City Council Calls for Resignation of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick

The fallout from Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's text message scandal with Christine Beatty continues. City Council members have called for his resignation and he has vowed not to step down. Some City Council members began moving toward the unprecedented action of removing the mayor from office if he doesn't quit. Ouch, that could be pretty tough and if they succeed, equally embarrassing for Kilpatrick, who has suddenly found God again.

Kilpatrick, in radio interviews and brief sessions with reporters, has insisted that Wednesday's release of court documents his administration long sought to keep secret helped his cause and contained "nothing new." Sure it contains nothing new, but people poring over this information is new and embarrassing. Simply put, all his business will be out in the streets!

Kwame Kilpatrick's responses during an interview

"I'm trying to figure out what document you're talking about," he said when asked whether the documents showed a cover-up in the $8.4-million settlement the mayor reached last year with three cops who filed whistle-blower suits. "A lot of this inaccuracy and misreporting and misstating of the facts is unbelievable to me. ... If anything yesterday, the document helped."

And he later told reporters, "I'll be here for as long as I can be here."

City Council's decision

A City Council committee has approved a resolution calling for the mayor to resign and threatening his removal from office if he does not. Council members Martha Reeves, Brenda Jones and Kwame Kenyatta make up the Internal Operations committee. The resolution, sponsored by Kenyatta, passed on a voice vote.

The city council committee has said that the documents in question show that once Mike Stefani, the attorney for the three cops who filed suits against Kilpatrick and former chief of staff Christine Beatty, confronted Kilpatrick's attorneys with text messages that showed the pair lied under oath last summer, the mayor moved to settle the suits in exchange for the text messages. The amount grew to more than $9 million with attorneys' fees.

According to the Detroit Free Press, the documents further show that Kilpatrick scrapped the original settlement in an apparent attempt to circumvent a Free Press Freedom of Information Act request for the settlement documents. The city then concocted a second agreement that had two parts -- one for public consumption and the second that contained the agreement to conceal the text messages. The City Council never saw an agreement about the text messages when it approved the settlement.

Kilpatrick's Position

"It's been a tremendously emotional process for me," he said. "I haven't cried this much since I was a baby." Kilpatrick said his "life has completely changed in one month," but that he is focused on going to work each day. "We have to get through this period making sure we are focused on doing the work," he said.

Final thoughts.....

My mother always said that if you lay down with dogs, you'll get up with fleas. The same thing holds true for Kilpatrick. Nobody told him to cheat on his wife with his chief of staff. Nobody told them to exchange text messages on government property. I think any fool could figure that out. He must be a narcissist for thinking that everything will be fine and honky-dory. Not if decent, self-respecting people have anything to do with it. Detroit had the highest foreclosure rate in 2007 and many people are losing their jobs, companies are leaving the city and to think that Kwame Kilpatrick could, in essence, cause the city such an exorbitant legal bill is beyond comprehension and he should be asked to step aside.
Just my thoughts.

You be the judge.....