Just Because John Conyers Said "I do" Does Not Mean Detroit Should

It took the legal pressure of Jennifer Granholm and Kym Worthy, among others, to finally pry Kwame Kilpatrick's well manicured fingernails from the plush leather of his mayor's office chair in Detroit. With Kilpatrick's ouster the city is left with a full slate of undone business, a city on unsound financial footing, and an electorate and city staff whose collective morale is now placed decidedly in a dumpster somewhere out back of Cobo Hall. They might also need a new office chair.

All of this is going to leave a mark, but the healing has to begin somewhere.

Still, aside from Kwame himself, it is difficult to blame anyone else for this mess other than the voters who should have had a pretty clear vision of who they were voting for, if not prior to Kirkpatrick's first term, at least prior his second.

Yet, a city electorate weaned on victimhood and lackluster government services chose to reelect the hip-hop mayor despite a well marked path of corruption and abuses that were called to the attention of voters well before 2006. As Kwame's mother, US Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick said prior to that infamous election, "Don't let nobody talk about y'all's boy." It was a blatant us versus them moment, one that should now serve as notice that it is sometimes the voter's duty to pick sides once in a while, even early in a political fight.

The same sort of scenario is shaping up in the Detroit City Council where the newly promoted Monica Conyers is now the President. Like Kwame, Monica was largely elected to her job because of name recognition, spirited to office by the ill-virtue of being married to long time socialist and perpetual victim John Conyers. Also like Kwame, during a rather short tenure in public office, Monica has left an astonishingly distinct path of bread crumbs--crumbs clearly leading the electorate somewhere that a once great city should not ever want to travel again.

Monica Conyers is in over her head both intellectually and emotionally, the latest incident of which was reported yesterday.

The voters of Detroit stand poised in the next two elections to be able to leave a lasting mark on city politics that could help to build a bridge toward a more optimistic and prosperous future. They can speak loudly and clearly that they are tired of being taken for granted and of being embarrassed on both a state-wide and national scale. Where, exactly, has the last few decades of monolithic voting gotten the citizens of Detroit?

It is time for a change in Motown, top to bottom, with Kwame Kilpatrick being but the first head to roll.

Will the voters make it happen?