A Necessary Waste of Resources

Today we in the grand old city of Detroit, Michigan, are electing a mayor to fill out the properly beleaguered Kwame Kilpatrick's recent term. Our City Charter mandates it, despite the fact that our regular mayoral election is scheduled for this November. What that means in that in the course of just under 14 months we will have seen the City Council President assume the duties of mayor, consequently run in the race to complete the term, and then almost certainly run again for the same office later this year. All of this rigamarole encompasses primaries to trim the field as well as general elections to pick the eventual winner, spending money that the city doesn't really have all the while.

It may be said that the designers of the Charter could not have forseen such events which caused all this hoop jumping. True, they likely did not see the sordid cavalcade of lies and deceit and arrogance in particular. But they surely should have seen in general: people die, sadly, or move into other positions. Or even resign, as in this sorry case. The Charter ought to be amended somehow to see that this doesn't happen again.

All that said, I will tell you that I am voting for Ken Cockrell this morning. It's more than the fact the he lives a block away from me, though I will not deny that I like that and all it entails. He is a genuinely good guy, having lived in the neighborhood for years now. He is down to earth and unassuming; for quite a while now I can remember him taking his kids trick or treating on Halloween, or offering an easy hello on passing each other in the local stores. His not moving into the mayoral mansion upon his ascension to Detroit's highest office was, I thought, a class act, demonstrating his commitment to the city by staying in the area where he had lived for so long and raised his family.

I have nothing really against Dave Bing, to be fair, though I am skeptical that business acumen translates easily into political prowess. You simply can't order people around or resources moved about in government like you can, well, in the real world of direct personal ownership and responsibility. They are, like or not, two different worlds.

So Mayor Cockrell has my support. I will do my civic duty for my hometown with pride and satisfaction today, for the first time in a decade. It feels good.