances healthcare throughout the United States,” Mr. Johnson said.

Dr. Robert J. Alpern, dean of the Yale School of Medicine, said that the university presently had no limits on participation in company speakers’ bureaus, but that because of the medical college association’s report he was thinking of taking them on.

“I don’t have a problem with doctors making $3,000 or $5,000 a year on the side,” he said, “but it’s a totally different thing when it’s $80,000.” Even more distasteful, Dr. Alpern said, is that the slides used in many of these presentations are created by drug makers, not the speakers.

“That’s like ghost-talking,” Dr. Alpern said.

Dr. Arthur S. Levine, dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, said that when he graduated from medical school in 1964, Eli Lilly gave him his first doctor’s bag, and Roche gave him an Omega watch for being valedictorian. He still has the watch.

But this year’s graduating class of doctors at Pittsburgh will not be allowed to accept any of these gifts, and the daily pizza lunches brought by drug companies are gone, he said.

Julie Gottlieb, assistant dean of policy coordination for Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said Hopkins had adopted some of the association’s recommendations and was considering others.

“This report is bound to influence our deliberations,” she said.

Dr. Vagelos, formerly of Merck, said that the report’s recommendations were certain to face resistance among faculty who liked the present system.

“The outcome of this for the industry is that those companies that are strong in science will always be welcome at medical colleges and others won’t,” Dr. Vagelos said.

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Thank Gawd for Wonkette

nobody@vox.com(Xtine) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:55:50 -0700

ROBBER BARONS

John McCain Funded By The Freaking ROTHSCHILDS

For somebody who's always accusing his opponents of being "out of touch" with the Working Man, John McCain sure does hang out with a lot of fat-cat plutocrats who don't even have the decency to be American. On a recent visit to the tony U.K. — a nation populated entirely by decadent, incestuous polo players with "smart" accents and harelips — McCain attended a fundraising luncheon hosted by Lord Rothschild and Nathaniel Rothschild. The problem is, American candidates aren't allowed to take campaign contributions from such fancy foreign nationals as the Rothschilds! But does "hosting" an event constitute a "contribution"?

According to watchdog group Judicial Watch, yes! But then again, they also thought that Elton John, a known Englishman, should not have performed at a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. However, this objection had more to do with violating the laws of good taste than campaign finance regulations.

McCain accused of accepting improper donations from Rothschilds [Guardian]

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Mayor Kilpatrick's legal fund backers have ties that bind

nobody@vox.com(Xtine) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 11:36:52 -0700

Key fundraisers have city contracts, but deny conflict of interest.

Christine MacDonald and David Josar / The Detroit News

Thursday, April 24, 2008

DETROIT -- Key players on Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's legal defense fundraising team have at least $5 million in current or pending city contracts, and others stand to make much more from the mayor's proposed $300 million economic stimulus project if he remains in office.

Of the 13 known committee members on Kilpatrick's Detroit Justice Fund, at least five have Detroit contracts or other financial ties to city business or the mayor. Fund members, four of whom live in Detroit, are raising money to pay lawyers who will seek to exonerate Kilpatrick of felony charges stemming from the text-message scandal and whistle-blowers' lawsuits.

Attorney David Baker Lewis is one of the fundraisers with the strongest City Hall financial interests. Kilpatrick wants Lewis' law firm as a counsel on his stimulus bond sale. Another is banker Donald Davis, who has two proposed contracts, including one for $4.6 million to lease computer software to the city.

Some critics say it's a conflict of interest to tap city contractors for help in raising money to cover the mayor's legal fees.

"By any standard definition ... about what a conflict of interest is, this is one," said Wayne Norman, an ethics professor at Duke University, who added that just the perception of a conflict, without evidence of wrongdoing, can undermine citizens' trust. "He is supposed to do what is best for the city. ... The fact that a citizen can reasonably wonder about that undermines the trust in the office and institution."

But some of the fund's members say they've done city work for decades -- long before the scandal and $8.4 million whistle-blower settlement. They say they just want to assure that Kilpatrick can afford to mount a good defense.

"My motive is not to get rich," said the Rev. Horace Sheffield III of New Galilee Baptist Church, denying a connection between fundraising and his $220,000 in current city contracts. "I think (Kilpatrick) is a gifted young man and needs support.

"If I am in trouble, I am not going to expect people I haven't helped to help me. That's the way it is."

Of Sheffield's two city contracts, he said one is for about $100,000 to teach people how to create nonprofits, and he said he has held the annual contract for more than 20 years. A more recent $120,000 contract is intended to teach young adults job skills.

Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel said the connections create at least the appearance of a troubling conflict, and she plans to grill Kilpatrick staffers about upcoming contracts in the budget committee she heads.

"The question is what is the relationship between the award of these contracts" and the Detroit Justice Fund, Cockrel said.

The defense committee members were picked in an "organic process" facilitated by the mayor, said Marcus Reese, a spokesman from Strategic Impact Strategies LLC, an East Coast-based company hired by the mayor to shape his side of the story.

"Most, if not all, of these people are strong supporters of the mayor who think he will be vindicated," Reese said.

As for conflicts of interest, Reese said there is "none."

The fund will become vital for Kilpatrick, a career politician who makes about $176,000 a year, as he racks up legal and public relations bills. Privately some of his advisors have estimated that tally will reach $2 million.

By comparison, President Clinton raised about $6 million through his defense fund but faced about $10 million in legal bills when he was under fire in the Monica Lewinsky controversy.

Who has ties

Among the Detroit Justice Fund members who have financial ties to the city:

• Lewis' law firm billed Detroit more than $300,000 for representing the mayor in the whistle-blower suits, and Kilpatrick is recommending the firm as counsel for the bond sale that would finance the mayor's economic stimulus plan. James Canning, a Kilpatrick spokesman, wouldn't provide the contract value.

The Lewis & Munday law firm has long-standing ties with the mayor, representing him personally in a recount challenge to the 2005 general election, as well as helping with police discipline cases and providing legal advice to the Detroit Building Authority, which manages capital improvements.

Lewis, who declined comment when contacted by The Detroit News, has done city work with his various firms since the 1970s.

• Davis runs two companies with pending contracts before the Detroit City Council, including the software proposal.

He is chairman of First Independence Bank, which already manages some city money, and chairman of Minority Alliance Capital, a joint venture between First Independence and two other minority banks.

Kilpatrick, who proposes contracts generally for council approval, wants the bank to be an investment manager for the stimulus bond sale and would be "managing money" for the city, Canning said. He wouldn't provide figures Wednesday on how much the city would pay Independence Bank for that service.

The mayor's office would not answer questions on how or why they selected First Independence Bank to help with the bond issue. Documents that Kilpatrick submitted to the council listed the bank as a trustee but Canning said that wasn't accurate.

Davis sees no conflict of interest with either contract. He said the five-year, $4.6 million Minority Alliance Capital software contract was an open bid and his proposal was the best. He did say his work with the bond project wasn't competitively bid by the city.

Davis said he is a part of the mayor's defense fund effort because he believes in the "constitutional right of due process."

"I don't think due process is a conflict of interest," he added.

• A. Gregory Eaton, of the high-powered Lansing-based lobbying firm of Karoub Associates, has a business partner who recently sold property to the city. Eaton's partner in Metro Cars, Cullen Meathe, bought a warehouse near Tiger Stadium in 2002 for $3.5 million and then sold it to the city two years later for $8.6 million. The building now will be used for the city's forensic crime lab, which would be funded through the mayor's proposed bond sale.

Eaton said his job is to solicit donations. "Some people say 'No,' some say 'Hell no,' some say 'Yes,'" he explained.

Kilpatrick served five years in the state House; Eaton's lobbying firm is among the most influential in the capital.

"It's like your son is in trouble, tells you he's made mistakes and you want to help," Eaton said.

• Donald Watkins, a Birmingham, Ala., lawyer considered to be among the nation's wealthiest African Americans, was recruited by Kilpatrick to open a branch of his bank, Alamerica, to fill the void created when Comerica, which has provided City Hall banking services, moved its headquarters to Texas.

"He was not what the media portrayed ... he wasn't the hip-hop mayor or wearing an earring," said Watkins, who met the mayor once."I've not started fundraising yet but I've helped suggest some legal counsel," said Watkins, who got HealthSouth Chief Executive Officer Richard Scrushy acquitted of 36 charges in 2005.

Watkins said he convinced Kilpatrick to hire James W. Parkman III as part of his legal team. Parkman helped represent Scrushy.

Watkins hasn't decided whether to open a branch of Albama-based Alamerica Bank in Detroit.

"We're waiting to see what will happen with the current situation, if it will blow over," he said.

'Why should I?'

Among prominent CEOs contacted by The News, Roger Penske, Jim Nicholson and Dan Gilbert declined to say whether they'd contribute, or even if they have had recent discussions with Kilpatrick.

In fact, they've been silent throughout the unfolding scandal.

Former Piston and successful entrepreneur Dave Bing said the fund won't see a dime from him.

"Why should I?" asked Bing. "I don't think there's a reason.

"I have money invested in the city. I've invested my money where I want to, where it's most needed."

A spokesman for Compuware CEO Peter Karmanos, who gave $100,000 to one of the mayor's Political Action Committees in 2005, said the businessman hasn't been approached as a donor. But he'd "probably give" if asked

"The mayor deserves a good defense and that's not showing prejudice one way or the other," said Karmanos spokesman Jason Vines.

Reese, the spokesman for Kilpatrick's PR firm, says no running total of contributions is available.

Updates on committee members and how much has been raised will be disclosed according to the IRS reporting requirement for a tax-exempt 527 group, he said.

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Let mayor be, see all it gets us

nobody@vox.com(Xtine) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 10:56:44 -0700

BY ROCHELLE RILEY
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
April 24, 2008

Quit playing.

The mayor and his chief of staff, according to the county prosecutor, use a city two-way to discuss a fired cop and steamy hookups?

I know I've been gone for eight months, but stop me when I'm lying.

They both then take the stand when the officer sues and say they did not fire him and they never had an affair? And the mayor rejects calls to resign from residents and the Detroit City Council, but then declares that his chief of staff's resignation was appropriate? And he thinks he can still govern in the coming months while spending all day, every day, in court?

In the next week or so, the lawyer the council has hired to make heads or tails of this mess is to release his findings. Those findings could lead the council to try to remove the mayor or at least recover the $8.4-million cop trial settlement it was duped into OK'ing.

Meanwhile, the city sits in two paralyzed camps, its renaissance in jeopardy. What should the city do?

Leave the mayor alone.

Kwame Kilpatrick, facing the biggest scandal of his scandal-plagued administration, is the leader Detroit deserves. If a city of 900,000 people who have survived fire and national scorn and crushing poverty and bad leadership wants to be led by a man who finds it hard to admit that he has done something stupid, then leave the mayor alone.

If we crave a nationally televised trial -- and additional text messages we haven't seen -- that will damage lives and destroy progress, then leave the mayor alone. But during the trial, let us lament what might have been. Kwame Kilpatrick was Barack Obama before Barack Obama was Barack Obama. If Kilpatrick, the spirited and inspired young lawyer-teacher, had headed to Washington instead of trying to turn his hometown into a fiefdom, he might have become president one day. But instead of becoming Obama, he is O.J. Simpson with a legal Dream Team set for a trial where the glove will eventually fit.

The circus comes to town

The trial will be part of a traveling circus of dishonor that began with New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey standing with his wife to announce that his gender preference did not include her and continued with New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer standing with his wife to announce that his sexual preference did not include her. Both men dishonored their families, their positions and their states. And they quit. Kilpatrick also has dishonored his family, his position and his city. Then he appeared on TV to apologize without saying why and said he wouldn't leave even though his presence risks the progress he claims the city deserves.

And that is at the heart of the Kilpatrick Khaos that envelopes Detroit now. Six years ago, Kilpatrick became more than mayor. He became Detroit, its persona, its symbol. When he became the hip-hop mayor, Detroit became the hip-hop capital, a place that drew rap impresario Russell Simmons for summits with Eminem. When the mayor became a larger-than-life national star, even inspiring the performance of Chris Rock in a movie about the first black president, the mayor and the city became inseparable.

But here's the problem: When the mayor was pop star Britney Spears, the world loved him, wanted to hang with him, wanted to party with him, laud him, close deals with him. Detroit looked good. But when the mayor becomes panty-less dope fiend Britney Spears, the world shuns him, doesn't invite him to the same parties, won't defend him in public, and treats him, as the City Council did last week, like Bobo the Clown. Detroit looks bad.

And this isn't the time for Detroit to look bad, not when it is struggling with a renaissance that will mean the difference between its becoming a strong urban center or a large suburb of Southfield. Detroit's population has dropped 40% in 40 years; its tax revenues don't match its needs; its residents, according to surveys and education statistics, still believe that factory jobs trump education. And residents decry the loss of 1,000 police officers and having to pay a fee for trash pickup.

Despite that, Kilpatrick has scored touchdowns, from hosting the 2006 Super Bowl to overseeing an amazing waterfront redevelopment. And his greatest success so far is still intact. On Wednesday, Quicken Loans Chairman Dan Gilbert said that the relocation of his company and 4,000 employees to downtown Detroit remains "on schedule."

The victories make the mayor think the kind of Teflon that protects some U.S. presidents applies to him. It does not.

Detroit doesn't do well paralyzed, unsure or catatonic. At the peak of Detroit's comeback, the mayor has put us on the tracks, and the train is coming. Those for him and against him are pushing each other into the center of the tracks. No one relents. The train bears down. No savior is coming.

Leave the mayor alone.

If he feels he can get away with perjury, obstructing justice and making a mockery of Motown, it is only because he knows he can count on Detroiters to let him.

Cut up his race card

Leave the mayor alone.

Don't forget that he's black. What's that? Race is not an excuse to err? I didn't think so, either. But this mayor uses the race card like American Express. I know what a race card looks like. I have one, and I do not waste it. It is for extreme cases of bigotry and hatred, not for when you've been caught with your pants down. When the mayor turned his State of the City address into a pep rally with paid applause and blamed a lynch-mob mentality for his troubles, he went too far.

I wondered where his race card was when he kicked to the curb all the black attorneys who worked so hard to protect him and now may be charged with crimes. They were good enough for a rumored cover-up but not good enough to work on the big case, saving him from prison. He saved that for a white attorney from Illinois. We're taking the mayor's race card. Right here. Right now. Pulling out the scissors and cutting it up.

Leave the mayor alone.

Two weeks ago, sources say, he met with Detroit Renaissance, the powerful business group whose members have helped rebuild Detroit. He went as a man defeated but declared that he wouldn't quit. It is easier for a sitting mayor than a shamed politician to raise legal defense funds. If Detroit's most powerful won't speak out -- yet -- and its children who have spoken out are ignored, then why blame the mayor?

Leave the mayor alone. He will lose his job -- eventually -- and take down others with him. What's left to decide is whether he will be removed or will resign -- and like former Washington Mayor Marion Barry, rise from his own ashes.

If Kilpatrick quits before his trial -- you won't believe this -- Detroit's charter allows him to run again. Next year. As a matter of fact, any convicted felon could be mayor of Detroit -- unless he or she is convicted while in office. So the mayor better act quickly. If he quits now, he can be back in his office before an interim mayor can even get settled.

Remember, Detroit, this is America. We are innocent until proven guilty -- even when crimes seem evident. If Detroit is paralyzed and can do no better than sit and watch this numbing tragedy, then sit there. Leave the mayor alone -- and to the courts where he will be punished by the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

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E-mails show mayor's side feared leak of deal

nobody@vox.com(Xtine) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 10:47:14 -0700

Cough up missing document, judge orders Kilpatrick
BY JIM SCHAEFER and JOE SWICKARD
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
April 26, 2008

E-mails released Friday in a Free Press lawsuit against the City of Detroit show that Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's city-paid attorney fretted about the release of a police whistle-blower settlement because of the "potential adverse impact" if the media got ahold of it.

Also Friday in Wayne County Circuit Court, a judge said he wanted Kilpatrick to personally produce a missing legal document that triggered the $8.4-million deal, which kept the mayor's salacious text messages secret.

In one e-mail sent last fall, Samuel McCargo, a private lawyer paid by the city to represent Kilpatrick in the police lawsuits, wrote that certain terms of the deal were supposed to have been included in a separate, confidential letter. But Mike Stefani, the lawyer for three cops who sued Kilpatrick, had included the terms in the settlement document itself.

"I will leave it to Val's judgment as to the potential adverse impact such language might have given the potential broad base of public and media disclosure this document is likely to receive," McCargo wrote in an apparent reference to city lawyer Valerie Colbert-Osamuede.

The Oct. 29 e-mail appeared to draw Colbert-Osamuede ever deeper into the secret deal to pay Stefani and his clients $8.4 million to hush up about the text messages.

In response to McCargo's e-mail concerns, Colbert-Osamuede wrote of the proposed language, "I need to quickly run this past John," apparently referring to her boss, city Corporation Counsel John Johnson Jr.
All the mayor's lawyers

Johnson, Colbert-Osamuede and McCargo are among a dozen or so lawyers with connections to the case under investigation by the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission.

The Free Press exposed the cover-up in January with the publication of the messages and a subsequent court battle to unseal the secret settlement papers, which the mayor's legal team insisted did not exist.

Kilpatrick and his former top aide, Christine Beatty, are facing perjury and other felony charges after the Free Press revealed texts showing they lied at last year's whistle-blower trial about their sexual relationship and gave misleading testimony about the firing of one cop, Gary Brown.

Earlier this year, Colbert-Osamuede told Judge Robert Colombo Jr. she knew nothing of secret terms in the deal, before recently conceding that she was familiar with the deal.

The newspaper had asked Colombo to release her e-mails and those of other attorneys involved in the settlement negotiations. Colombo agreed they were public records.
Who has Stefani's motion?

The judge said Friday he also wants Kilpatrick to produce an elusive document from the whistle-blower trial that set off the scandal.

"So if anyone knows where it is, the right thing to do is to turn it over to me," Colombo said.

The last known sighting of the document, a legal motion penned by Stefani, was Oct. 19, when McCargo delivered it to Kilpatrick's home, the Manoogian Mansion, according to a letter McCargo gave the judge. Another copy was to have been placed in a safe-deposit box with the text messages.

The document is Stefani's motion for attorney's fees in the whistle-blower case. It contained excerpts of the explosive text messages. The mayor and his lawyers agreed to settle the police cases hours after learning, through the court motion, that Stefani had gotten his hands on the texts.

The judge said he wants the document or the mayor's explanation of what happened to it.

James Thomas, Kilpatrick's criminal lawyer, argued Friday the mayor should not have to respond because it may imperil his Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination in his criminal case.

Colombo set a May 8 hearing on the issue.

Larry Dubin, a law professor at the University of Detroit Mercy, said the Fifth Amendment generally deals with a defendant's statements rather than documents or other evidence.

"I just don't think the mayor could claim the right in connection with the motion itself," Dubin said.

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Motown Mayoral Mayhem

nobody@vox.com(Xtine) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:56:03 -0700

Detroit's Scandal Is About More Than Sex

By SHIKHA DALMIA
April 26, 2008; Wall Street Journal

Detroit

They are calling it "PagerGate." It's a sex scandal involving Detroit's Democratic Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. It broke in January and, as details dribble out, residents are falling into a depression as deep as the one afflicting their economy.

Although there is widespread disgust at Mr. Kilpatrick, there is also growing regret that the departure of this flamboyant, 37-year-old two-term mayor will end his nascent economic reforms. Actually, Motown isn't so lucky.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his chief of staff Christine Beatty, May 2007.

The hard fact is that Mr. Kilpatrick was a false prophet under whom the city wasn't going to come back – and not just because of his vices, but his virtues as well.

Mr. Kilpatrick has been dogged by scandals ever since he sauntered into office – sporting a diamond earring and "mayor" embroidered on his French-cuffs – on January 2002. He habitually used city funds like his personal bank – running up $200,000 in spa treatments and champagne, for example, early in his term. The mayor reimbursed the city for about $9,000 after the scandal broke, claiming that the rest of the charges reflected legitimate city business. The city at the time was cutting police officers, and even auditors, to plug a $250 million budget deficit.

But the latest, most spectacular scandal had its genesis at a party that supposedly took place in the mayoral mansion to celebrate Mr. Kilpatrick's election, shortly after he took office. The allegation is that Mr. Kilpatrick's wife unexpectedly stopped by the party – and took a bat to a stripper whom she found consorting with him.

The state's Republican attorney general found no evidence that the party took place. The stripper is no longer available for questioning; a few months after the alleged party she was gunned down. But two Detroit police officers launched their own probe to investigate rumors of the party, as well as other complaints that the mayor's security staff was helping arrange extramarital liaisons, including one with his then chief of staff, Christine Beatty.

The mayor summarily fired the officers, who then filed a whistleblower lawsuit. Testifying under oath during trial, Mr. Kilpatrick and Ms. Beatty categorically denied having an affair, much less firing the police officers because of it. Nonetheless, the jury returned a $6.5 million verdict for the officers.

Outraged, Mr. Kilpatrick accused the predominantly white jury of racism, and vowed to appeal. But a month later, he abruptly settled for $2 million more than the jury award.

It now seems that the reason for the about-face was that the plaintiffs confronted him with text-messages that he and Ms. Beatty had exchanged on city-issued pagers. The messages discussed their sexual encounters and the firings. In exchange for the payment, the plaintiffs signed an agreement not to reveal the existence of the messages.

The City Council, oblivious to the backroom deal, rubber-stamped the settlement. But the Detroit Free Press, not wanting to let it go so easily, mounted its own investigation – and uncovered the incriminating messages.

Now Mr. Kilpatrick is being forced to defend himself against allegations that he first committed perjury to cover up the firings, and then tried to cover up the perjury by purchasing a secret deal through taxpayer funds.

The county prosecutor – an African-American woman – has filed eight criminal charges against the mayor, each of which carries a 15-year jail sentence. But Mr. Kilpatrick responded by declaring that he is on "assignment from God," and has hired a team of high-priced lawyers – paid for, in part, by the city – to defend him.

Although few believe that Mr. Kilpatrick can – or should – hang on until the end of his term next year, there is also much worry that, without him, his economic reforms will wither. That, actually, wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Mr. Kilpatrick's entire economic revival plan rests on attracting high-profile, flashy projects. True, he has been more successful than his predecessors because of his wily ability to cut deals and push them through a dysfunctional city bureaucracy. For instance, he managed to land the contract to host the 2006 Super Bowl and convince General Motors, Compuware and, more recently, Quicken Loans Inc. to relocate their offices downtown. He also succeeded in creating three casinos, and in convincing developers to restore old, historic hotels such as the Book-Cadillac to serve the casino patrons.

Mr. Kilpatrick lured each of these projects with targeted tax breaks and subsidies. Quicken alone received $200 million. But corporate giveaways are not the stuff of an economic revival. "If anything, they put small businesses, the true drivers of the economic engine, at a competitive disadvantage," observes David Littmann, senior economist at the Mackinac Public Policy Center. As a result, he says, "Many of them either shut down or just don't open."

Indeed, every indicator of economic and civic renewal has trended in the wrong direction since Mr. Kilpatrick became mayor. There is not a single year in which Detroit's unemployment rate – currently at about 15% -- has been lower than in 2001, the year before he took office. Income tax revenues last year were $27 million less than three years ago, a testimony to the city's contracting tax base. Meanwhile, high school graduation rates are an abysmal 25%, and homicide rates an astronomical 47 per 100,000, the highest among comparably sized cities.

The lack of jobs and city services is accelerating the exodus out of Detroit. A recent study by the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments estimated that, if current trends continue, the city's population will shrink to 770,000 in seven years, from about 900,000 when Mr. Kilpatrick became mayor.

Breaking the vicious cycle of shrinking population, declining revenues and worsening city services requires not a young prince selectively handing out privileges to a chosen few. It requires an overall climate fit for business. To do that, Detroit needs to simplify its Byzantine regulations (home-businesses such as day care centers or hair-braiding salons require 70 building or equipment permits to get started), slash taxes (Detroit is the fourth highest-taxed city for a family of four making $25,000), tackle crime, and improve public schools.

These are mundane, boring tasks to which a high-roller like Mr. Kilpatrick is singularly unsuited. His departure won't guarantee Detroit's economic revival. But, if he stays, Detroit will have no reason for hope, either.

Ms. Dalmia is a senior analyst at the Reason Foundation.

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