Detroit City Council Weighs Forcing Mayor to Leave Office

CHICAGO - The Detroit City Council could vote as early as today on a measure that would force indicted Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick from office as it continues to debate key budget proposals in order to pass a new budget by the end of the city's fiscal year on June 30.

In a contentious meeting yesterday, the council passed a resolution 5 to 4 asking its attorney to begin drafting a resolution that would allow the council to remove the mayor from office. The council also agreed to vote today on a resolution that would publicly censure the mayor, but allow him to keep his post as he awaits his criminal trial.

The City Council is expected to consider a third measure that would ask Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, to remove the mayor from office.

Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff Christine Beatty face a total of 12 felony charges stemming from testimony in a 2007 police whistleblower's trial. The Wayne County prosecutor's office has accused the pair of lying about the nature of their relationship, their role in the firing of three police officers, and the reasons behind their decision to settle lawsuits for a total of $8.4 million.

The indictments came after the Detroit Free Press in January revealed text messages between Kilpatrick and Beatty that seemed to indicate a romantic relationship as well as a plan to fire police officers they suspected of investigating the mayor. Council members say they were misled in signing off on the $8.4 million settlement as they were not informed of a confidentiality agreement between the mayor and the officers' lawyers to keep the text messages secret.

Also this week the council is expected to vote on a long-planned $75 million proposal to sell Detroit's portion of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, a key piece of Kilpatrick's $3.04 billion fiscal 2009 budget.

"A balanced budget is incalculable for the ratings agencies, and we told them that we would eliminate our carryover deficit in this year," deputy mayor Anthony Adams told the council yesterday as it began debate on the tunnel proposal. "This transaction allows us to do that, and puts us on firm financial footing with a straightforward vanilla budget where revenue and expenses balance out. There's no other city in Michigan, or the state itself, that can say they have balanced their budget in this economic environment."

Under the current plan, Detroit would sell its stake in the tunnel for $75 million to a new holding company, the Detroit Tunnel Authority. The authority would consist of seven members appointed by city officials. The new agency would use tunnel revenues to repay a loan for the funds over a yet-to-be-determined period of time.

Echoing past criticism of the plan, the council said the plan's finances remain unclear and that the administration's strategy of selling city-owned assets to generate one-time revenues is short-sighted.

"I would suggest that we not go along with this kind of juggling of the books for this one-time only thing," council member Barbara-Rose Collins warned Adams. "What are we going to do for the next budget, sell [City Hall]?"

"That might be a possibility, because we pay a very high rent," replied Adams.

Adams agreed to return to the council today with a more detailed resolution on the tunnel proposal.

Kilpatrick's current budget proposal is balanced largely through the tunnel sale, and without it the city might not be able to move forward with Kilpatrick's highly touted $330 million economic stimulus plan, according to Adams. "We cannot do stimulus without a balanced budget," he said, pointing out that the economic stimulus plan is financed through the sale of casino-tax backed bonds. "We can't move forward with that unless we do this."

Though city officials disagree over the actual figure of the deficit, council fiscal analyst Irvin Corley Jr. yesterday estimated the current deficit to be $66 million.

 

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