SUSAN TUSADFP
Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick made public appearances Tuesday as the City Council voted. He told reporters that he could still work with the council. "I don't blame anybody on council," he said. "The incredible scrutiny and overwhelming pressure of the media ... it's probably tough for anybody there."
The Detroit City Council delivered an extraordinary rebuke Tuesday to embattled Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, demanding that he resign in the wake of the text message scandal.
Kilpatrick, who held several public events during the day, repeated his promise not to quit and dismissed the 7-1 vote as meaningless because it is nonbinding.
But council members and analysts called it a significant blow to Kilpatrick as the mayor awaits the results of a criminal investigation, which are expected to be released next week.
"I think it sends a strong legislative message that we have no confidence in this mayor," said Councilman Kwame Kenyatta, who sponsored the resignation resolution.
"I think it was difficult. I think it was painful for all of us. To call for a sitting mayor to resign is not an easy thing. However, I think it was necessary."
The council, anticipating the mayor will not resign, will continue with its investigation. It plans to call Kilpatrick, his former chief of staff Christine Beatty and lawyers for the city to testify in April. The city's auditor general is examining mayoral spending.
Kilpatrick downplayed the resolution Tuesday afternoon after a gathering at the Wayne County Community College District campus on Detroit's east side. Earlier in the day, he met with political supporters, business leaders and pastors.
"My reaction is, OK, now since it's over, it has no effect, it's not binding, let's get back to work," he told reporters. "I don't blame anybody on council. The incredible scrutiny and overwhelming pressure of the media -- you all are something -- it's probably tough for anybody there."
Kilpatrick said he "absolutely" can still work with the council.
Thirty-three reasons to resign
The resolution cited 33 reasons for Kilpatrick to quit, including that the city is "experiencing the equivalent of a 'constitutional crisis,' as there is a fundamental degradation in the city's leadership."
It also cited his failure to inform the council in October that a settlement of police whistle-blower lawsuits for $8.4 million included secret terms intended to hide damaging text messages between Kilpatrick and Beatty.
The text messages, revealed by the Free Press in January, show the mayor and Beatty lied in court testimony last summer when they denied having a sexual affair and also sought to mislead jurors when they said they did not fire Detroit cop Gary Brown.
Council members were never told of the text messages when the mayor, his lawyers and lawyers for the city asked the council to approve the deal, which has cost taxpayers more than $9 million after legal fees.
Joining Kenyatta in voting for the resolution were council President Ken Cockrel Jr., Sheila Cockrel, Barbara-Rose Collins, Brenda Jones, Alberta Tinsley-Talabi and JoAnn Watson. Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers was the only no vote, and Martha Reeves was absent, citing flu.
An overflow crowd in the council chambers gasped during the roll call vote when the clerk called Tinsley-Talabi, one of Kilpatrick's most stalwart allies, and she paused, looked down and said, "Yes."
Her vote made the margin 3-1 and was the first yes from someone who had resisted calls for the mayor to resign.
That signaled the resolution would pass decisively.
Kilpatrick says he's confident
Kilpatrick, meanwhile, kept a pointedly public schedule.
He appeared confident about Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy's investigation into the scandal.
"There will be a time when all the truth will come out," he told reporters after the appearance at the community college. "And I think at the end of that everybody will be vindicating Kwame Kilpatrick, both legally and politically and everything else."
Kilpatrick met at 7 a.m. with 20 to 25 members of Detroit Renaissance, a group of corporate chief executive officers, to talk about his economic stimulus package and other programs. He did not bring up the text message controversy and was not asked about it.
Among those attending were Doug Rothwell, the group's president; industrialist Dave Bing, who told the mayor last week he was losing credibility in the business community, and Peter Karmanos, chief of Compuware Corp., who attended the mayor's fiery State of the City speech.
One person present at the meeting said he does not expect business leaders to discuss the mayor's future publicly until Worthy announces whether she will charge Kilpatrick with a crime.
Two weeks ago, a 6-3 majority of the City Council decided to delay a vote on the resignation. Collins advocated a delay, but said Tuesday that "a whole lot has changed" since then.
Collins cited a March 9 Free Press report that raised questions about whether the mayor and Beatty improperly helped their friend Bobby Ferguson obtain city construction contracts, as well as statements contained in a federal lawsuit accusing the city of not adequately investigating the killing of a stripper.
"My vote is not an indictment of the mayor, so much as it is a request for the city to get back to normal business," Collins said. "Sometimes the problem becomes more important than the man."
Tinsley-Talabi declined to speak with reporters, citing a family emergency.
Conyers casts dissenting vote
Kilpatrick's lone defender was Conyers, who accused the council of rushing to judgment and hypocrisy for not previously demanding the resignations of former council members Alonzo Bates and Kay Everett on corruption charges. They were charged by the federal government, Everett in 2004, Bates in 2005.
"The precedent is clear," Conyers said at the meeting. "And the precedent you have set in these matters reflects one of the characteristics that makes me proud to be a Detroiter. That characteristic is our loyalty to each other in times of crisis."
But Ken Cockrel said the circumstances are different when a mayor faces legal scrutiny. If a council member is charged, eight other members can pick up the slack. The mayor, Cockrel said, is tantamount to a chief executive and, if crippled by legal woes, will be hard-pressed to run the city.
A last-minute change to Kenyatta's resolution removed language calling for the council's independent attorney, Bill Goodman, to "explore the proceedings by which the mayor may be removed from office" if Kilpatrick refuses to leave.
That language was widely viewed as a council pledge to ask Gov. Jennifer Granholm to remove Kilpatrick as mayor.
Liz Boyd, Granholm's spokeswoman, said Tuesday that such talk was premature.
"The governor has said there is a legal process that needs to play out," Boyd said.
Kenyatta said it remains an option after the council completes its investigation, but Ken Cockrel, who would become mayor if Kilpatrick left office, said Granholm should not intervene.
"It's a Detroit issue, ultimately," he said.
'Major blow' to mayor
Eric Foster, a political consultant with Detroit-based Urban Consulting Group, said the vote is a "major blow" to Kilpatrick, but that the council will have to follow through by taking a tough line on working with the mayor.
"What they said today as a legislative body is, 'We have no confidence in you, we do not believe in you and we're not willing to work with you on initiatives anymore,' " he said.
The council's resolution is significant even if it is not binding, said former Warren Mayor Mark Steenbergh, who headed a similar system in which the mayor has a strong role in government.
"The relationship between the council and mayor is at this point pretty well shot," he said. "To have a strained relationship with the people that control the money is very serious. Especially if he's charged, the budget process is going to be very crazy, I would think."
Public comment was more supportive of Kilpatrick at Tuesday's meeting than it was two weeks earlier.
"I'm not down on the suburbs, but they are not the city of Detroit," east side resident Lorenzo Houston, 57, said of regional criticism of the mayor. "I think the people that elected him should be the people to determine what happens with the mayor for the most part."
But Valerie Burris, 48, who lives on the northwest side, said the council has every right to demand the mayor quit.
"The mayor has disgraced this city," she said. "He has lied to this council. I don't want a mayor who lies to his people."
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