Detroit thread. Post Kwame, Monica, and $1 houses here.

[Savonarola]

I'm loving all these Jeff Daniels ads I'm seeing everywhere trying to get businesses to move to Michigan. I forget, was he Dumb or Dumber? 

While Dumb and Dumber is what he's best known for; after his Hollywood career Daniels moved back to Michigan and started his own theater and company:

http://www.purplerosetheatre.org/

[Savonarola]

Yeah...who is going want to stop at a cruise stop in Detroit?

Since cruise ships no longer stop at Port-au-Prince someone has to fill that niche.

[Neil]

Why would tourists visit Detroit?  The place won't be fit for human habitation for decades.

[derspiess]

Yeah...who is going want to stop at a cruise stop in Detroit?

IIRC, doing slum tours in dirt poor parts of the world is a trendy thing among yuppies.

[Ed Anger]

Why would tourists visit Detroit?  The place won't be fit for human habitation for decades.

Potty break on the way to Windsor.

[Savonarola]

Why would tourists visit Detroit?  The place won't be fit for human habitation for decades.

Potty break on the way to Windsor.

There they can see the Windsor Fine Art Museum; conveniently located in the mall. 

[Savonarola]

Feds request Conyers' records
Prosecutors want travel, expense forms from her term on pension board
Leonard N. Fleming and Paul Egan / The Detroit News
Detroit -- A federal grand jury investigating City Hall corruption is seeking travel records and expenses of City Councilwoman Monica Conyers during her tenure on the city's General Retirement System.

A grand jury subpoena obtained by The Detroit News indicates that federal prosecutors also want the "oath of office taken after her appointment as a member of the board of trustees," any training regarding service, ethics and conflict of interest training on the board, and any ethics, conflicts of interest or disclosure forms filed by Conyers.

Pension fund officials were required to turn in the documents on May 13, but it is unclear if an extension was granted. The subpoena is dated April 30. A spokeswoman for Conyers, who recently left the pension system, referred comment to criminal attorney Steve Fishman.

"I know nothing of this," Fishman said. "I'm learning about it from you."

Federal officials and an attorney for the pension fund declined comment.

The Conyers subpoena is one of a series of grand jury subpoenas served on the General Retirement System and the Detroit Police and Fire Retirement System as part of the City Hall corruption investigation.

The Detroit News reported in April that one of the subpoenas sought documents related to a General Retirement System investment called Avignon Holdings in a residential real estate development near Sarasota, Fla.

Joe Capozzoli, president of CAP Advisors of Northville, which brought that investment to the pension fund, said he understood federal investigators were interested in a trip one of the trustees took to Florida to inspect the investment.

Persons familiar with the investigation said Monica Conyers flew to Florida, accompanied by one of her sons, to inspect the Avignon Holdings investment. Conyers, who until last week was council president, has kept a low public profile at City Hall in recent days and has been absent from several meetings.

The FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office are conducting a wide-ranging investigation of contracting at City Hall that dates to at least 2005. It involves the city pension funds, a consulting business run by ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's father, deals at Cobo Center and a multimillion-dollar city sludge contract, among other areas of inquiry.

Could this be the end of Monica; or will she have lost her records under mysterious circumstances?

[Savonarola]

Media's grim portrait of Detroit
City's image takes a hit with international coverage of Big Three woes, foreclosures, decaying buildings
Louis Aguilar / The Detroit News
Detroit

For months, a stream of reporters and news crews from around the globe have parachuted into the Motor City, roaming the industrial ruins of the old Packard plant and the once-glamorous Michigan Central Depot train station.

They trot alongside homeless people or laid-off autoworkers for a day or two. Toss in a few foreclosed homes and the desperate condition of the Big Three, and the world's picture of Detroit as the symbol of America's humbled economy is complete -- just a couple of years after its image was looking up, as a city on the rebound.

"From Motown to No-Hope town," blared a recent headline in the London Independent. "Requiem for Detroit" declared Rolling Stone. "Detroit: Human Cost of the Downturn," said the Sunday Times of South Africa.

In previous decades, Detroit was the image that came to the world's mind when it thought of racism or crime. Today, it's the face of the global recession. Forbes.com declared Detroit to be America's second "most abandoned city," behind Las Vegas.

Business leaders and boosters are hopeful the critical national and international coverage surrounding the bankruptcy of Chrysler LLC -- General Motors Corp. is trying to avoid filing -- won't further hamstring the city's attempts to lure visitors and businesses.

They offer the same advice today as they did when Detroit grimaced under the camera's glare following the 1967 riots, or during its infamy as America's murder capital: Keep calm, and carry on.

But it's a struggle.

"We've become the icon for everything that's gone wrong in the economy. And that's the story some of them are going to get, no matter what," said Randal Charlton, executive director of TechTown, Wayne State University's research and development center.

A prominent Chinese communist broadcaster recently asked Charlton if he felt threatened, living and working in Detroit. "Never," in the nine years since he founded a successful company in Detroit, Charlton said. His company is one of 70 that fill TechTown, in a refurbished Albert Kahn-designed industrial building.

"He looked absolutely bored," at the answer, Charlton said of the newsman. While the coverage further clouds Detroit's international image, Charlton sees a silver lining among international investors -- if they'll listen.

"When the average home in Europe is $200,000, do you know how enticing it is to say, 'You want affordable housing? We have plenty of it,' " Charlton said.

"Our future lies partly in Chinese, Indian and European manufacturers. These are not people who intimidate easily. You want to know how much an advantage we have by being able to offer, say, a free, empty factory? That's priceless.

"What the world needs to see is we are embracing this crisis," he said. "So let's give it to them."

Michigan Economic Growth Corp. officials respond to the negative press by pointing to an Economist magazine report that rated Michigan among the top five states for attracting international investments.

"We remain very aggressive in courting international investment," said Bridget Beckman, spokeswoman for the state agency that promotes business growth and investment.

John Carroll, whose assignment is to attract foreign investors to the region on behalf of the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, says the tone of negotiations hasn't changed from the recent spate of bad press.

"We have much to offer: an international border, an educated work force thanks to the global companies we've had based here for decades," said Carroll, executive director of the Detroit Regional Economic Partnership.

"It's more that the global downturn has changed everything. This press doesn't help. What I fear is the conversations and opportunities I never get to have with companies because the negative press has scared them away," he said.

Several out-of-town reporters who have been to Detroit recently said it's not their intention to beat up on the city. Even Dutch reporters who were carjacked at the former Brewster housing project aren't down on Motown.

"But you have to understand the place looks so extreme," said Jacqueline Maris, radio correspondent for the Netherlands' VPRO, which did a three-part series on the city.

"All those empty buildings -- and they were clearly wonderful places -- that is something very uncommon. The fate of the auto companies, these global icons of business, you must understand what an amazing story that is for the world right now."

Maria Pia Mascaro, a New York-based correspondent for the French national daily Liberation, came to Detroit to report on urban farming.

"The media is looking for places that will never be the same after this global recession, and Detroit is a perfect example," Mascaro said.

"You are a city of tremendous innovation, of amazing music and culture. But it also true that you are ground zero when it comes to economic crisis. Don't you realize what an incredible opportunity that can be?

"The world is searching for solutions out of this mess, and Detroit can be one of the answers."

Why does everyone hate us?   

[Malthus]

It's nice to see some boosterism at work. Every cloud has a silver lining:

"When the average home in Europe is $200,000, do you know how enticing it is to say, 'You want affordable housing? We have plenty of it,'" Charlton said.

[Ed Anger]

Several out-of-town reporters who have been to Detroit recently said it's not their intention to beat up on the city.

Yes it is. You got to make the average Andy Capp feel better about himself.

[Savonarola]

The story that just won't die:

5 lawyers in Kilpatrick saga face ethics charges
Violations stem from $8.4-million whistle-blower settlement
By David Ashenfelter, Joe Swickard, M.L. Elrick and Jim Schaefer • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS • May 20,

Five lawyers who engineered a secret $8.4-million lawsuit settlement to conceal the text messages that drove Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick out of office have been charged with professional misconduct.

The lawyers – chief assistant corporation counsel Valerie Colbert-Osamuede; her ex-boss, former city corporation counsel John E. Johnson; city-retained private lawyers Samuel McCargo and Wilson Copeland II, and Mike Stefani, who represented three cops in lawsuits against the city – were charged with misconduct Tuesday by the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission after a 14-month investigation.

The Michigan Attorney Discipline Board, which tries and disciplines lawyers for professional misconduct, released the documents today and set hearings in the case for July 8-14.

Reached this morning, Stefani said he had received the legal papers, but was not yet ready to respond. Among other things, the grievance commission accuses Stefani of committing a criminal misdemeanor, contending that he covered up a felony by agreeing to "conceal irrefutable evidence of Kilpatrick's perjury in return for" the $8.4-million lawsuit settlement for his police clients.

"We just received this and we'll be preparing our response," said defense lawyer Gerald Evelyn, speaking for Johnson.

There was no immediate response from the other lawyers. The five face possible suspension or revocation of their law licenses if they're found to have committed the misconduct.

Krystal Crittendon, the head of the city's law department, said no decision has been made about Colbert-Osamuede's job status, and likely won't be made today. She said Colbert-Osamuede spoke to her last night, but Crittendon has not had a chance to review the charges.

Robert Agacinski, head of the Attorney Grievance Commission, said the charges were the result "in the most part of very good lawyers confusing their duty to the people of Detroit, the City Council and the Office of Mayor with the individual, Kwame Kilpatrick."

The charges mark a chapter in the scandal, but do not close the book, Agacinski said.

"With testimony and discovery there may be more insights to be gained," he said.

Larry Dubin, a University of Detroit Mercy law professor and former chair of the state Attorney Grievance Commission, said the lawyers could be suspended or disbarred if the charges are proven based on a preponderance of the evidence - the standard of proof in attorney misconduct cases.

"The City Council appeared to approve the settlement without being informed by their own lawyers of the basis of that settlement was to cover up the perjury that had been committed by the mayor and his chief of staff," said Dubin, who has been critical of the city lawyers' conduct as the scandal unfolded.

John Brennan, an ethics expert at Cooley Law School in Lansing, said "it's good the profession is acting. It was not enough to get the mayor."

Brennan said the lawyers representing the city "were absolutely critical to what happened," and that they cannot avoid blame by claiming they were only giving advice.

Brennan said the grievance commission's "clear message" in leveling the charges "is that tolerating wrong-doing is just as bad as causing it to happen."

Their cases will be handled by three-lawyer panels appointed by the discipline board.

The charges grew out of a 2007 whistle-blower trial in which former Detroit cops accused Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff, Christine Beatty, of forcing them from their jobs in 2003 after the officers began asking questions about a never-proven wild party at the mayoral Manoogian Mansion and alleged misconduct involving the mayor's security team.

A jury awarded two of the cops $6.5 million in September 2007. Although Kilpatrick vowed to appeal, he abruptly settled the suit and a second one for $8.4 million in October 2007, hours after learning that Stefani had obtained a copy of text messages showing Kilpatrick and Beatty had lied at trial when they denied having an extramarital affair. Stefani planned to make the text messages public in court papers justifying his request for legal fees from the trial.

After the Free Press requested a copy of the settlement under the Freedom of Information Act, the lawyers tore up the original agreement and created two new ones – one secret and the other public – to conceal the existence of the messages. As part of the agreement, Stefani agreed to turn over his copy of the text messages and not publicly disclose their existence.

Detroit's City Council then approved the $8.4-million settlement, without ever being told by the city lawyers about the text messages or the existence of the secret agreement.

A Wayne County judge last year ordered the lawyers to divulge the secret agreement in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by the Free Press.

Here are the details of what the lawyers are accused of:

• Colbert-Osamuede is charged with five counts of professional misconduct, including concealing the secret agreement from the city council; engaging in a conflict of interest after learning that the mayor's interests conflicted with those of the council; lying to a judge about the existence of the messages; obstructing the Free Press in its FOIA lawsuit to obtain the agreement, and lying to the grievance commission about whether she and McCargo ever discussed the newspaper's FOIA suit.

• Johnson is charged with two counts: hiding the secret agreement from the city council and he also is charged with allowing city lawyers to conceal the secret agreement from the Free Press and a Wayne County Circuit Court judge hearing the FOIA case.

• McCargo, Kilpatrick's private lawyer in the whistle-blower case, is charged with covering up Kilpatrick's and Beatty's perjury, hiding evidence and making false statements to the AGC in its investigation. He also is accused of not reporting misconduct by other attorneys.

The alleged cover-up of Kilpatrick's perjury is a criminal misdemeanor, the AGC said. While the commission made the accusation of a crime, it does not have authority to criminally charge lawyers.


• Copeland, a private lawyer whom the law department hired to help represent the city in the whistle-blower suit, is charged with failing to advise the city council about the secret agreement even though he helped draft it.

• Stefani is charged with five counts including instructing Skytel, the city's Mississippi-based text message provider, to send the messages to him rather than the judge who presided over the whistle-blower trial, despite the judge's repeated order that he wanted to see any text messages first before deciding whether they would be released to Stefani. Stefani is also accused of failing to notify the grievance commission about "irrefutable evidence of Kilpatrick's perjury."

The misconduct charges against the lawyers do not recommend any specific disciplinary action.

The grievance commission previously cleared three other lawyers in its probe: city attorney Ellen Ha, who said she was kept in the dark about the agreements; Deputy State Treasurer Valdemar Washington, then a Flint lawyer who was called in to help facilitate a settlement of the whistle-blower suit; and Stefani partner Mike Rivers, who helped represent the cops in the whistle-blower case.

The status of a 9th lawyer who was investigated, William Mitchell III, remains unclear. Mitchell had traveled to SkyTel headquarters at Kilpatrick's behest to find out why the company had released the mayor's text messages to Stefani. After the trip, Mitchell took a folder believed to contain the messages to Kilpatrick and later to a high-profile criminal lawyer in the Washington, D.C., area. Mitchell was not charged in the legal papers released this morning.

Mitchell did not immediately respond to a call and e-mail requesting comment.

Kilpatrick also was investigated but surrendered his law license as part of his plea agreement in the case.

Kilpatrick and Beatty pleaded guilty last year to obstruction of justice for lying in the whistle-blower case and were sentenced to 120 days in prison. Kilpatrick agreed to resign and pay $1-million restitution to the city. Beatty, who resigned in February 2008 after the scandal broke, agreed to pay $100,000 restitution.

Kilpatrick was released from jail in February and took a job with Compuware and lives in Southlake, Texas. Beatty was released in March.

After details of the secret agreement became public, legal experts said some lawyers in the scandal seemed more interested in protecting Kilpatrick's reputation than safeguarding the city's interests and keeping the Detroit City Council informed about the reasons for settling a multimillion-dollar case.

Experts said lawyers involved in the settlement talks were required to notify legal authorities upon learning that Kilpatrick, a lawyer, had lied in court or engaged in other misconduct.

[charliebear]

The story that just won't die...

Doggone it, I still want to know who killed the stipper!

[Caliga]

Doggone it, I still want to know who killed the stipper!

Duh, it was Kwame. 

[Savonarola]

Doggone it, I still want to know who killed the stipper!

Duh, it was Kwame. 

Please  Kwame would never kill anybody.



He'd have one of his minions do it.   

[Caliga]

Please  Kwame would never kill anybody.



He'd have one of his minions do it.   

That's what I meant of course.  He'd have killed her in the sense that Al Capone killed people.