Detroit — Let me get this straight.
Mary Sheffield, the Detroit City Council president and frontrunner to be Detroit’s next mayor, gets caught in an October surprise, admitting to Michigan Enjoyer that she cavorted and canoodled with a disreputable contractor who had millions of dollars of business before the council.
Sheffield’s first inclination was to mislead the public about having voted to award contracts to loverboy.
A simple Google search proved this wasn’t true.
When caught, Sheffield’s camp shifted, claiming that it was okay under the city’s ethics rules to mix city business and personal pleasures. Since her contractor Casanova was neither Sheffield’s father, uncle, brother, or cousin, then their extracurricular association was not a conflict of interest as defined in the city’s ethics ordinance.
Then Mike Duggan’s camp chimed in. When asked about an executive order signed back in 2012, which forbids city council members from carrying on with contractors, Duggan’s chief lawyer, Conrad Mallett, explained to the press that there was nothing to see here, since orders signed by a mayor do not apply to a city council as they are separate, co-equal branches of government.
Says who? Which Michigan court decided this? Just because Duggan’s lawyer says so doesn’t make it so.
(Interestingly enough, Mayor Dave Bing signed the 2012 workplace romance policy after two different police chiefs were caught in sex scandals involving subordinates, once involving the same woman. Detroit. What a town.)
A person’s personal business is their own business except when it’s co-mingled with the public’s business. Any plain-thinking person knows this.
If the reaction to Sheffield’s October Surprise is any indication, then she has already been convicted in the court of public opinion.
Charlie LeDuff is a reporter educated in public schools. Follow him on X @Charlieleduff.
