It should have been a fairly local news story…however, a mayor from a fairly large metropolitan city in America who is being accused of felony charges of perjury and other assorted charges; throw in some secret behind the scene deal, allegedly made with lawyers regarding the officers who had recordings showing alleged proof of his salacious, sexual text messages between him and his alleged former (female) chief of staff; as well as, a formal legal proceedings (initiated by the City Council and signed into motion by Govenor Granholm) trying to forcibly remove him from office…and you have a national news story worthy of a tabloid newspaper. Still, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is basically saying, Heck No…I won’t Go.
His basic legal argument is that the council doesn’t have legal standing to remove him from office because he says the law states that the only legal grounds a council has to remove him is a felony conviction or for a lack of qualifications.
So, when the council formally asked the Governor to remove Kilpatrick from office and went through the formalities….Mayor Kilpatrick vetoed the Council’s vote requesting his ouster by Governor Granholm. Wow!!! There is some fancy footwork going on.
No, I won’t leave office…because I haven’t been “convicted of a felony” even though i am being charged with felony charges…i haven’t been convicted yet…therefore…i don’t have to leave office (yet).
Can you imagine having to try to work together effectively to run a city as large as Detroit with such opposite agenda’s? Is this fair to the citizen’s of Detroit to have this kind of standoff going on in their city’s governing body? I wonder how long of a process this will take, to get a decision that is definate in whether he will be allowed to stay or forced out of office.
Some of the allegations are downright embarassing. His wife appears to be still standing behind him. After all, if the texts truly represent that he had an ongoing relationship with his female former chief of staff…that is damaging to a marriage and will take some major time and energy to repair (if the people involved are truly repentent for their actions…which doesn’t appear to be the case based on this ongoing legal defiance).
Then you get into the legal stuff and it would seem that his professional hands would be bound so tight that he would not be able to perform his duties as Mayor. Is he in denial about the situation; or, is it just a delaying technique? If he is going to end up removed…who is paying for all of this legal wrangling…are our tax dollars going into this legal battle? Is there such a thing as being sued for political malpractice? If so, this situation seems to invite such a suit. Do you think Mayor Kilpatrick should stay or go?
Write where you are 