Getting City employees on the same page was task number one. I spent weeks meeting with hundreds of employees from different departments. The message was simple. In 2006, hundreds of national and international media outlets, and hundreds of thousands of visitors would descend on our city, and they would proceed to tell the world what they saw. What they said could create or damage our opportunities. The spectacle was also expected to bring about $500 million to Metro Detroit’s economy. This was bigger than all of us, individually. But collectively, we could determine the course of the city for our families. Let’s pull together and show the world who we really are. I answered their questions and came away from those meetings with firm commitments.
As part of our planning to create a more appealing and visitor-friendly downtown, I and Walt Watkins and his team launched the Gateway Project. The venture’s intent was to beautify the streets that served as the main corridors to the Downtown Detroit area, and later branch out to other streets. Gratiot, Woodward and Michigan Avenues, Jefferson Avenue and Washington Boulevard were all lined up for facelifts. They’d be resurfaced, and each would have a specific beautification plan. It was a major project, and it had a very short timeline. We actually completed this project the previous Summer, before the Major League All-Star Game hit town, by re-engineering underground water lines, lighting, developing a master landscaping plan and creating walkable areas.
This became one of the first major assignments where major City departments—Water and Sewage, Public Works, Safety and Engineering—collaborated successfully with our economic experts. We finished on time and on budget, and Downtown swiftly took on a new visage.
We took this success one step further by redesigning an old railway that had been once used to bring cement, coal and other materials to the old industry on our Riverfront (before the Riverwalk). Today, this corridor is the Dequindre Cut, a beautiful walking and jogging trail that extends from the waterfront to Detroit’s world-famous farmer’s market, the Eastern Market.
These developments were all ready for the press to pick and prick by Super Bowl time. The press are treated like gods during Super Bowl week. And when they are not, the host city and the NFL surely read about it. We got this fact, and understood that the city would need nothing short of a spring cleaning, a complete renovation, and some potpourri to pull this off. Every Super Bowl host city puts together a Host Committee to better enhance the visitor experience. The committee spends years scouting Super Bowls in preceding host towns, and then coordinates activities with the NFL, as well as essential government services. The NFL’s Special Events team does an amazing job producing these events. They’re also responsible for the league playoffs, and the NFL Pro-Bowl.
The Chairman of Ford Motor Company and owner of the Detroit Lions, Bill Ford, Jr., asked billionaire businessman and racing legend Roger Penske to chair the Detroit host committee. This turned out, I believe, to be one of the best decisions Bill Ford ever made. Roger is an incredible leader with uncanny focus and consistency. He could oversee and diagram an overall logistics plan for Super Bowl transportation, and in the next moment, walk to the site and share stories and laughs with the bus drivers. All the while, he never lost sight of the ultimate goal. He was sharp, quick-witted, patient, charismatic and stern. Such qualities helped him build his empire, multibillion dollar businesses whose services ranged from auto supply to NASCAR racing, and global logistics to trucking. I learned a great deal from him over the four years I spent working with him on the Super Bowl plan.
Roger tapped Susan Sherer, another awesome mind, as executive director of the Host Committee. She’d worked with the Detroit Convention and Visitors Bureau, and had the ability to seemingly get anyone to do anything she wanted. Her infectious laugh and unique voice contrasted with a strong sense of organization and acute business acumen. Susan’s task was Herculean, because she handled business leaders, politicos, community leaders, Democrats and Republicans, urbanites and soccer moms.
I think Detroit’s was the best Host Committee in Super Bowl history, at that point, and yes, I am biased. I have attended about ten Super Bowls. I have gone officially as mayor, and as Super Bowl committeeperson, to five. I’ve been fan and prospector, and I’ve studied, taken notes and supervised activities. No other city put in the work that Detroit did, from official business to quality control. And none had to battle the Detroit stigma.
At one point, in my first term, I pitched the Detroit Renaissance Board, the City’s corporate roundtable, to help raise cash for gap financing for these new projects. Member companies include GM, Ford and Compuware, and they do a great deal of development in Detroit. But somehow, they hadn’t had a collective impact on the city. They’d become more political than business-oriented. But when I pitched them with the same speech I gave the City workforce, they raised over $23 million to help provide financing to close residential and commercial development deals in and around Downtown Detroit. It was the first time they had raised that much money, and their achievement sent the message that everyone was on board for the Super Bowl.
Super Bowl Week progressed wonderfully. The press wrote such unbelievably positive things about Detroit for the entire week that it felt like a miracle. Even The Detroit News and Free Press, papers that have insatiable appetites for circling the wagons and shooting into Detroit, wrote positive stories. I’d never witnessed the level of regional support, kindness and camaraderie that the area received during this week. And I take pride in how organized the City received it. Even God was on our side, because the weather was above fifty degrees all week. The only day it snowed was on game day, a light fall while the game was played indoors!
The sights, sounds, energy and love were something to treasure, especially in a region as fractured as ours. For the first time in quite a while, we felt like we could play big. And we felt a real connection to one another. The event was the sum of its parts, and the greatest unsung heroes were the Detroit City employees. The police, fire and EMS teams, the bus drivers and transportation workers, the mechanics, the Public Works employees who kept the town clean pulled together in a team effort and made a tremendous impact.
The event became a catalyst like no other. After the event, downtown development continued, and neighborhood development picked up. Housing development sprouted, and we removed 65,000 abandoned cars from city streets over a two-year period. We bolstered the annual neighborhood City clean-up, and would see five straight years of 60,000 or more volunteers.
The positive energy in the city was tremendous. I began touting the new movement in Detroit around the country. We were being covered favorably in newspapers from The Los Angeles Times to USA Today. The New York Times ran full-page spreads. The Super Bowl had come to us, and left Detroit sparkling-clean.
I benefited personally when my approval ratings soared. At more than sixty percent by 2007, they were highest of any I’d had, far exceeding even then-Governor Jennifer Granholm’s. The negative press about me simmered during this time, which freed us to focus on City affairs. I revamped my communications team, adding Ceeon Quiett as my communications director. Ceeon brought focus and professionalism to my Communications endeavors, which had been lacking previously. Ceeon had actually started in 2005 but left the next year, following Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans was her hometown, and she felt called to return. I truly respected her for that, and appreciated the communications plan she left. We followed it long after her departure.
chapter 19
Snake Pit
MAYBE WE should have forecasted trouble brewing when, earlier in my first term, the police chief shared a couple of awkward memos with Christine. The first, which was written by Gary Brown, my Internal Affairs director, notified the chief that he was investigating an auto accident that involved a member of the Executive Protection Unit. It was a basic memo, the kind that usually wouldn’t leave a department, so Christine received it with curiosity, but didn’t see why it should make its way to me. A second memo, an anonymous warning abo
ut Brown’s investigation that followed just days later, warranted more concern.
Christine showed it to me, mainly so I could see what the guy I’d instructed to clear up our backlog of more than 500 unsolved, uninvestigated matters of police misconduct per the federal consent decree, was doing with his time. We looked deeper and saw that, a full year after receiving his charge, Brown had solved not one of the crimes in that backlog. I was disappointed to say the least, so I removed Brown from his appointed position. In these cases, removed appointees have the option to return to their original positions, but he surprisingly opted to retire. He then wrote one more memo, a much lengthier one, accusing me of “firing” him for investigating matters involving me and my Executive Protection Unit.
Brown didn’t do the job he had been asked to do, and that’s why I removed him from his duties. The Justice Department was to revisit the backlog he had been assigned to solve during my first term, so I needed results. Instead, he piddled over things that should have been handled at the supervisory level. He then began a sinister political exercise that targeted me. It was like working with J. Edgar Hoover. People think I removed him to cover my own ass, but I did it to get the Detroit Police Department’s butt out of a sling.
I did what any boss would do with Brown. And it was the right decision, because those cases were solved after he was gone. Ralph Godbee, the current chief of police in Detroit, moved over to lead after Brown’s exit. He did an excellent job, and also helped regain the Feds’ confidence in our department.
I’d never encountered the level of treachery that Gary Brown displayed, and to this day, I have no idea what I did to warrant it. He was deceitful, shrewd and prepared. But for what he was planning, he needed a team. So he hired his friend, Michael Stefani, as his lawyer. And with that, they set out to find people who would help them build a case against me and the City of Detroit. Harold Nelthrope became his crony.
Nelthrope was known as a mediocre officer. He had a history of alcohol abuse and psychological issues, had been in drunk driving accidents, and never should have been placed on my Executive Protection team. In my first term, though, I didn’t select the EPU. The unit’s leader, Ron Fleming, introduced them to me. Ron had run Executive Protection for Coleman Young’s administration, so I took his expertise for granted. That was a mistake, because Nelthrope was his friend, and Ron knew of Nelthrope’s history. Still, he gave Nelthrope a cushy job on my team—to watch the Manoogian. So, he spent most of his days at the house, monitoring the cameras and ensuring that the people working in the home during that first year—2002—moved in and out smoothly.
That was when Carlita and a local designer, Roxanne Taylor, were renovating the official residence. The traffic in the house at that time consisted of painters, craftsman and other construction workers. As I mentioned earlier in this book, because Carlita wanted the new look at the Manoogian to be a surprise for me and the boys, she ordered us to stay away, which we did until it was completed.
Carlita and Nelthrope communicated a lot and became friendly. Our children even participated in activities with his kids. But he developed a problem with two other EPU officers, Greg Jones and Mike Martin. They disliked Nelthrope. Why, I’m not sure. But Nelthrope told Carlita one day that he was leaving the unit. We were a little sad, but we shook his hand and wished him well. At that time, the EPU had high turnover for reasons outside the Mayor’s office, so I made it a point to never get involved with personal matters. As long as my wife and children were safe, I was good.
Nelthrope and I remained casual acquaintances, and still saw each other at the boys’ events. Months after Nelthrope’s departure, I learned that Brown had interviewed him about an alleged car accident involving one of the EPU officers. He also asked him about overtime abuse and, of course, the party rumor. It surprised me that Brown used Nelthrope as his main source of information. It shocked me further when, checking the interview dates, I realized that one took place just days before Nelthrope and I marched together in the Rosedale Park parade, with our children! He had smiled and behaved normally that day, but had already begun conspiring with Brown.
In his statement, Nelthrope said he went to work one morning and saw cups and trash on the floor that indicated a party had taken place. I was speechless. He never specified a day, or even a month, but said it was “probably the fall of 2002,” smack in the middle of Carlita’s renovation project. She was floored. When the media reported on his statement, some City contractors who were hired to clean the Manoogian a few times a week told Carlita that, on several occasions, they’d seen him in my private clothes closet, upstairs, in our living quarters. They said he was going through my drawers and “looking around.” They thought he had permission, because he was a police officer. I can’t overstate the importance of trust between a principal and his protector. Men in Nelthrope’s position are privy to a family’s most private moments, and your life is in their hands. They have to be trustworthy. Hearing about this pissed me off and made Carlita very uncomfortable. Hell, I was gone for long hours many days, and God knows what this man was doing around my family. And who else was involved? One thing was certain—he was playing for Brown and Stefani’s team.
Stefani spent a few years building his case against the City. He deposed me, Christine, and other members of my administration about Brown’s allegation. He also pulled a trick. Walt Harris, a former EPU member, had filed his own lawsuit, claiming that I abused time by having him drive me around town to meet and have sex with women. One tryst happened, he said, in the back room of a barbershop, while other people were present. Another involved me meeting a young lady at a downtown apartment building who came out to meet me wearing a full-length mink coat with nothing on under it. His stories were sexy and descriptive, but why was he the only apparent witness to these kinds of supposed activities?
Stefani used Harris’s suit to spice up his, which had grown stale after the Attorney General’s expensive investigation turned up nothing, and the car accidents failed to interest anyone. Stefani deposed Harris with a court reporter present and no opposing counsel, and then handed the document to the Detroit Free Press who, moving forward, developed a relationship with him and reported whatever he gave them with factual overtones. It gave Stefani’s pursuit new appeal.
Harris did say one thing that troubled me. He said Christine and I communicated on our two-way pagers “all the time.” It was a random statement, but it marked the first time our text messages were discussed. To me, it stuck out like a sore thumb. And it would change the complexion of their case and the way it was reported, because the public fodder would slowly switch from wrongful termination to sex, affairs and cover-ups. There was never a mention of this stuff in their pleadings, but to this day, people in Detroit believe the case was about sex. By the time he deposed my staff and me, Brown’s probes evolved from termination talk to include the affairs, the party and Harris’s sexual chauffeur tales.
When Stefani took his act to the Wayne County Courthouse for the pre-trial hearing, I found him to be remarkably unorganized. But I was also wary that he had my image, and Detroit’s century-old history of polarizing race relations, on his side. He could have litigated in Bermuda shorts and would still have a chance to win.
Judge William Callahan presided, and Stefani made an early motion to subpoena Christine’s text messages from the Skytel Corporation to use as evidence. Callahan ruled that he’d subpoena the messages, and hold them in his chambers. He did, and later he ruled that they could not be used.
The trial officially began in August 2007. While the City approached the suit like any other—cities get sued all the time—the TV networks pre-empted programming and ran it live. We felt the City had a very good case. Our legal team, which included Sam McCargo, Wilson Copeland and Valerie Colbert-Osamuede, felt it would be hard to prove that I had abused anything. First, security had to be with me wherever I went. If anyone’s time was abused, it was mine.
Daytime television was pre-empted
for the duration of the proceedings. My testimony was highly anticipated. That morning, I wore traditional corporate attire. Dark suit. White shirt. Red tie.
I was comfortable and confident taking the stand, but I was not comfortable with the jury, which was made up of eleven whites and one black woman, all non-Detroiters. That was ominous, because publicity around the suit carried a me vs. them kind of tone. It felt like the jury was judging not just the facts, but me.
Stefani examined Christine first, and asked her a battery of questions about the affair, and the text messages. We were surprised that he brought them up, despite Callahan’s ruling. But he did, and we offered no objections. I was not prepared to divulge my personal secret to the public, and I had very little time to think about how I would answer if he took me through a similar line of questioning. He was within his rights to ask about it, and we should have anticipated the weasel to come out of him. At least, our attorneys should have. In the movies, our attorneys would have jumped up and objected before I got a chance to answer the question, and they probably should have.
Stefani had gone around rules, orders and the law since 2004. He was a street fighter, and our lawyers were erudite and appropriate. They ran up against a guy who’d do anything to win. When he examined me and asked the same question, there was again no objection, and I answered quickly and stoically, hoping I wouldn’t regret what I’d done. I denied the affair, and lied on the witness stand.
He continued, probing social meetings between us, intimate messages; text messages again, conversations about the alleged party, and nude dancers. He even asked if she ever told me that she wanted to leave her husband. The questions were so specific, I could tell that he’d probably seen the texts. Judge Callahan was supposedly the only one who had them. And, per his order, they were sealed and would not be used. I was concerned.
Surrendered: The Rise, Fall & Revolution of Kwame Kilpatrick Page 17