Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick Makes Mockery of Detroit

When someone mentions Michigan, the first things that come to mind are Detroit, Motown, automobile factories and, now, a huge controversy caused by Kwame Kilpatrick, the Mayor of Michigan's most populous city, Detroit. Since early March 2008 a series of felony charges that rival the severity of even the Watergate controversy have made Detroit look foolish at a time when Michigan really can't afford any negative press.

Controversy is nothing new to Kilpatrick, who has held wild parties at the mayoral mansion, which resulted in the alleged assault by his wife on a stripper present. Kilpatrick has also been speculated to be involved in the murder of one of the strippers who was at the mansion party and was ready to testify about being there. Another allegation is that Kilpatrick used a police motorcycle for joyriding, although for Kilpatrick using city property or money for his own personal use are nothing new, many of his vacations have been funded by the city budget.

Then we have the whistleblower trial, in which Kilpatrick was successfully sued by former deputy police Chief Gary Brown when he began investigating Kilpatrick. Along with these horrible allegations, Kilpatrick has a record of appointing friends and family to major city positions, many of whom had no qualifications to perform the jobs they were appointed. Kilpatrick even appointed his cousin, Patricia Peoples, to human resource director, so she could hire more of their family without it looking like a mayoral appointment.

Then we come to the most famous of Kilpatrick's controversies, the text message sex scandal. The scandal revolves around literally thousands of messages between Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty his former chief of staff. The messages were sent on the SkyTel pagers issued to them by the city of Detroit. The attorney's representing the city have attempted to keep the messages private, but it was ruled that since the messages were sent on city time with city equipment that they would be able to be used in a court of law. The texts not only reveal a relationship of a sexual nature between Kilpatrick and Beatty but also contain messages giving some insight into the whistleblower lawsuit and the Mansion party scandal.

Despite the already great and still mounting evidence against Kilpatrick, he refuses to resign. Many groups in Detroit and Michigan, many former supporters of Kilpatrick, are calling for his resignation. Governor Jennifer Granholm has even begun hearing to remove Kilpatrick from office, which he has so far refused to attend. With so much controversy coming from the most powerful man in Detroit it is no wonder that people have begun to link Detroit with crime and corruption.